All posts in Interviews

Meet Mark Bloomfield – A Man with a Winning Spirit

By | April 20, 2012 | 3D Printing, Interviews | 3 Comments

As promised yesterday, we present you with the winner of the Hats off to 3D Printing Design Challenge… Mr. Mark Bloomfield. Below you’ll find the interview we took with him after the 3D printed fashion show of the Materialise World Conference.

And for those of you that like pictures… here are some of Mark Bloomfield’s winning masterpiece: Daisy.

Mark Bloomfield's Daisy on a standard head model

A close-up of Mark's amazing work

Mark Bloomfield's Daisy on the Materialise Runway

A closer look at Mark's work of art

The Daisy worn by Belgian Fashion Model Angela Bitonti

The Daisy worn by Belgian Fashion Model Angela Bitonti

 

 

Meet the Lovable Scrappies by Ulrich Schwanitz

By | April 11, 2012 | 3D Printing, Interviews, designers | 1 Comment

Today I’d like to introduce you to our beloved friend and designer Ulrich Schwanitz. A man that continued a vision of his son through 3D printing and managed to bring adorable stainless steel characters to life in the name of love. He also just started an interesting funding campaign on Indiegogo (see video below) where you too can play a part in the realization of 3D printed love.

So for this lovely occasion we thought it would be interesting for our readers to get to know Dr. Ulrich Schwanitz a bit more ans the ideas and thoughts behind his latest project, The Scrappies. Here’s his story…

Tell us a bit about yourself… Who is Ulrich Schwanitz?
I am everything but a typical designer. I grew up as a scientist in the 1970′s and 80′s, and I still remember the times when computers were controlled by punch cards, typewriters and without undo buttons. I have worked in the IT departments of multinational manufacturing companies in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. During that time, we raised three children who are now all living in the UK.

For the last 10 years, I am working independently on my own projects. The creation of real, tangible objects from virtual design is one of my latest passions.

The Scrappies look very much in love indeed

Where did you find the inspiration for the Scrappies?
Almost 10 years ago, our son Nils welded a few garden-sized sculptures from real scrap metal and I have to credit him for the original idea. But much to our dismay, he has now found other interests and will not continue along that path. The old garden sculptures are slowly, but surely rusting away and we often dreamed about how to preserve them and make them available to an interested audience.

In the end, I had to step into Nils’ footsteps to carry the idea forward, and the rise of additive manufacturing and 3D printing came to our advantage. Since I am a lot more into computer applications than into drills and wrenches and welding gear, my natural choice was to try to start off with some digital models and to work from there. And that’s what I did.

I have to admit it wasn’t an easy start. Despite the various success stories and glossy brochures praying the potential and capabilities of 3D printing, I found it difficult, sometimes disillusioning and often frustrating to master the numerous steps from idea to final outcome, be it the odds-and-ends of the computer software, the limitations of the available fabrication methods and materials, or not to the least, the cost of manufacturing.

But meanwhile, the project has gained some momentum and I have just set up a funding campaign on Indiegogo, in an attempt to present one of my latest creations to a larger audience.

Just like when love is meant to be, the scrappies connect together like a perfect puzzle

What made you choose 3D printing over other techniques for these lovely little beings?
I am always inclined to new technologies and to a certain extend, I see myself and my objects as ambassadors for the possibilities of an evolving technology.

Other people have asked why we would not just cheaply weld and solder the figurines together, but that’s not the point. Especially with the Scrappies figurines, there is also an intentional twist in the design: You first see the supposedly worthless components and only on second sight, you become aware that they are manufactured in one single piece.

I had looked into having the objects cast in bronze, but the complexity of the Scrappies did not allow that in a cost-effective manner, at least at their current size. The casting process is also less flexible in respect to the desired customizations. And last not least, it’s not an option to have them assembled by a kid in China…

Just like the people you love, the Scrappies also look adorable.

What software packages did you use to create your design?
I am using a variety of CAD and 3D graphics applications and utility programs, but I cannot really pray one, since I am not really satisfied with any of them. The current state of 3D software constantly reminds my of the early days of of Word and WordPerfect. On screen, everything looks gorgeous and more than perfect, but beware when you send it to a printer. Yes, it may produce something, but not what you intended. The entrire thing may even crash at you altogether.

