This video shows how BMW uses rapid prototyping in their design process for consumer cars and F1 racing cars.  It includes different techniques such as Selective Laser Sintering (our 'White, Strong & Flexible') but also Beam Melting (metal printing) and Stereolithography. Interesting stuff.

So you've received your Shapeways model and you want to share it with the world? You may find that it's not always easy to take a good photograph that nicely shows all the fine details of your work. Unless you take great care in setting everything up properly, the details can easily 'wash out'. We gathered a few tutorials on product photography that will help you:

Intro to Product Photography
"These particular tips are intended for shooting small to medium sized projects that can be maneuvered relatively easily, and put in a studio environment. But even if your particular project doesn't fit these criteria, many of the tips I'll be giving are universal, and can be applied to any photographic documentation".

How to Photograph a White Object on White Background
A short but useful list of tips.

How to Photograph Dark Colored Objects (interesting for detail photography)
"When photographing dark colored clothing, do like the pros do! Take a 'normal' photo then zoom in on the texture. The trick to is all is to create shadows where you want and need them. That will give your dark item the depth you are looking for!"

DIY Light box for product photography
"Building a light box is pretty easy stuff. A light box is particularly useful for product photography where you need a nice white background. Many people find that their products will actually sell faster with a more professional looking photo. Here you'll find a step by step on how to build your own DIY light box"

Do YOU have any tips or links that really helped you improve your photography? Leave them in a comment and we'll add them to the list!

(Image: Madebydan Platter)

What do you do with a container of printing material whose expiry date has passed? You print  a giant monkey! Our printer guys had a blast with this one.

They wrote:

Cornelius has grown to massive proportions (+/- 20cm!!!) and we poured his feet in pedestal of concrete to prevent him from running away Specs: Objet Eden 500V/VeroBlue/HQ

(VeroBlue is one of the new materials that we're considering - we still need your vote on which one to choose!)

Here's another pic of Cornelius on the shoulder of Aart to get a good feeling for it's size - also check out the "The Statue Of Liberty" en "The Empire State Building" prints in the background!

This sucker is heavy - they didn't even try to save on material by hollowing it out... Remember: do not try this at home. It'll blast a serious hole in your pocketmoney

A few weeks ago I wrote about TopMod3D, a 'topological mesh modeling' tool that allows you to create really far-out and intricate models. I gave it a try and quickly came up with a simple design that I had printed. It's a crazy little thing, but if you put it on the table during a meeting, everyone will be playing with it all the time

To give you an idea, the model only cost $26 to print because it's just a wireframe and doesn't contain a lot of material.

As my skills with this tool are obviously limited, I was wondering what someone with a bit more time and expertise would come up with.

So: I challenge you to come up with a fun and intriguing design using TopMod3D. I'll hand out a $50 coupon to the designer of the best entry to have it printed.

To participate, place the object in your Shapeways account and leave link in a comment below this post. We'll select the winner on Wednesday the 18th of June at 9am CEST (Amsterdam time). The winner will be announced later that day.

If you don't have an account yet, register as a beta user and enter 'TopMod3D' in the 'How did you hear about us?' field. We'll keep a close eye on the entries and invite you as soon as we can. Be sure to read 'How Does Shapeways Work' after logging in for the first time.

Have fun!

Bart

Every now and then you see a new idea that you just KNOW is going to change things. Here's one by BMW Design: a shape-shifting car covered with fabric. The shape of the car (the GINA - 'Geometry and functions In 'N' Adaptions') can be changed by a system of electric and hydraulic actuators, allowing the driver to, say, the size of the spoiler or the fenders.

By stepping away from the existing design restrictions, BMW could suddenly achieve amazing new possibilities like the changing shape, but also the use of transparent material for the taillights. Similarly, when using 3D printing techniques you'll also find that you can cast off your existing design restrictions (and gain a few new ones!), and design things that you couldn't produce otherwise. We're entering uncharted territory and I love it.

Read the full article on Wired.

Video

3D Printing in Chocolate? No, not really, but if you're inventive enough, that shouldn't stop you..

Last week I met Chris Want of the University of Alberta, Canada. Chris has access to a 3d printer on his job at the university and he combined it with his great hobby: making chocolates.

Using the 3d printer and silicon he created a mold that he then used to pour chocolate monkeys. The process forced him to think carefully about the shapes of the chocolates: they couldn't have an undercut as that would make it impossible to pull them from the mold without breaking them. The entire thing (dripping super glue on the models to cure them, pouring the silicon and working with the chocolate) must have made a tremendous mess of his kitchen, but unfortunately he doesn't show that

If you want to make your own: Chris explains the entire process in detail on his website, including the gotchas he ran in to. Have fun, and don't forget to send us a couple of chocolates when you're done!

Bathsheba Grossman is an artist who creates fascinating geometric shapes using 3D printing. She makes a living by selling them through her on-line shop. Making a living with a 3D printer. I like that!

Bathsheba writes:

"I use a lot of technology. 3D printing in metal is the main way that I work, and I also do a lot with subsurface laser damage in glass. This isn't because I love gadgets; it's much more trouble and expense to use new media instead of the more mature techniques that most sculptors enjoy. I do it because the shapes I have in mind aren't moldable, and I want to make a lot of them. Those two constraints, taken together, turn out to be remarkably constraining: ordinary sculpture technology just does not do the job"

Indeed - her site is full of incredible designs and it even contains a number of freely downloadable models in STL and DXF.

The process doesn't end at the 3D printer though - Bathsheba explains all the steps involved in this video podcast from Make Magazine.

A few weeks ago we had one of her models ('Metatron') printed on our Objet printer and the result was amazing. It's quite hard to wrap your head around these designs - I'm not sure how you'd get these in a computer

Shapeways objects, especially from our Objet printer, look pretty good after printing - they are high resolution and have smooth surfaces. Sometimes you may want to add some extra finishing though - maybe to add some extra color or to further improve the surface texture.

These three articles describe in detail how you can paint, dye or polish your objects. The techniques are all pretty straightforward and require only a little investment (mainly paint and sandpaper - you probably already have that).

The polishing may be tricky if you have very detailed objects - I'm going to try it our on my monkeys one of these days. If you have applied a finishing to your designs, let us know how it went and we'll share the result.

Downloads:

• Painting of PolyJet Parts [448KB, PDF]
• Creating Clear or Translucent Models [392KB, PDF]
• Penetrating Dye for Translucent Color [1MB, PDF]

And they're soooo cute...

I had these printed because I wanted to show you a comparison of our three printing options (Cream Robust, White Detail and Transparent Detail). They came out really nice - they're only 6cm tall and the amount of detail is great - you can even see their belly buttons!

You'll find more close-up photos on our Material Options page.

I did learn a few things from this:

• The transparent detail material will really stand out when you make it wet - applying an acrylic lacquer finish should make it permanently shiny.
• I didn't take proper care of balancing my objects - they keel over backwards.. It's a bit tricky to get this right, but I'm working on a method involving Blender's real-time physics engine. More about that in another post!
• If you want to print small objects, use the 'Detail' materials. The Robust will create stronger objects, but at the cost of a somewhat lower resolution.

That's it for today - I now have to take care of my monkey babies!

TopMod3d is a free, open source, topological mesh modeling system that allows users to create high genus 2-manifold (watertight) meshes. It runs on Windows and OSX.

To me, topological modeling feels weird, but after playing around with it for a little I managed to get some nice results. As an added bonus most models will be readily printable by Shapeways (after conversion to X3D/Collada, still).

Links

• Download
• Gallery
• Tutorials

Here are some videos that are interesting to watch:

'Twisted Cube Handles'

(This interface version is outdated, but the way of working is still the same)


'Tetrahedron Spikes'



'Generated models'
Some nice models made in TopMod3D

Last week I received my first Shapeways design: a cube puzzle made out of seven parts. It was amazing to hold my 3D design in my hands and I was proud enough to make a little video showing it off and explaining a bit about the process.