As we brace ourselves in New York City for Sandy/Frankenstorm to hit tonight we will be wrapping our 3D printers in aluminum foil and locking our robots in a small windowless room on high ground.  This does mean that our printers and distribution center in NYC will be closed down on Monday October 28th so there may be a minor delay in some packages in the US and Canada.  We will still be printing and shipping from Eindhoven so there should be no delays in printing or distribution for the rest of the world, and our customer service team will still be able to answer all of your questions.

We will try and keep you informed as things progress via our @shapeways twitter account. 

For all of our friends on the East Coast of the USA, stay safe. 

We are really, really close to signing up our 200,000th Shapeways community member and we know that word of mouth/social networks are the way most people find out about Shapeways 3D Printing in the first place.

We would love for you to help us spread the word so we can connect with our 200,000th Shapeways community member and as an incentive, we will contact the 200,000th member, ask them how they found out about Shapeways, and if you recommended them we will share the 3D printed love right back to you by delivering some special 3D printing to your door.

So this weekend, spread the word far and wide, recommend a friend to Shapeways and we will share the love right back to you.

PS. if the 200,000th person randomly found us, we will contact the 200,001st etc. until we find a social sign up.

Every Product Page on Shapeways has a Favorite button to the right so that you can let designers know just how awesome they are.  The Wishlist Button helps you to keep track of the 3D Printed goodness you want to have and hold.  Clicking either button will send love to the Feed, so everyone can see what 3D Printed products are popular at any one point in time. Let's take a look at the 10 most popular 3D printed designs for the past week in order of popularity from number 10 up to number 1.

10. Death's Head Hawkmoth Skeleton 

The iPhone 5 Design Contest is now over and we are 3D Printing some of our favorites right now (HINT: you may have seen them exposed in the feed) but Apple have just released the specs for the iPad Mini so it is time to start designing for the next range of Apple Fanboy Accessories.

You can download the specifications for the Wifi Version and Cellular Version from the apple site (yes, they are ever so slightly different but you may be able to make a design to fit both).

SO, what shall we do to get you all designing some cool new accessories for the iPad Mini?  

What applications do you see for this device that the iPad is too big for and the iPhone too small?

What is the point of differentiation that Apple is aiming for and can you amplify that difference with your design?

Tag Your designs with Apple, Fanboy and Ipad Mini so we can find your designs and we will find a way to reward your creativity.

Thanks to Core 77 for pointing the way to the specs. 

360vr.nl have posted an interactive 360 panorama of the Shapeways booth at Dutch Design Week 2012 in Eindhoven. Take a look around and see if you can find any of your favorite designs from the Shapeways community.  Name them in the comments for a chance to win a 3D print of one of the items.

We have seen the popularity of the 3D Printed Success Kid meme as it has made it's angry way across the internets but did you ever wonder how it was actually 3D modeled?  

Did he search the world for the child and scan it with Autdoesk's 123D Catch? No.

Did he use Facebook's creepy face recognition software to find multiple views of the child to be stitched together to create a 3D model? No

Did he use Sculptris (FREE), zbrush and a Wacom tablet to 3D model this from scratch? YES...

Check out the video of how Ryan Kittleson 3D modeled the Success Kid .. 

There's one thing that a Shapeways shop owner loves (almost) as much as sales, and that is data. A few weeks ago we introduced an improved 'My Sales' page. Today, we're improving the Sales Overview Download (XLS) and it is full of data. The Sales Overview Download (XLS) is going to allow you to see exactly what models you're selling in which material, when it has shipped, and which country it was shipped to. With this data you will be able to create your own shop analytics which can help you improve the performance of your shop.

We will of course be improving the tools on your Shapeways Shop page to make it much easier for you to have insight into what is selling in your shop so you can optimize for sales.

If you do not already have a Shapeways Shop it is easy to set one up. It is free, and you can start making money from your designs while Shapeways takes care of sales, fabrication, distribution and customer service.  

All you need to do is design and promote your products, we will do the rest...

Launched by Mayor Bloomberg at the Shapeways Factory of the Future, Next Top Makers is New York City's is challenge makers, designers, and engineers to create product prototypes. 

New York's Next Top Makers is a challenge to prototype new designs that have commercial potential. The goal of the challenge is to support design-driven production, and promote a culture of innovation and commercialization within New York City's industrial business, design and engineering communities.

Starting in mid November, makers, designers, engineers and others will be invited to enter prototypes in the challenge. It is anticipated that New York's Next Top Makers will be open for submissions until mid February 2013.