I think I am not the only one who spend more time fixing STL files than anything else. I may be a little biased since I am also doing quite a bit of textured models which appears to provide an extra hurdle in the process. The 3D service providers are going great lengths to provide us with automatic repair tools, but that’s nothing more than an ugly workaround. What we really need is 3D application software which does not only produce impressive screen renders, but also the correct instruction sets for printing.

The Scrappies on a keyboard

Have you 3D printed anything else besides the Scrappies?
I am working to further extend our collection of bronze figurines and sculptures with original designs beyond the Scrappies family. We already received some positive feedback on the Bubble Men series and you may see others coming up in the future.

We also have developed a method to convert ordinary 2D photos of people or animals into three-dimensional photo-reliefs and have them printed in full-color or monochrome materials. As with any of the other projects, I have found the team at i.materialise to be extremely flexible and helpful with our trial-runs.

Bubblemen by Ulrich Schwanitz

More Bubblemen by Ulrich Schwanitz

What can we expect you to 3D print next?
I am personally fascinated by the possibilities of metal printing. Of course I hope for a fantastic response from the current funding campaign at Indiegogo. If the »You & Me« project becomes overwhelmingly successful, I plan to bundle some of the processing into larger runs and should be able to make some profit from the project. This would certainly help to bring similar future projects along.

Where can we find more about you and your work?
You are invited to visit our site at trompe.nl . Not everything is always available in every language, but we try our best. I apologize for being little old-fashioned and not overly active on social media, but you may give it a try on Facebook.

Finally we at i.materialise would like to thank Dr. Ulrich Schwanitz for bringing a universal theme such as love to 3D printing and sharing his wonderful story with our community. As always we’ll continue to offer our support and services to our beloved friend and designer of 3D printed love in stainless steel and we wish him the best of luck with his Indiegogo campaign.

The Amazing Work of Transportation Design Student Josh Henry

By | April 5, 2012 | 3D Printing, Design, Interviews, designers | 3 Comments

The one and only Josh Henry

Not too long ago, we received an order at i.materialise to 3D print some pretty big transparent pieces. Our curiosity kicked in and we decided to contact the designer to find out what these transparent parts were for. To our surprise, Josh revealed to us that it was for his magnificent Ula Miami Concept Car that he was developing at the University of Cincinnati. As soon as knew that, we didn’t hesitate a second and contacted him for an interview.

Here’s what our friend Josh had to say…

Tell us a bit about yourself… Who is Josh Henry?

I am currently a Junior at The University of Cincinnati, in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.  Car design has been a passion of mine and is what I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Car design for me is really about creating a product with emotion. Creating a life, or a character if you will. Thinking about the interaction between a person and a vehicle and that emotional attachment that one has with the vehicle. These are things that fascinate me.

The Amazing Amphibious Vehicle by Josh Henry

Where did you find the inspiration for your amphibious vehicle?

Well, A lot of the inspiration came from when I was down in Florida at my internship at Sea Ray Boats.  There was a presentation given by Melissa Sikorski and Carrie Fodor, two very talented designers there at Sea Ray. The presentation was on Women and Boating. Making it short, it was about how to get more women involved in recreational boating. One of the things that came up was the intimidation of boating. It can be a scary thing for a new boater. Having to pull a trailer, launch a boat, and also the designs of boats themselves are fairly intimidating. So that’s where it all started. I just kept thinking about it when I got back to school, and the idea was, What if your “trailer” were the wheels to drive you on land? Combining your vehicle and your trailer as one unit, and the boat “pod” attaches to that. This vehicle is also to eliminate the decisions of need versus want. Many people would love to have a car and a boat, but many can not afford both. This eliminates that.

