Zoybar is an open R&D Lab for academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers to easily create music instruments and applications. It's an 'Open Hardware' platform that offers production (CAD) files for instrument parts, and you can order certain key elements on their website as well (read more about Zoybar).

We're working with Zoybar and Blenderart Magazine (the leading Blender PDF magazine) on an exciting new contest: Design original hardware features that can be incorporated with the Zoybar instruments and that can be 3D printed with Shapeways.

A platform for Open Hardware, working together with Open Software and an Open Production platform - how cool is that? Read on for contest details.

We just released the 'Multiple Shell Merge' feature. It was announced on our blog earlier and it should save you some money. It took some time to iron out the last wrinkles, but we're happy with the results now. There's just one catch: it doesn't work for color (i.e.: VRML2) models yet, but we're working on that.

Two other interesting features after the link!

In just a few days time, from july 27th-29th, SIGGRAPH 2010 will break loose in Los Angeles.

SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques, in full) is the world's largest conference on computer graphics and 3d technology, and it's THE place to be if you're interested in 3D. Cities that host SIGGRAPH turn into a madhouse: all hotels are full, movie and game studios throw parties every evening and you have a good chance to run into 3D celebrities.

Even better: you can run into Shapeways! We'll be there for the third year in a row, showing 3D artists how they can transform their work from the virtual into the physical. If you're in the area, we'd be thrilled to meet you! Come on over to say hi and meet the team, check out our sample prints and meet fellow Shapeways users. (We still have free tradeshow tickets left - get them here). You'll find us at booth number 538. You can download a map of the event, and our SIGGRAPH leaflet.

In just a few days, SIGGRAPH 2010 will kick off in Los Angeles. It's THE place to be if you're interested in anything that's related to 3D graphics and technologies. I've been giving away free tickets to the tradeshow since last week, and there are still some tickets left. If you want one, mail me at bart@shapeways.com and include your full name and Shapeways login name.

This week, I'll be giving away 3 much coveted tickets to the SIGGRAPH Animation Festival - it's the showcase of this year's best 3D animations. It's always an amazing ride - if you're at SIGGRAPH you should really try and see this.

We're about to change some calculations in our 3D upload and pricing software. As it may impact the pricing of your objects, it's important that you spare a few minutes to read this article.

Internally we call this change 'multiple shell merging'. What this means is that we fuse loose parts (or 'shells') into single objects wherever possible (for the techies: we do a Boolean union operation).

I have 50 free tickets to the SIGGRAPH 2010 Tradeshow for you! To get one, send an email to bart@shapeways.com. Include your full name and your community nickname. I'll be giving the tickets away on a first come, first served basis. Later this week, I'll be giving away 3 tickets to the awesome SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival. Stay tuned!

A quick reminder: tonight I'll be hosting Shapeways Live at 8PM Amsterdam time (click here to see what time that is for you). I'll be talking about combinatory manufacturing, glass (I have some cool samples to show you), our new packaging material and more.

During our last Live cast we found out that the chat required people to register at the UStream site. I've tried to make it easier by creating a dedicated Live page with integrated chatbox - without registration:

http://www.shapeways.com/community/live

Personally, I always forget to attend these events although I really DO intend to, so I added a 30-minutes email reminder service thingamajig to the page. Have a good day, and see you tonight! Bart PS: If you can't make it, I'll make sure the show is recorded and published on the site tomorrow.

Introducing a new material here at Shapeways takes a lot of preparation. And as many materials come straight out of the Shapeways Labs (where people with thick glasses cause occasional explosions), we're not always sure how they will work in the real world. Will people like the stuff? Will we be able to produce them accurately enough and ship the models in time?

So, sometimes we experiment - like with Alumide. In February we announced the temporary availability of this new White, Strong and Flexible variation. We mixed in a dash of aluminum powder to give it a 'space aged', metallic appearance. It looks great and feels very smooth, but also has some limitations: it's not as flexible as the original and it's brittle.

Alumide was available for only three short weeks, but its unique look made it immensely popular. After tinkering with our machines some more and polishing up our internal processes we're now happy to announce the return of Alumide, and it's here to stay. Enjoy!

Links:

• Alumide material specifications (includes video).
• Alumide design rules.

Images:

• Polyoptic bangle
• Playmobil jacuzi
• Alumide steam engine

We had a lot of response to our “Co-Creator Creativity in Co-Design Contest” (seriously – who came up with THAT name? . To recap, the aim of the contest was to create surprising, beautiful designs that are a good showcase of our Co-Creator platform.

With a Co-Creator, a real designer somewhere on the internet will adapt his or her design just for you. They will tell you the kinds of changes that can be made, you give them your input and off they go!

Some participants ran into a problem with our tagging service, so we took a good hard look at the recently submitted creator models to make sure we didn't miss anything (and yeah, we fixed that pesky bug).

Our CEO Peter Weijmarshausen was interviewed live on FOX Business News yesterday! The piece turned out really nice - the presenters were amazed by the concept, using words like 'science fiction' and 'fascinating', and spent close to 5 minutes talking about Shapeways. Great job, Pete!

Done any 3D architectural projection mapping lately? No? These guys have, and it looks amazing:



You can also watch this video in HD quality, and read more about the event.

This is going to save you tons of time: we now support Zipped uploads for all file formats! I just tried this with a 63MB VRML file. Before, it would take me almost 10 minutes to upload this. Now, I can zip it to about 8MB and it uploads in about 1.5 minutes. Hallelujah!

Image by p_c_w

3D Bioprinting new blood vessels or even organs may be possible in the future. A first step has been taken with the first commercial bioprinter, by Organovo. It currently prints cell structures but nobody has dared to put them in their bodies yet. So while this looks like a promising development, I'd take good care of your body just a little longer - say, 30 years or so?

InstaTuts have published a guide for exporting a model from 3DS Max and printing it in ABS plastic (our 'Grey Robust' material - we no longer offer 'Cream robust'). The article contains some useful pointers for the use of 3DSMax’s STL Check Modifier and STL export function (note: Shapeways supports the more compact Binary STL file format, too!)

I found it interesting that the article refers to manifoldness as 'the Vertex to Vertex Rule':

What this means is that each triangle of the mesh must share 2 vertices with its adjacent triangles. For example one triangles vertex cannot lie on the side of a triangle, it must be attached to another vertex of the triangle.

There's an image in the article that illustrates this. What do you think? Is this a clear/better explanation?