You know 3D printing rocks, I know 3D printing rocks, but do musicians know 3D printing rocks?  Here are a few finds in the Shapeways shops that shows just how much 3D printing rocks on the musical dimensions.

Let's start with an easy way to always know where your guitar pick is, the Pick Pocket. 

Emerging Topologies is an upcoming exhibition exploring how contemporary technologies are changing our relationship with the architectural space we inhabit.  The exhibition is the culmination of artist Josh Harle's four year doctoral research, informed by degrees in Computer Science, Philosophy, and Sculpture, and completed between the School of Design, COFA, and the Faculty of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales.  The artist's practice utilises exotic production techniques and bespoke software tools that map, scan, and visualise the city in contingent, poetic ways using 3D fabrication, laser etching, cloud processing, and structural reconstruction from images.  

The artist explores the shifting landscape of a city experienced through mobile mapping technology, sketching out his own improbable paths through the shadows.  The works tell tales: compiling esoteric maps of journeys through strange cities, and taking playful, winding trips across the smudged face of the GPS screen.

The research thesis will also serve as the catalogue for the exhibition, and the artist is selling printed and DRM-free ebook versions to help with the cost of the exhibition.

Opening: Tues, May 21, 5-7pm

Where: Kudos Gallery 6 Napier St, Paddington, NSW

Hours: Wed to Fri, 11am – 6pm, Sat, 11am – 4pm  

This morning, Monday, May 20th, 10.30am-11.30am with panelists Shapeways, and MixeeMe.  Shapeways, the world's leading 3D Printing marketplace and community with US headquarters in Long Island City, communes with its collaborators, architect and innovator Francis Bitonti and MixeeMe, designers and vendors of customized 3D-printed characters.

NYDesigns and the Pratt Center present panel discussions during WantedDesign that will highlight distinctive design and production collaborations between manufacturers and designers in New York City.  

The panel discussions will unpack the relationship between the two groups and explore the evolution and potential for local concept development, prototyping and production. The discussions will be followed by factory tours the day after.  

Entry is free, register via Eventbrite.  

The panel discussions will be held in GALLERY 6 at WantedDesign, Terminal Stores – The Tunnel 269 11th Ave. (btw. 27th & 28th Sts.) New York, NY 10001 

Autodesk has announced that it has purchased Tinkercad and it's core technology to resurrect the browser based 3D modeling app from the dead.

Several weeks ago Tinkercad killed the popular 3D modeling app, closing new users and announcing a slow death for existing users from the free to the pro accounts.  Today's news that Autodesk is saving Tinkercad is even sweeter as it has unlocked all of the pro features so you now have unlimited designs as well as access to the 'superscripts' that take the relatively simple 'drag and drop' assembly of geometry to a greater level of 3d modeling complexity.

The Autodesk team are also planning to continue to develop the 3D modeling app further with more import and export options and it may even find it's way into the already impressive 123D range of apps that are perfect to design for 3D printing with Shapeways.

Thank you Autodesk, Long Live Tinkercad... 

Mataerial by Petr Novikov, Saša Joki?, Joris Laarman Studio and IAAC is a 3D printing robot that instead of building an object layer by layer, draws forms from any surface out into thin air.

Working in the same manner as the "3D printing pen" except instead of your shaky hand trying to make a recognizable shape from an ooze of hot plastic cooled by a fan, this process uses two thermosetting polymers which set when combined by a precision robot actually 3D Printing in space.  The team also state that CMYK colors can/could be combined in the same manner to create full color 3D printing using the same method.  The same process could of course be used at a much smaller scale and theoretically multiple robots could 3D print different materials simultaneously onto any surface such as a conductive material and a non conductive material to create electrical pathways.  This is definitely a technology to watch and hopefully their patent application is not so restrictive as to restrict its potential.   

Mataerial is the result of the collaborative research between Petr Novikov, Saša Joki? from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Joris Laarman Studio. IAAC tutors representing Open Thesis Fabrication Program provided their advice and professional expertise. During the course of the research we developed a brand new digital fabrication method and a working prototype that can open a door to a number of practical applications. The method that we call Anti-gravity Object Modeling has a patent-pending status.

via Dezeen

As we tune our machines for the new 3D printing material on Shapeways we thought we would get your imagination fired up with a few seconds of flexible fun.  We still not have locked down the design rules but aim for at least 1mm walls to be safe.  Are you ready?

During Design Week in NYC at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, DesignX presented by MODE collective and Architects Newspaper is four days of digital design inspiration.

Presenters include Jesse and Jessica of Nervous System, Gil and Ronnie of Mode Lab, Francis Bitonti, Skylar Tibbits and even yours truly, Duann Scott of Shapeways presenting an intro to 3D Printing Marketplaces and Design for Fab with Autodesk 123D Design to guide you to not only design, but also 3D print from the cloud.

Check out the full range of events happening at DesignX from the May 18 to 21 at ICFF at the Javits Centre in NYC.