Have you got any cool images to share?

The Pan-NO-Head by BVR which (if I read this correctly) helps to make it possible to do a panoramic print with a digital camera and an 8mm fish eye lens.  

The description includes a series of letters (npp/lpp/osp/GR) that may mean more to 'pano-heads' then it does to me but you can check out the process and the interactive images on the Buffalovr site.

Tinkercad have made some advances in their quest to make 3D printing easy with their latest release of their browser based 3D modeling software.

The latest iteration of the free software includes more complex base geometry, letters, numbers and symbols to make it easier to personalize and 3D print a design.

Minecraft forums' interviewer Sacheverell has posted a video interview on with Eric Haines of MineWays fame. For any Minecraft fans it is a great intro into how and why he has made it easier for you to export your worlds for real with 3D printing. For Shapeways fans it is an inspiring story to see a Shapeways community member be so generous to make a bridge to the Minecraft community, to help let them make amazing stuff with 3D printing.

Eric also give a Shout Out to the MineToys crew, such a gentleman.

Here at Shapeways we can see the popularity of each of the materials we offer for 3D printing via the volume produced but we would love to know what is YOUR personal favorite material and why?

Personally I am falling in love with some of the new materials we have been experimenting such as the Squishy Material and other secret(ish) ones, but what is your favorite and how could we improve it? 

The most empowering aspect of Shapeways for designers is being able to sell your 3D printed products in your Shapeways shop and receive a passive income.  Once you have your Shapeways shop and product pages properly set up, you do not need to do anything else except promote your products and Shapeways does the rest.

We do try and help promote products on our blog, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets as well as on our newsletters, product features and the Shapeways home page. 

For us to help you promote your products we need you to prepare your Shapeways shop and product pages with clear photographs, descriptions and ensure you let us know about them in Feature This or It Arrived.

When we do feature products on the Shapeways home page the products typically see a spike in traffic with a relative sales increase so it is well worth ensuring your products are properly documented. Above you can see an example of a product page typical traffic with a spike once featured.

A 3D printed record for the Fisher-Price record player playing 'Still Alive' from Portal. Made by Fastness, The tune and model were all generated in Processing. Delightful project took 6 months of iteration that can now be purchased from the Fastness Shapeways Shop.

Ok, not as bad as it may first sound.

Aardman Animation used 3D printing in their latest feature length film "The Pirates! Band of Misfits"

“We built about 8,000 mouths,” key animator Ian Whitlock said, explaining how he brought the various characters to life in an unusually short time. “For the Pirate Captain model, we made 257 separate mouths. For someone like Charles Darwin, we probably had about 130 mouths.”

Here we see Aardman embracing the power of the 3D printer to print complexity for free, with traditional production, each separate mouth would have had to be produced from scratch, but with 3D printing the animators could use 3D modeling software to create the mouth, then make minor variations to get a range of facial forms, then 3D print the entire batch.

“When the mouths are printed out, they’re sort of a flesh color. It’s the same technology used to create hearing aides. They have about 14 different skin tones … once it’s done, we sand it and paint it.”

Interestingly they must have used monochromatic 3D printing such as laser sintering instead of full color 3d printing possibly to get higher resolution.  We are bound to see more and more 3D printing used in animation, from the high end Aardman's to the DIY animators doing shorts in their living room.

Via FoxNews 

Huge torrent site the Pirate Bay has just announced a new category Physibles for Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical.

We're always trying to foresee the future a bit here at TPB. One of the things that we really know is that we as a society will always share. Digital communication has made that a lot easier and will continue to do so. And after the internets evolutionized data to go from analog to digital, it's time for the next step.

Today most data is born digitally. It's not about the transition from analog to digital anymore. We don't talk about how to rip anything without losing quality since we make perfect 1 to 1 digital copies of things. Music, movies, books, all come from the digital sphere. But we're physical people and we need objects to touch sometimes as well!

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We'll be able to print food for hungry people. We'll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We'll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one.

We believe that the future of sharing is about physible data. We're thinking of temporarily renaming ourselves to The Product Bay - but we had no graphical artist around to make a logo. In the future, we'll download one.

DLD (Digital - Life - Design) is a global conference network on innovation, digital media,  science and culture which connects business, creative and social leaders, opinion-formers and investors for crossover conversation and inspiration. This year Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen presented 'The Future of Stuff' to the audience in Munich, other speakers include Jack Dorsey of Twitter, John Donahoe of 3Bay, Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post, Yoko Ono of, well Yoko Ono and many more amazing minds. 

You can see the video of Peter's presentation on Livestream following this link but you may need to scroll down as the Livestream wants you to watch the live feed.