I've been making models on Shapeways for only a few months, but yesterday when the latest shipment arrived we made a surprise discovery.
The route to here was a bit tortuous. Our first efforts to make a case for our charger used a competitor service which yielded a poor quality product. The first print from Shapeways was a black engraved version made with black, strong, flexible which we were very happy with.
Then we designed a full color sandstone version, using a texture mapped case top. For some reason using Blender, the preview image on Shapeways (at that time) did not look like the Blender model. We figured the 3D printed version would look the same as the preview, so we distorted the texture map to make the preview image look correct. Assumptions? Wrong. The 3D printed model looked exactly the same as the Blender version. A polite email with Shapeways service and a few weeks later they appeared to fix the preview version. In the meantime we went to some great lengths to try to make a version that looked correct both in Blender and the preview. By using a cutout rectangle with the texture map on it alone, we came close.
SO yesterday we received the new version. It looked exactly like the preview version - not quite like the Blender version.
But anyway, as we were examining the case, noting the texture map appeared both on the top and the inside of the case, we held it up to a light and WOW!
The image of the Nautilus came to life! The contrast was greater, and new colors (the greenish tints) appeared. The enclosed pix is with a warm flourescent light source behind the image.
This has inspired us to look at using this in new ways. The sandstone thickness was minimum wall thickness. Hope this inspires others to use this material in new ways!
You can see the model in our shop at: