Big congrats to Jason and his POP Kickstarter campaign is fully funded and going strong with 38 days to go but you can still get on board and back it..

Powered in part by Shapeways 3D Printing.... 

We have seen many Kickstarter campaigns powered in varying degrees by Shapeways 3D Printing it is a recipe for success, let us know if you have a campaign and we will help spread the word.. 

Today Michiel Cornelissen is introducing the US/Canadian version of The Wrap, a little accessory that attaches to the USB end of the iPhone charger. It mirrors the charger's prongs, to create a convenient way to store the charger cable.

There is a little story behind how the European, then the US version of the Wrap came into being.

I originally designed The Wrap for the European iPhone charger, simply trying to get rid of an annoyance I'd been experiencing myself. Of course, the European iPhone charger is very different from the one in the US and other countries, so on the web page, I put up a note, saying that if I received 100 e-mails requesting a US/Canadian version of The Wrap, I'd try to design one. I thought that, at most, a trickle of e-mails over a few months would amount to the 100 e-mails.

But then Cult of Mac wrote this: http://www.cultofmac.com/169108/the-wrap-an-unbelievably-beautiful-and-elegant-way-to-manage-your-iphone-charger/... and I had my 100 e-mails within 24 hours. I had to get to work, and through the miracle of Shapeways 3d printing, the first US version was ready 19 days later. (And most of that time was spent waiting for someone to ship a US charger to me.)

I did some tweaks, tested it, got the photography and webpage done, and here we are.

So you love Solidworks (so do we), you love 3D Printing (so do we) you want to talk about how you can make the second happen with the first (so do we), then join us at the Solidworks User Group NYC TONIGHT!!

AXN-RXN Engineering
78 Kingsland Ave

Brooklyn NY 11222

 RSVP via SWUGNYC.ORG

We have updated the Shapeways 3D Printing material page to make it easier to select the right material for your 3D Printing.

You can compare and select 3D Printing materials based on price, detail level, strength and smoothness so if you are new to 3D Printing it can help you find the right material for your needs and/or budget. 

If you have a 3D model ready to 3D Print and you want to choose the right material you can enter the volume, surface area, thinnest walls or model size in bounding box to choose what 3D Printing materials can be used with your model.

This is especially handy if you know your model has very thin walls as it will let you know what materials are possible to reduce the chance of your 3D Print being rejected after upload. 

This is another update as part of our recent refresh of the Shapeways experience. 

By now you have seen we have given the styling a much needed refresh on Shapeways but we have also improved features across the site.  One feature that was a little hidden in the previous layout was the ability to contact a designer.  We have lifted the Contact Designer button to the top left corner of every product page to make it easier for people to communicate with the designers of 3D Printed products on Shapeways. 

3D Printing's legal advocate Michael Weinberg was part of a discussion on This Week in Law on some of the legal issues surrounding 3D Printing. An interesting debate worth a watch/listen with Shapeways getting a mention as online access to high quality 3D Printers.

For more on 3D Printing and IP you must read It Will Be Awesome If They Dont't Screw It Up by Michael Weinberg.. 

The trial for Black Elasto Plastic is coming to an end so you only have just over an hour to get your orders in before the trial ends 6pm EST...

Fablab Amsterdam is offering the opportunity to build your personal 3D printer and learn all there is to know about 3D printing. After an introduction of the Fablab and the basics of 3D printing, you will learn how to set up a model for printing (day 1). In the next three days you will build your own printer, this is a model based on Orca (RepRap Mendel). On the last day (day 5) you will be printing your model(s) and get a hands-on troubleshooting on operating your 3D printer.

Get the details at waag.org

We have seen 3D Printed experiments in variable structures in concrete and the potential it has for creating intelligent structures for architecture.  Netfabb have recently uploaded a really simple, interesting video of the capillary effects of 3D Printed structures.  

There is massive unrealized potential with 3D Printing to make the materials function in much more intelligent ways than they are currently being used.  There are two main factors that contribute to the current underuse of the materials and processes.  

The first is the capacity of the human mind to understand the true potential of a new material. When we are given a new material we often use it in the same way, or as a direct replacement for an existing material. As we did with Bakelite to plastics and now with 3D Printing. As we begin to better understand the materials and processes we start to use them in more sophisticated ways until we make the most of their potential, using them for their unique material properties.

The second is the tools we use to design and fabricate the materials.  From hand tools to power tools and now the 3D modeling tools, we are limited by the forms that the software will allow us to create.  With tools within 3D modeling software like Grasshopper, Netfabb or those being developed and used by Nervous System we are starting to see the very tip of the iceberg of intelligent tools to design for digital fabrication.  

We will start to see 3D printed forms being innovative not just in the external forms as we currently see in the Shapeways galleries but also in their internal structure.  The structure of the materials will start to be optimized for strength, weight, porosity, flexibility, impact, abrasiveness, friction and many more factors through data input, not just manual crunching of CAD.  We have seen it start to happen in the arts with form such as Joris Laarman's Bone Chair and Bridge Table and in medicine with porous ceramic structures used to aid in bone grafts but it will eventually be a standard practice in design to enter requirements to define both material structure and form for digital fabrication.

Hopefully Netfabb's simple video will act as inspiration for us all to start think of digital fabrication in this way. 

As mentioned in previous post, it is Friday, and what better day to watch a slow moving Hermit Crab in a Shapeways 3D Printed Guggenheim Shell?

OK, it's Friday, getting your mind prepared for the weekend, when thoughts wander from work and onto some of the more fun things in life (unless you work at Shapeways where work is fun). Earlier this we we stumbled across a couple of 3D Printing memes on Meme Generator and a few of us at Shapeways could not help but play, for a moment... So if you find yourself easily distracted on a Friday take look at some of the 3D Printing memes and maybe have a little play yourself and please share them with us if you create any...

Most Interesting Man In The World

First world Problems II

Y U NO?

Prepare Yourself 

First world Problems II

Steve Tung has produced a short video featuring Shapeways online 3D Printing service alongside DIY 3D Printing with 3D-Bots and experimental processes such as 3D printing wood with Ronald Rael, Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley.

3D Printing at Maker Faire by Steve Tung from SciCom Slugs on Vimeo.

via on3dprinting