Hurray! Prime Gray is back to stay!
Conclusions of the trial period
The trial period showed that prime gray was mostly used for:
- miniatures – for its detail,
- figures – for the looks and detail,
- jewelry and art – for its introduction price
- but also functional models – to test its functionality
We got very positive reactions. People were getting impatient that the decision took so long time. Your mails have made the decision balance tip over to the ‘Yeas’ side. So now, Prime Gray has earned a permanent spot in our Periodic Table of Materials as the elemen
3D printing from Tinkercad
We’re delighted to announce that Tinkercad, a very easy-to-use CAD tool that runs in a browser (via WebGL), now offers a one-click support to our i.materialise 3D printing service. Thanks to this feature, getting an idea designed, printed, and in your hands is truly a piece of cake.
Tinkercad is very user-friendly: with only three tools, a wide variety of designs can easily be made in Tinkercad in 5 minutes, or less. And remember, you can do all of this  in your browser with no installation required.
Once your project is ready, simply click on the “Print 3D” button in the upper right-hand corner of the editor.
Your design will be sent to the i.materialise 3D print lab, where you can choose from a variety of materials and colors.
Add the design to your cart, place the order, and within a couple of days you will be showing off your design to everyone you know.
Designing and 3D printing your own designs, like the connection piece pictured below has never been easier.
Rolling out a bigger shopping cart @i.materialise
Dear community members, your prayers have materialised today !
Well, at least some important ones.
Our shopping cart has been enlarged to hold as many models as you like.
This makes it easy to fill it up and reach the 100$/100€ order value free shipping limit.
We also repaved the way to the checkout and improved the easiness of adding earlier uploaded models to the cart.
Requesting offline prices for several difficult models can also be combined in 1 offline price request.
We will put those models back with a price tag on your personal shelf.
And yes, we implemented a test for WebGL.
Let me guide you through the latest update.
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Where did my models go ?
2 New topics from the release front :
– Getting back to your uploaded designs
-Â Can you build models bigger than 1 meter ?
Getting back to your uploaded designs
We had several requests from people who wanted us to store their previously uploaded models in the 3D print lab. We”ve now made this possible for you.
But how ?
We got your previously uploaded models neatly stored in your profile, under the tab called “uploaded models”.
No need anymore to upload them again.
You can move them back into the 3D print lab using the button “add to 3D model workspace”.
In the 3D Print Lab you can start playing with scale, quantity, material to see the influence on the 3D printing price. You can then leave and return to your model later.
The only thing you should check is that you are logged in before you upload.
If you are not logged in, we cannot know it is you that uploaded the model and we can not store your model for you or allow you to retrieve it.
The models will
Affordable Stainless Steel 3D prints, new pricing scheme
You can now check you Stainless Steel upload prices directly on our site. Stainless Steel was launched in January with the relatively simple pricing scheme based on volume of the model. Today you don’t need to get your calculator out anymore, just upload your design and you get your price automatically.
The pricing
Up to 5 cm3 model volume : 35$
For every extra cm3 above 5 cm3 till 40 cm3 : 8 $
For every extra cm3 above 40cm3 : 7.5$
Our pricing scheme is meant to encourage models of 5cm3 and larger because we want to encourage you to make bigger things. There is now also extra discount for compact models. The more material you have within the imaginary box around your model, the bigger your discount becomes for the same model volume. So the pricing scheme is the maximum price you will pay. To know the real (discounted) price, upload your design.
Here are 2 examples :
The dice of 20x20x20 mm, has a 7.1 cm3 model volume would cost 26.6 euro/ 37 dollar.
Our be
Who is (y)our Business Process Manager?
My name is Wim Verstraeten. Consider me a battle scarred veteran in the field of the online ordering of 3d printed models. I date back from the era where Materialise was the only firm to have an online 3D printing service with its NextDay service which was started in 1997. I’m talking about the time when only the happy few had a mobile phone and Amazon and eBay had existed for almost 4 years.
I started in 1999, when I walked into the Materialise office to offer my services. I was intrigued by Magics Communicator, a free online collaboration tool for 3d models. At that time online video meetings were not free and broadband usage was expensive. Magics Communicator helped people to discuss and visualize their project, allowing them to instantly see the operations of their communication partner on the 3D model.
It was that tool that I upgraded to interact with the renewed NextDay Service internet website. Later on I converted the NextDay service to what we now know as OnSit
Maintenance on production servers this weekend Nov 12 and 14
We are planning a maintenance on our production servers this weekend from Friday November 12 at 18h00 CET till Sunday 14 at noon.
We will minimize the impact on the site but online prices will be unavailable from time to the time. It will stay possible to send us your offline price requests. We”re so sorry about this interruption to i.materialise but we”re working on making it better.
Additional payment service for Credit Cards is available: Ogone
When you have PayPal as payment service, you are all set.
That is what we intially thought.
For most of you PayPal is perfect.
However, when you don”t have a PayPal account, there are sometimes annoying order obstructing rules in PayPal, especially with higher value orders.
This made us look for an additional payment service.
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Show your true colours : reduced prices during summer
We noticed that 3D printed multicolored models are most appealing to you,
but that users regularly have to compromise between price and color.
This is a pity, certainly now, when more and more 3D software packages are making it the designer easy to add colors or textures to the models, giving it the expression it deserves.
i.materialise is already offering a sharp price for specific architectural and bookend products in multicolor.
Now we are happy to announce that from today till the 30th September we will extend this sharp pricing for multicolor material to all your designs.
Below you find an example of the difference in pricing between the old and new price for this lovely model.
Have fun and color your summer !
Tags: 3Dprinting summer action reduced multicolor pricing modelUsing Google SketchUp is a child’s play
Using SketchUp is child’s play! It is so intuitive that a child who has never seen Google SketchUp before manages to draw a table with a pot in: just 30 minutes ‘training’ included.
When I started using Google SketchUp mid 2009, I found it so easy that I used to say to everyone that my daughter of 9 years old would be able to design something in SketchUp. Last month, somebody asked me : “why can’t she try it ?”
So I took the challenge and …one evening, after supper, I launched Google SketchUp, called my daughter and showed the basic principles.
After 10 minutes she took over the mouse, saying she was going to draw a table. 20 minutes later, she didn”t only have a colored table, but she managed to get a pot on the table as well.
FUN
To be honest, I was impressed by the speed she got familiar with the tools and her enthusiasm and fun she had during the modeling -the effect of the push-pull tool on her model made her laugh several times somehow-that I promised to 3D pri