Sketches of the Amphibious Vehicle by Josh Henry

DESIGN. I wanted the design to be unique. I really thought about the surfaces and how they interact with one another. I wanted a lot of the details to be more subtle and make the vehicle much more approachable. One challenge from the beginning was how to make the two pieces (trailer and boat parts) cohesive and not only fit together , but look good both when they’re apart and together. I really liked the idea of utilizing those gaps between the pieces and how they fit together and really design them in a way that they’re a design detail and not try to just cover them up.

More sketches by Josh

One thing I did was added LED lighting that really emphasizes the part lines and really adds a lot of dynamic energy to the overall look and feel of the vehicle. The overall theme I imagined and the picture I created in my head from the very beginning was a Woman living in a modern world in the glamorous Miami. This vehicle enables her to have the freedom she desires. Utilizing her vehicle on land and water as she pleases for both pleasure and transportation. Being in Miami I also imagined the use for night life or just driving down the road in South Beach in the sun. When I thought about adding the lighting on the vehicle, this is where I really just pictured this vehicle driving down South Beach at night by all the clubs with the dramatic aqua colored lighting pouring onto the strip. Very appropriate for Miami.

What made you choose 3D printing over other techniques for certain parts of the car?

I used 3D Printing over other techniques because the parts I was making were much to complex to be able to mill for instance.

What other production techniques were applied?

Everything on the vehicle was 3d printed, except for a few small acrylic pieces that were laser cut.

Magnicifent 3D Render of the car by Michael Rule-Z Kotoff

What software packages did you use to create your design?

Autodesk Alias, Rhino

Have you 3D printed anything else beside these transparent pieces?

Yes the entire concept car was 3D printed. The main body of the chassis was printed in eight pieces. The hull of the boat was printed in six pieces. The 4 seats were 4 pieces each.. in all there were about 84 or so pieces that had to be put together.. all 3D printed.

The bottom part of the car without the boat pod

The Boat Pod seperately

Where did you get your other parts 3D printed?

Everything I printed was here at school in our rapid prototype center. The main body pieces had to be broken up because of the dimensions of the printer we have.  The material is the plaster powder material. The only parts I had sent out to other places were the parts to you and the two floating center consoles which were printed by another 3D printing service. The Parts were so thin If I would have printed them here with the powder, they would have just crumbled. So I needed a stronger material so they were printed with a strong flexible material.

What can we expect you to 3D print next?

Well my next big project will be my senior thesis. That has yet to start, so right now I am not to sure. But I would like to get into 3d abstract sculptures to print.

Where can we find more about you and your amazing work?

I am currently working on a website. I don’t know when that will be finished, but right now my portfolio is the best way to see my work.

Lovely details can be found all over the concept car

Did you receive any additional help for this project?

Yes. The final renderings for this project (the nice ones with the ocean backgrounds) were done by the very talented CG Artist Michael Rule-Z Kotoff. You can find his work here.

Anyone in the mood for cool looking rims? Contact Josh Henry...

We just can't get enough of these lovely pictures

Without a doubt in our minds, Josh Henry is a young man to keep an eye on and if this was only his work as Junior we can’t wait to his Master Thesis! Needless to say, we are very impressed with his final results want our friend Josh to know that we’re more than ready to help him bring his next exciting project to life whenever the time comes. You can now also see Josh’s designer profile and his work in our gallery.

Interview with Viridis3D President Will Shambley

By | April 29, 2011 | 3D Printers, 3D Printing, 3D Printing materials, 3D Printing processes, Interviews | 3 Comments

Will Shambley is a true 3D printing pioneer. He spent eight years directing the 3D printing materials Research and Development effort at Zcorp, the full color 3D printing company. He is now at Viridis3D, a company that sells 3D printers and 3D printing materials used for casting metal and ceramics. He is Viridis3D”s CEO & President. We interviewed Will in order to find out more about Viridis3D and his significant expertise in the 3D printing industry.  

Joris Peels: What is Viridis3D?

Will Shambley: Viridis3D, at it’s heart, is a materials development company that focuses on commercializing new solutions for the additive manufacturing community.  Our current primary focus is on making molds for metal casting, however we are dabbling in a range of refractory / ceramic applications.  We are developing products that we believe have unmet market demand, and we actively solicit projects from universities or individuals who have something unique to bring to market.

