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The Hats Off to 3D Printing Challenge

Do you have big dreams of seeing your hats or accessories hit the runway, gracing the heads of glamorous models? Or, do you love 3D printing and enjoy pitting your creative abilities against those of others? Either way, this is the competition for you! So, get on your thinking caps, because it is time to get creative!

You now have the chance to get your work exposed on a fashion runway at the Materialise World Conference of 2012 in Leuven. It’s the ultimate place where the top industry professionals from all over the world gather to celebrate the latest achievements in additive manufacturing. In the world of 3D printing, you couldn’t hope for better exposure than that!

The competition will be running from today until the 15th of February of 2012 with in the jury panel none other than the Master milliner himself, Elvis Pompilio. The winner will be announced on the 1st of March and will have a spot on the runway amongst the top 20 designs.

So if you are looking for some expo

Exhibiting Dutch artist Eric van Straaten

Some of you might already have seen his work in the past. While some of you might have seen his recent work on our flickr account. But for the lucky few amongst us, Eric van Straaten’s work awaits us at PAN Amsterdam 2011. His great works of art will be on display from the 20th of November till the 27th of November at the RAI Parkhal on the stand of Majke Husstege.

At the exhibition you will find seven of Eric”s recent achievements. Amongst them, the images below which were 3D printed in our multicolor material: his primary weapon of choice.

If this kind of art is your cup of tea, you can always view what the great artist is up to on his personal website.

Multicolor is a great and affordable material for also other models than these of Eric. Detailed characters can be brought to life in color just as well as architectural models. So if you have a great design planned and your mind is thinking in color, don’t hesitate a second longer and give this material a tr

Jennifer’s Two-Faced Medallion

Dutch artist Jennifer Hoes has recently 3D printed a very nice set of stainless steel medallions at i.materialise. The medallions showcase the many faces of the artist in an attempt to remind us of the many faces that we create for ourselves in these modern times. We create our different identities towards the outside world on a daily basis. From the face we show at work, to the face we put on at home, to the face we hide behind when we’re online. It was this interesting fact of life that brought Jennifer to the Roman God Janus, famous for his two faces that represented the balance in society and who became the main inspiration for this work of art.

Jennifer shares five of her expressions with us: happiness, anger, sadness, fearful and neutral. The happiness and anger expressions are facing outwards while the mirrored image can be admired on the medallion’s inside. The neutral expression has been 3D printed on the medallion’s edge as a barrier between the two opposite expres

Pretty enough for flowers, nerdy enough for CH3CH2OH – the Sintervase

One service offered by our parent company, Materialise, is the generation of sinterboxes: web-like boxes that are 3D printed around parts for easy identification and safe shipping. Although made with functionality in mind, it turns out that these handy little boxes are also quite attractive…which got us thinking.

To make a long story short, the Sintervase was born! Designed to hold a standard test tube, an active imagination is sure to see the possibilities:

  • A beautiful vase for a single rose or an equally charming flower
  • The ultimate chemistry lab design accessory, putting mere test tube racks to shame
  • And, for those who recognize the equation above, fill ‘er up and try out this game

Order one for yourself in our gallery and enjoy!

Materializing the City of Dreams: Sagalassos

Sagalassos is an archeological site in southwestern Turkey under the supervision of Professor Marc Waelkens from the Catholic University of Leuven. It is a tremendous archeological research project that started in 1990 and has exposed us to many of the hidden treasures from the city’s intriguing past. To celebrate the great work that has been done on this project, the Gallo Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium decided to exhibit many of the found treasures including a fully reconstructed miniature model of the
ancient city.

It is for the reconstructed miniature model that our mother company Materialise played a huge role. The entire city got 3D printed in the stereolithography method and covers an almost 2 by 1 meter surface. This same model is currently on display at the museum and will stay there until the end of the exhibition which is the 17th of June of 2012. Below you’ll find an overview of the work in progress and also the final result.

Got inspir

Impressions from 3D printed .MGX designs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Our creative sister division MGX has recently exhibited some amazing 3D printed works of art at the V&A in London. This attracted thousands of culture-hungry attendees which resulted in a 20-day extension of the original exhibition dates. As with all exhibitions, the show must end some day and for .MGX that day was the 15th of October of 2011. However, that doesn’t mean that we didn’t think about all those of you who couldn’t make it to view the exhibition.

Especially for you, we have decided to share our impressions on this blog. May it inspire you to be our next great designer to showcase at such a lovely venue.

Escapism Tunic by Iris van Herpen ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London

SOLID C1 Chair & SOLID T1 table by Patrick Jouin ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Trunk by Peter Marigold ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Fractal- T by Platform Studio & Matthias Bär ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The One_Shot.MGX by Patrick Jouin ©Victoria and Albert Muse

3D printing in the world’s greatest museum of art and design

Renowned New York Gallery owner Murray Moss has collaborated with .MGX and Materialise in the creation of the first ever exhibition at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum to solely feature 3D printed pieces: ‘Industrial Revolution 2.0: How the Material World will Newly Materialise’.

Founded in 1857, the V&A is regarded by many to be the world’s greatest museum of art and design, with collections that span 3000 years of history and focus on teaching the principles of good design. They now consider 3D printing significant enough to be worthy of an exhibition, and significant enough that they have acquired the Fractal.MGX table and the One_Shot.MGX stool for their permanent collection.

The exhibition will form part of London Design Week and showcase works by Stephen Jones, Patrick Jouin, Iris van Herpen, and many others.  The pieces will be displayed in prominent positions throughout the museum, encouraging visitors to discover the futuristic creations in the context of thei

Sources of inspiration

According to the Oxford dictionary, inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. Looking at (product) designers, artists and inventors who are using 3D printing, I myself was wondering where their inspiration comes from. So I decided to do some reading and digging and discovered some interesting things. Amongst the sources of inspiration I found the human body, nature, mathematics, physics, baroque art and one I’m still not really sure about.

Last year Belgian artist Nick Ervinck collaborated with scientist Pierre Delaere for the Parallellepipeda exhibition (art meets science) in M – Museum in Leuven. Since Pierre Delaere’s work mainly focuses on esophagus research, Nick Ervinck decided to create an artistic interpretation of a larynx (you can Google that if you want) that’s gone wild. This resulted in an amazing 2D wall print called AGRIEBORZ. But, being a true artist, Nick Ervinck challenged himself and M

Hugo Arcier”s Mutation 1, 3D printed Ikea hack sculpture

We”re thrilled that we 3D printed Hugo Arcier”s Mutation 1. This is a limited edition sculpture consisting of 15 pieces. The work is meant to fit in an Ikea Expedit bookcase.

Hugo is a French artist who originally got started in doing special effect for feature films working for such directors as Roman Polanski and Francois Ozon. He began working in 3D animation and graphics and expanded into 3D printing. His work skirts both science and art and he is most interested in exploring new technologies to create new art. We asked Hugo some questions about his work.

Joris Peels: Was Mutation 1 meant to be an Ikea hack?

Hugo Arcier: Yes it was part of the idea from the beginning. I thought it was funny to have a luxury, and limited edition objet made for Ikea which is known for low prices and very big production. And I love the hacking culture. Nevertheless the object also works well alone as a sculpture.

Joris Peels: Why did you design this?

Hugo Arcier: My work is