Finalists will be selected by an expert judging panel, and will receive assistance on the path to commercialization during the studio phase. Assistance will include studio space from sponsor NYDesigns, business support, and mentorship from industry experts such as Adafruit Industries, Honeybee Robotics and Shapeways. It is anticipated that the studio phase will run from April to August. Judges will award an additional cash prize to the most promising winner following the studio phase.

LATTICE LAB is a two-day workshop run by our friends at modeLab on the topic of Topological/Subdivision Modeling with Paneling Tools and Weaverbird with 3D Printing in mind.

In a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment, we will cover Fundamental Concepts related to Working with Mesh Geometry, High-Order Topological Smoothing, and Grid-Based Modeling. Drawing inspiration from the patterns found in 3-Dimensional Lattice Structures, we will create geometrical units capable of responding to a range of dynamic contexts. Additionally, we will explore the limits and opportunities of 3D Printing while testing the visual and structural effects of our Lattices.

The two day course will be held in ModeLab's Greenpoint studio workspace on November 10 & 11, 2012. 

The course is open to all experience levels but space is limited so get in quick.

The pricing ranges from $450 to $550 and will include some 3D printing courtesy of Shapeways and coffee courtesy of someone other than Shapeways.

With the launch of our new, smooth 3D printed colors last week at Shapeways we are also offering a 10% discount on our new colors until October 31st.

We are really excited about the increase in quality of surface finish with our new colors and we want you to get your smooth, bright 3D prints into your hands as soon as possible.

Please be sure to enable your models in the new colors if you have not already done so and we LOVE to see photos of the new colors in your product pages of your shops.

Being smooth, colored 3D prints they are so much easier to photograph than white nylon (WSF) 3D prints.  Check out the photography tutorial if you need any pointers. 

We work really hard at Shapeways to get your 3D prints to you as quickly and cheaply as possible with the best possible quality 3D printing available.  Occasionally we run late on some materials due to machine malfunctions, sometimes a parcel get's lost by UPS and we even have old fashioned human error mess things up, but we will always correct our mistakes and continue to try to give you the best possible service.  Anyone who has used digital manufacturing technologies knows it is not always easy, anyone who has tried to do a large run in a school, fab lab or industrial complex knows this makes it even more complex when dealing with multiple machines, file types and level of experience. 

Recently BVR posted a quick message in the forums that made our hearts sing that we wanted to share with you all: 

Today I spent the entire afternoon in my local university's 3d printing lab. They have 2 different 3d printers, 1 is a Zcorp color powder based machine, 1 dimension abs printer, a 5 axis cnc and a cnc router, 2 50W CO2 lasers and a next 3d scanner.
After watching the staff deal with build table cleaning, print head cleaning, part cleaning, wrong type of material in the lasers, incorrect part fixturing in the cnc's, memory addressing errors on the 3d scanner, incorrect file types, corrupt files, files missing textures, non-mani files and a slew of other issues.
All on a much much smaller scale than Shapeways...the staff of Shapeways should be commended for getting the volume of work done that they do!!!
Anyone who has a hard time understanding why your model might not be quite perfect should go see a 3d print house and just stand around and watch what goes on!
I have a much better understanding of the complexities involved with this industry, going in the shop to machine my parts is a cakewalk by comparison.
I have been told I can come in anytime and print my own items, guess what, I will still send my files to Shapeways. It is far easier to just send my files in and get my finished items shipped right to me!
Thanks again Shapeways for making this all so easy!

Thank you BVR, we will continue to work really hard to make 3D printing easy for you, your schools, everyone...  

We see a lot of people in the forums who want to use Shapeways 3D Printing to make molds so they can make batch runs of products in different materials.  We have posted previously on the Shapeways blog how others have 3D Printed molds for soap and Pookas who made a stamp using 3D Printing and Suguru.

There is also a really helpful tutorial on Instructables by Rachel that shows how to 3D model and 3D print a mold. For her molds, Rachel uses an Objet machine with their ABS like material which gives a hard, smooth and relatively heat resistant finish as she is using an exothermic reaction to cure her finished parts (meaning the material produces heat when curing).  At Shapeways we use an Objet machine for our Acrylic Detail Materials but it does not have exactly the same material properties with a heat resistance down to 48C/118F so you may be better off using polished Nylon (PWSF) or Alumide which has a heat resistance of 80C/176F, 172C/342F respectively.

Take a look at the instructable in it's entirety and be sure to let us know of your learnings, success or failures.