A quick video to show how you can design your own ring with ShapeWright to have it 3D printed in your choice of materials by Shapeways. Further awesomeness plugging into the Shapeways API.



Developed by macouno aka Dolf Veenvliet

3D Print your Star Fleet

Dolf Veenvliet aka macouno of Enotforms fame has been working on some fun tools to generate 3D forms for the 3D Cad illiterate.  Under the ShapeWright moniker Dolf has produced a random space ship generator entitled ShipWright that generates unique configurations of space ships ready for 3D printing with Shapeways... Yeah, awesome.. You can also have a personalized Space Ship generated by your name, or whatever text you enter into the build system... Yeah, super awesome. ShipWright is another awesome project that uses the Shapeways API to upload 3D files to Shapeways, if you have a project to generate 3D forms take a look at the API documentation to see how you can send the files to Shapeways for 3D printing too.

The original version generated space ships based on the nicknames of all Blender 3D coders The code is based on the entoforms scripts... which you can find here: http://www.entoforms.com

You can download the base blend from: http://www.blendswap.com/3D-models/vehicles/shipwright-06/

You can download the scripts from: http://code.google.com/p/entoforms/

Create your own silver ring on your Android device and 3D Print it with Shapeways!

kelecrea is developed for the Android platform by Shapeways community member Lajos Kelemen that lets you add text as engraving or embossing to 3D models. Currently you can modify a choice of rings, pendants, nameplates, coins, brooches and hairpins.  You can already see some of the designs generated in his shop gallery.

Check out the video of the app in action then download it from the Android market.

It is applications like kelecrea, ShapeMe, Endless Forms, 3DTin and Tinkercad that will really bring 3D printing to the masses.  

Awesome work Lajos 

How to succeed with Kickstarter and Shapeways 3D printing.

We mentioned Joshua Harker's Kickstarter project a few days back where he was looking for $500 worth of backing to get his intricate skull sculptures out into the world but with 34 days to go and over $25,000 dollars raised it is fair to say Joshua is very happy with his decision to put his project on Kickstarter. 

We also mentioned the Mathematician's Dice by Matt Chisolm who raised $19,620 when seeking $2000 to get his project off of the ground using Kickstarter. I am sure a market research department would have been hard pressed to find enough respondents to take the product to market through any other means, but crowdfunding reveals itself to be a perfect way to find a market for really unique items.

And of course you know how much we love the Glif which raised over $137,000 when seeking $10,000 to get their iPhone tripod connector off of the ground using Kickstarter. The guys from Studio Neat have become the poster boys for success on Kickstarter by successfully launching a second product, 'The Cosmonaught' that even trialled a Radiohead inspired 'Pay What You Want' pledge. Maybe not for everyone but definitely proving the point that products are becoming more digital, in that the way they are designed, fabricated, sold and distributed. 

MIT graduate student Steven Keating in the Mediated Matter Group is experimenting with “printing” concrete with variable density as it would allow the properties of the concrete itself to vary continuously, producing structures that are both lighter and stronger than conventional concrete, by making it porous in the center and solid on the exterior, just like bones.

To illustrate this, Keating uses the example of a palm tree compared to a typical structural column. In a concrete column, the properties of the material are constant, resulting in a very heavy structure. But a palm tree’s trunk varies: denser at the outside and lighter toward the center. As part of his thesis research, he has already made sections of concrete with the same kind of variations of density.

“Nature always uses graded materials,” Keating says. Bone, for example, consists of “a hard, dense outer shell, and an interior of spongy material. It gives you a high strength-to-weight ratio. You don’t see that in man-made materials.” Not yet, at least.

This may also have benefits to to make concrete structures to have inherent insulation, to channel, store and filter water, the possibilities are truly exciting. 

Via MIT

Mark Frame from RHSC Glasgow recently used CT-scan information and Shapeways to 3D print models of bones with fractures for surgery preparation. Here is his story. File under Awesome.

One day in surgery an opportunity arose, a patient needed a 3D model created of their fractured forearm to plan their surgery to realign it. This had already been done via a university department and the model produced was out of proportion and only a truncated portion due to cost issues. Even with this it was still north of $1200 for the small model. I then realized I could do better and for less and challenged my self  to produce a model. I trawled the blogs and the shapeways forums, gleaning help and advise from many members of the shapeways community. Having chosen my tools I got to work.

There have been many applications of rapid prototyping within medicine, especially recently in maxillofacial (face) surgery and orthopedics (bones).  Being able to produce physical models from your 3D scan images are useful for education both of surgeons and patients, preoperative planning and procedure rehearsal, trying out your procedure before you do it in real life.

The issue has always been accessibility. Its has tended to be limited to well funded research projects or to private units with bottomless budgets. This is not the model the NHS use, especially in this financial climate.