A Viridis3D metal casting done together with Dave Feathers.

Joris Peels: How do you cast metal parts?

Read more…

i.materialise interviews groundbreaking shoe designer Marloes ten Bhömer

By | December 10, 2010 | 3D Printing, Design, Interviews | 6 Comments
Marloes ten Bhomerworksbeigefoldedshoe

In my mind there are only two shoe designers that are really revolutionizing shoe design. One is Rem D Koolhaas of United Nude and the other Marloes ten Bhömer. Both a are using cutting edge materials and design to make shoes contemporary and amazing again.

Marloes ten Bhömer is a lauded designer who has been called “one of the most promising designers of her generation.” She uses innovative production techniques, new materials and completely different ways of looking at form & function to redefine footwear. Marloes’ Rapidprototypeshoe, pictured below, is a great example of using 3D printing to create wearable footwear. We interviewed Marloes to find out more about her beautiful shoes.

Joris Peels: Why use 3D printing?

Marloes ten Bhömer: 3D printing is interesting to me on various levels.

It’s quite difficult to convince manufacturers to produce parts for products that are outside their usual industry. In my case I use production methods and materials that are rarely or not even used in the footwear industry. This makes (sofar) for very niche market shoes and low volume production. With rapid manufacturing there are two advantages for me; I don’t have to convince anyone to produce parts for me and there are no extra set-up costs for low volume production or one-offs.

Next to this, I find it very interesting how rapid prototyping machines work. A “raw” material that is constructed into cured or sintered layers, making for a more or less structurally sound material and how to employ this is both interesting and challenging. There is also the obvious interest in the creation of build parts that can only be achieved with Rapid Manufacturing, their aesthetic possibilities and real time use (now and future) is really exiting.

JP: Is the shoe meant to fall apart? Is this an actual product?

Marloes ten Bhömer: The shoe is not meant to fall apart. For this shoe I have started looking into Rapid Manufacturing as a potential for real production of objects/shoes, not just prototypes. The concept of the shoe is based on the ability to produce a shoe in multiple materials in one go, however the shoe is designed in such a way, that it can be dismantled for the purpose of replacing parts. I have used the VeroBlack for the heel with the TangoBlack for the upper and sole part. VeroBlack might be too brittle for the heel, the TangoBlack seems to work well.

(Both VeroBlack and TangoBlack are Objet 3D printing materials made with the Polyjet process, we call them High detail resin and Rubber Like here on i.materialise)

JP: What was difficult about making it?

Marloes ten Bhömer: Apart from modeling the shoe, shoes and feet have amazing continuous curves which are quite difficult to model to match the exact size of the foot, the steep upright panels on the side of the shoe are a bit tricky for the machine (Objet Connex500) to achieve. Next will be testing a hard core on the inside of the panels or producing the shoe on it’s side, so the scaffold material supports the panels. Hopefully this will be happening soon.

At the moment I am most interested in developing objects for use (not for prototyping) with Rapid Manufacturing. Within this I see an interesting design challenge; I think that the way forward in design in terms of sustainability and use is that parts can easily be replaced or updated. There are quite a few examples of Rapid Prototyped hinges, but the build tolerance seems to be an issue when designing parts that are pressure fit for example. I would be interested in designing systems that allow an object to be build in parts without (too much) assembly and easy dismantle.

Of course this idea is based on imagining concepts without too much insider knowledge and there are of course other concepts that can be tested within shoe design as well. A shoe is such a small object with a need for a wide variety of material properties such as, good abrasion, air ventilation, flexibility, load baring, torsion etc. In any case, lots to be tested and developed and outcomes that can be used within other industries as well.

Thank you so much for doing this interview Marloes. Below is a gallery of some of the other innovative shoes Marloes makes. You can see even more on her site.


How The Tripods came alive

By | March 14, 2010 | Interviews | 2 Comments

Do you know ‘The Tripods’? Well, Martin – one of our German customers – surely does. As a long time fan of the BBC science fiction series, broadcasted in the 1980s, he has just printed his childhood dream through i.materialise.  That dream was owning a model of a Tripod.