We are happy to announce the beginnings of a new Open Source toolkit for 3D printing, called AbFab3D. Shapeways is already the host of a wide set of tools that enable you to create and customize products without the need of 3D software. We call them creators. AbFab3D is designed to help speed the development of these creators and other 3D printing tools. The goal is to make software development of 3D creators easy. We are curious to see what sort of creators people will want to create. Can you make the first creator to fab a million products?

Why are we doing this? Shapeways is looking to accelerate the 3D printing revolution. AbFab3D greatly simplifies the creation of 3D creators and printing tools. These 3D creators (made using AbFab3D) will enable a new class of Makers and Shapers to take the next step on the way to transforming manufacturing. Using an Open Source model allows the community to reuse common code together. Shapeways is releasing this code to kick start the community of editor creators.

Image Creator

As a part of the toolkit, we're releasing a sample creator for you, called the Image Creator. This creator takes a base shape, embosses or engraves an image and then applies a connector. The creator is good at creating custom pendants. By customizing this creator you can easily make it work for Dice, Phone Covers, LightSwitch Covers, Drink Coasters and Trivets. Perhaps you'd like a jewelry box with a custom top? All of these variants are easy to create with the toolkit.

Inspired yet? It's quite easy, grab the toolkit and start creating new editors. Make something cool and then open your own shop at Shapeways.

Future

Here are some items we're working on next for the toolkit:

• Hollow Out - A set of tools for hollowing out a model.
• Remove Unattached - Remove parts of a model that will fall off.
• Automatic Upload to Shapeways - Calls to the Shapeways API to upload models, get price etc.

Come visit the SIGGRAPH 2011 Web3D Tech Talk on the exhibition floor this Wed 5pm - 6pm to see the new toolkit in action (near the Shapeways booth #816)

The name you ask? Let’s say I’m a fan of British Comedy.

The project is hosted here: AbFab3D Site

The Java code is LGPL licensed and hosted at Github

I've recently joined Shapeways and figured now was a good time to introduce myself. I'm Alan Hudson your new 3D Tools Developer.

First, a bit about myself. I'm a long time Open Standards and Open Source developer. I'm the project leader for Xj3D which is used to processes your models. I've also been involved in the creation of the X3D and COLLADA standards. Over the years I've put out over 1 million lines of Open Source code like on Aviatrix3D, and I'm excited that Shapeways wants to continue that trend.

I'm going to head up the development of our 3D toolchain. We'll continue to improve the supported 3D formats and reduce the processing time of the system. In addition I'll be putting out code to enable 3D editor creation. In a future post I'll sketch out my plans for this library. But as a teaser it will include Shapeways API support and some code to help in hollowing out your models.

That's all for now, see you on the forums.