The Shapeways Blog: 3D Printing News & Innovation
Entries from September 2012
Tuesday, September 11. 2012
Shop Owner Payments Changing
With the majority of 2012 behind us, we're excited to announce one of the first of many benefits of our new site architecture, which are improvements to shop owner payments. We've created a simpler payment method, designed to make sure shop owners get paid faster for your sales and the details are easier to understand. Payments to shop owners still go out on the 15th of each month, along with a report of all your sales.
What is changing:
Your markup is ready for payment to you as soon as items that you've sold are shipped. That means we are getting rid of the 30 day freeze period and paying you faster! For example, if your item ships on the 14th you will get paid the markup for that item the very next day on the 15th. If your item ships on the 16th, you will be paid the following month on the 15th. Please be aware that until you earn more than US$30 in markups, no payment will be made.
For this month only, we will pay EVERYONE, regardless of whether you met the $30 minimum, in order to clear the books and start fresh.
For those of you wondering about the details, we have compiled a Shop Owner Payment FAQ with specific scenarios and examples. Please feel free to share any thoughts and questions there! Ultimately, we hope that many of you will be able to run your business on Shapeways, and this is a step to making that seamless.
Monday, September 10. 2012
Infinite Possibilities: Over 6 Billion 3D Printed Product Variations in the Shapeways Marketplace
3D Printing can help you make anything you can imagine. But what if you don't know how to design? Or what if you don't know where to start?
With the Shapeways marketplace, people all over the world can get a little bit closer to getting exactly what they want. To help put this into perspective, here's some data that blew our minds: the Shapeways marketplace of community designed 3D printed products contains over SIX BILLION product variations.
Considering the number of publicly available products and accounting for the material and customization options readily available, that gets us a little closer to infinite possibility. This is nearly one unique product option for every person on the planet.
The Engaging Brand Podcast Looks at Emerging Technology and Emerging Markets
Anna Farmery's The Engaging Brand featured Shapeways in it's recent podcast Emerging Technology and Emerging Markets, looking at the business potential of online 3D Printing, mass customization and on demand manufacturing. Listen to Anna and Duann Scott (that's me) discuss how 3D Printing enables people to make anything they want, sell their designs and revolutionize the business of design.
Shapeways shop owners are already realizing this reality where they can sell their designs on demand with no investment, in inventory, receiving a passive income from their designs. If you are designer you can open a Shapeways Shop and start selling your 3D Printed designs.
Take a listen as the caffeine slowly kicks in and the discussion covers Shapeways 3D Printing, innovation and business.
Thanks to Anna for inviting us to talk, it was a pleasure.
Friday, September 7. 2012
Beautiful Stills from the Latest Shapeways Video
By now you may have seen the latest video we have released, Shapeways 3D Printing & the Culture of Creativity showcasing a tiny fraction of the Shapeways community. We have uploaded a series of stills from the movie to Flickr showing some of the people and products featured in the video.
Here are just a few.
Read More »
Thursday, September 6. 2012
SolidWorks Tutorial: Creating a 3D Model Using Sketch Pictures (VIDEO)
From time to time, you'll likely come across an image of something you want to create a 3D model from. With SolidWorks, you can use the sketch picture tool to import an image to build from. This Kebo bottle opener by Rush Product Design Studio makes for a great example, and we'll use it in this weeks tutorial from SolidWize.
By bringing the picture into a sketch, you can quickly reproduce the desired geometry inside of SolidWorks using just a few lines, arcs, and the fully define sketch tool.
Watch the full tutorial below. If you right click and save the picture of the Kebo, you'll be able to follow along. You can also download the completed model from the Solidwize Shapeways page.
Kebo Bottle Opener Upload 2 from Rohit Mitra on Vimeo.
Next week's video will cover using Simulation Xpress to validate and optimize your design for a Shapeways Stainless print.
About the author: Rohit Mitra is the founder of SolidWize.com, a membership based online training system for SolidWorks users.
UPDATE: Solidwize is holding a webinar on creating beautiful renders using Photoview 360 next Wednesday, September 12th. Check out http://solidwize.com/webinars for more information.
Wednesday, September 5. 2012
Tuesday, September 4. 2012
3D Printing Faster Than Ever? Porsche 911 (993) Sun Visor clip with GoPro mount
This is a 3D Printed right-hand side sun visor clip for the Porsche 911 (993) with an integrated GoPro camera mount. It replaces the OEM sun visor clip and is a direct 'bolt on'. The camera sits next to the rear-view mirror, just below the sun visor. The sun visor is still usable even with the camera attached. NOTE: You may need to file down the groove that receives the actual sun visor clip a little bit. The tolerance is intentionally close to ensure a tight fit.
Watch the video of it in action...
3D Printed Swiss Army Knife Sides
So, you have the knife that does everything, cuts things, corkscrew, fish scaler, toothpick, that weird thing that you are not sure exactly what it does but they all look kinda the same, red.
3D Printing comes to the rescue once again with the Swiss Army Knife Side Scale to customize your trusty multi-tool designed by Electronic Nonsense.
