New York, NY – September 25, 2018 – Shapeways – the world’s largest 3D printing service and marketplace with more than 10 million products printed – announced the company is teaming up with Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS) to make full-color, multi-material 3D printing more accessible to designers and creators. These new manufacturing services are based on one of the world’s only full-color, multi-material 3D printers: the Stratasys J750.
The companies are bringing the full potential of the Stratasys J750 3D Printer to a broader market, including customers that otherwise wouldn’t be able to use the technology due to lack of expertise, barriers-to-access, or economics. The Stratasys J750 enables designers and engineers to build highly realistic prototypes with streamlined design-to-prototype workflows – decreasing both time-to-market and time-to-revenue.
“The vivid colors of the Stratasys J750 3D Printer will enable the Shapeways community of designers, businesses, students, and artists to realize their brightest ideas and boldest ambitions in true physical form with full-color, texture mapping and color gradients. It’s exactly what our customers have been asking for,” said Greg Kress, CEO of Shapeways.
The Stratasys J750 3D Printer offers more than 500,000 color combinations, highly accurate color-matching, transparent to opaque color gradients, and advanced clear material with texture bringing to life even the finest, most delicate details. The PolyJet-driven solution creates parts that look, feel, and operate like finished products. Eliminating requirements for painting, assembly or heavy post-processing, the Stratasys J750 shrinks production cycles thanks to reliable and consistent printing – part-after-part.
Shapeways is perfectly positioned to wrap an entire workflow around Stratasys’ innovation. This includes helping design printable objects that fully utilize the printer’s capability, running the printers at scale, and delivering finished products that are ready to use or sell.
“Since its introduction, the Stratasys J750 has driven transformation across a number of industries,” said Pat Carey, Senior Vice President of Sales North America for Stratasys. “With Shapeways, the unmatched capabilities of the J750 will now be made available to an entirely new community of designers and creators.”
Biologic Models is one of the first Shapeways customers to have unprecedented access to the Stratasys J750 printer. The company visualizes protein data and 3D prints it as highly detailed models that are millions of times larger than the protein’s actual size. These multi-colored models help explain the nature of health and disease taking place on the molecular landscape and are a useful visual aid for educators explaining the properties of a specific protein.
“J750 is the best of both manufacturing worlds, full-color 3D printing combined with high-quality transparent plastics. This is exactly what my customers want,” says Casey Steffen, Founder and Director of Operations of Biologic Models. “Transparency and color coding are necessary features to create the highest quality and most durable models. The J750 tackles these design and manufacturing challenges head on.”
Shapeways announced the agreement at the 2018 TCT Show on September 25th in Birmingham, England located at Hall 3, Stand H36. Beta customers will be able to access the service before the end of the year, with a full launch expected in 2019.
Shapeways is redefining product creation. The platform enables creators to bring their ideas to life with services to design, make and sell products made via 3D printing manufacturing. Shapeways has over 1 million creators and has printed over 10 million products. Unlike desktop printers or makerspaces, the Shapeways platform offers services from their own factories and global supply chain network. Shapeways gives small to midsize businesses and everyday creators access to the most innovative technology and industrial-quality materials. Printing in over 40 materials and finishes, Shapeways has factories and offices in New York, the Netherlands, and a network of innovative partners around the globe. It is a spin-out of the lifestyle incubator of Royal Philips Electronics, and investors include Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, INKEF Capital, Index Ventures, Hewlett Packard Ventures, and Presidio Ventures.
Stratasys is a global leader in additive manufacturing, or 3D printing technology, and is the manufacturer of FDM® and PolyJetTM 3D Printers. The company’s technologies are used to create prototypes, manufacturing tools, and production parts for industries, including aerospace, automotive, healthcare, consumer products and education. For 30 years, Stratasys products have helped manufacturers reduce product-development time, cost, and time-to-market, as well as reduce or eliminate tooling costs and improve product quality. The Stratasys 3D printing ecosystem of solutions and expertise includes: 3D printers, materials, software, expert services, and on-demand parts production. Online at: www.stratasys.com, http://blog.stratasys.com and LinkedIn.
Biologic Models transforms the invisible beauty of x-ray crystallography data into 3D printed protein models that explain the nature of health and disease taking place on the molecular landscape. Millions of times larger than their actual size, Biologic Models explains the subtle interactions of proteins and molecules by visualizing the unique properties of each molecule that help scientists and educators explain protein interactions. Biologic Models is pioneering a new class of educational experiences by combining physical models of proteins paired with 3D medical animation and augmented reality apps. The company was founded in 2008 by Casey Steffen, an award winning medical animator and 3D designer.