As an orthopedic surgical trainee and a big fan of any new tech or gadgets, I couldn’t fail to have noticed this upsurge in talk about 3D printing. Filling up pages of blogs on many sites such as Engadget and Gizmodo. One company that kept getting mentioned was Shapeways.

Ok, so the HP LasertJet Pro 200 color MFP M275 (catchy name) does not really 3D scan an object in any way that is 3D, it does not create a point cloud capable of being converted into a 3D object nor does it make multiple views available instead:

A total of six images are captured per scan or copy— three with flashes from different angles and three in ambient light conditions with different exposure levels—producing virtually glare-free and shadow-free images. These separate shots are then automatically combined into one seamless image of exceptional quality. With HP TopShot Scanning, you’ll see images similar to or better than those captured by your hand-held digital still camera and with better depth-of-focus than images from a flatbed scanner.

So this really makes it a handy way to document small objects which HP are hoping people will use to sell their goods on Ebay, Etsy and Shapeways, though they do not explicitly mention Shapeways I am sure it is a prime market. Here is there scenario they paint thanks to some imaginative persona modeling.

Wow, 8x8x12 meter 3D printer running inside of Minecraft.

Ok, it may not have the finest resolution (at 1x1x1 meter voxels) but this is a very impressive experiment that is the first 3D printer available for download... Yeah

Great work Shrogg2, check out the video showing the original concept and how it runs.. with virtual sheep, not sure if this is a New Zealand thing or a hat tip to Philip K Dick? Either way, very cool.

Found via 3D Printing is the Future.

The STL has been the quasi-default file format for 3D printing/rapid prototyping since the mid 80's when it was developed by 3D Systems but a lot has changed in 3D printing since then with increased quality and complexity yet STL has remained the same.

Now we have a new contender called AMF (Additive Manufacturing File Format) that is better suited to today's and hopefully tomorrow's) 3D printers. Developed by the American Society for Testing and Materials under the leadership of Professor Hod Lipson of Cornell University AMF addresses what STL lacks with a more advanced file structure including object, material, texture, constellation and metadata with a specifiable unit system, curved triangles, Metadata and all of this in half the size of a comparable STL file..... 

UPDATE: You can download the STL converter and some sample files to take a look.

 

Wow, we thought the first ever ready to wear, fully 3D printed article of clothing would get some attention, not only because it is a bikini, but also because of the innovative use of materials and software processes, but the response has been huge.

The N12 has been featured on MSNBC, Time, Wired, Gizmodo, cnet, dezeen and hundreds more blogs around the world with much excitement about the prospect of 3D printing clothes to fit.

It is important to note that the garment/fashion industry is one of the few remaining industries where mass produced items are still assembled almost entirely by hand.  This means that although design may happen in the first world, production is often outsourced to the third world where labor is cheap and working conditions can range from questionable to appalling.  The N12 3D Printed bikini may at first impression seem like nice story with little depth, but what it represents is a possible end to the sweatshop with a completely 3D printed garment pulled direct from a machine. This of course may not be about to happen with the material properties currently available to produce 3D printed fabrics but as the materials become more complex, stronger and more flexible with simultaneous decreases in wall thickness we will see 3D printed garments become increasingly viable. 

Sweatshop project / marissaorton / CC BY-SA 2.0

We will follow up soon with more images of the N12 3D printed bikini in use, how it responds to water and address questions about the comfort of the fit and fabric, but for now we would like to go over the fabrication process in a little more detail, to share how Continuum Fashion designed the N12 and what might happen next.

For starters check out the intro video by Continuum Fashion

UPDATE: Another 500 eMaker 3D printers have now been made available for $550!!!! Expect a delay in delivery, but get em while they are hot...

No big surprise that a fully functioning 3D printer for $475 (or with $465 without 3D printed components needed) that eMaker made available through crowdfunding site IndieGoGo has sold out their first batch of 150 with 16 days still to go and exceeded their goal of $30,000 by raising $75,545....

The eMAKER Huxley 3D printer is a Replicating Rapid prototyping machine, or RepRap for short. It is derived from the open source RepRap project which was started at Bath University, UK.

Machine specifications:
- Build volume: 140x140x110mm
- Overall size: 260x280x280mm
- Printing materials: ABS, PLA
- Build surface: Milled Aluminium, heated.
- Resolution: 0.0125mm
- Speed: 12000mm/min
- Deposition rate: 33cm3 / hr
- Motion: Linear bearings on X and Y axes, Igus low friction bushings on Z axis.

Congratulations to the team at eMaker and the 150 lucky people who have scored themselves a 3D printer for under $500.

via Boing Boing

And on a slightly unrelated topic, the SCAD Key Generator... Both by Nirav Patel.

Impractical, awkward and ugly but I still REALLY want to have a go at gestural 3D printing using Kinect and a RepRap. No need to learn that tricky CAD software when you can wave your hand in the air..