Meet the designer: Eric van Straaten
Today we offer you an in-depth look into one of our favorite designers: Eric van Straaten. His multicolor magic has continuously pushed the technology to its limits and has attracted countless of enthusiastic crowds to admire it. Therefore it comes as no surprise that we were more than happy to receive such a deep look into the mind behind the artist. It is with great pleasure that we present you with Eric’s deepest thoughts, feelings and visions told in his own words.
I don’t really think you need much of an introduction anymore as you ‘ve made quite a name for yourself at i.materialise, but what we would like to know is a bit about your background. Tell us a bit about the boy that became the man…
I was born in 1969 in the Dutch city of Leiden and grew up in Haarlem. From the age of about 17 I have always wanted to be an ‘artist’, and after a career that we call in Dutch ’12 trades, 13 accidents’ (more or less successful photographer, musician, actor, journalist, entrepren
The Month of May in 3D Printing
Another month is coming to a close so as tradition has it, we provide you with our monthly 3D printing news. It was an interesting month with some fun new 3D printer announcements, the usual amount of Kickstarter projects and loads of fun design challenges. Let’s take a dive into the details…
First, let’s have a look at the new 3D printers that were announced this month. First up was the new FDM (Fused Deposed Modeling) 3D printer by Stratasys called Mojo. It’s one of the 3D printers that looks and acts most like a traditional 2D printer due to its ease of use. Stratasys has vastly simplified several key user interaction points, both in hardware and software and is offering the printer at a cost price of $9,900. Still a bit steep for the individual home user, but an interesting price for small business owners and creatives.
The other noteworthy 3D printer that got announced this month was the Objet30 Pro by Objet. At first glance it really reminded me of its bigger brother
Materialising Minecraft Dreams
Today we would like to highlight the work of one of our dear colleagues at Materialise called Sander. He’s a fan of Minecraft and happens to work at a 3D printing company so the following was obviously going to happen someday… With help of a software solution called Mineways, Sander was able to create a bridge between his creations in Minecraft and our 3D printers. The results and Sander’s story can be seen below.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Who is Sander?
I’m a software engineer working for Materialise. In my free time I’m involved in several music activities and I spend quite some time behind my PC programming and playing games.
How did you discover 3D printing?
My current employment brought me into contact with 3D printing. I was not exposed to it before then.
What brought you to Minecraft and which realms do you command in there?
It is kind of strange but my cynicism brought me to Minecraft. When I heard about it first I didn’t believe such a simpl
A creative journey by the students of Sint Lucas Antwerp
Back in February we received a visit from some students of the Sint Lucas Art School in Antwerp as part of their creative design week. The students formed part of first and second bachelor year jewelry design courses and got introduced to the possibilities of 3D printing. They were then given an external 3-day workshop by guest-teacher Fabien Franzen to teach and guide them with Moi 3D: an easy to use CAD design package. With their new-found knowledge the students could now start transforming their traditional works of art into 3D designs that would eventually be 3D printed at i.materialise.
Their objective was to evolve their traditional designs from a previous assignment into a 3D printed version of it. The end result was a collection of miniature kitchen and table appliances that was brought forth as a unified collection.
All the above pictures were taken by photographers Bart Vermaercke and Roger Laute.
As for those of you who like to work with poly
Meet the Designer: Josh Azevedo
Meet Josh Azevedo, a man who’s driven by love and decided to use 3D printing to translate his deepest feelings for his wife to be, Heather. We met Josh last year when he came to use with the idea of 3D printing a lovely set of gnomes in multicolor. Ever since that moment, we kept on seeing more of his lovely work come to life through our printers. Today we would like to share Josh’s story with our community and highlight his magnificent 3D printed work that (we can safely say this) comes from deep down in his heart.
Here’s what Josh has to say…
Tell us a bit about yourself? Who is Josh Azevedo?
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. After high school in 1996 I attended Clackamas Community College for some general education courses. On my own, I played with some 3d programs, just cause it looked cool and so I fell in love with 3d modeling. After a short break from the community college, I enrolled in the Art Institute of Portland were I graduated with a Bachelor of Sc
These are the Children’s Storybook Characters that will come to life
At the end of March we announced a wonderful multicolor design challenge with the magnificent Digital Tutors. The objective was to create your own interpretation of your favorite children’s storybook character. Needless to say, the participants blew us away with the amazing quality of their entries that we could see in their “in progress” forum page. Today we are very proud to showcase you the winners now that the challenge has come to an end and we’ve collectively managed to pick our top 3 designs. So without further ado… The winning designs that we will 3D print…
Ronia the Robber’s Daughter by DT Community member FLYNN
See the work in progress here and the final entry.
Billy Goats Gruff by DT Community member madics@madics
See the work in progress here and the final entry.
The Very Full Caterpillar by DT Community member timeRemapper
See the work in progress here and the final entry.
We would like to congratulate the winning challengers and also thank a
The Month of April in 3D printing
Without a doubt it was a busy month in the world of 3D printing. Big companies started spending their money again. This continues to enforce the trend that we’re on a road towards a future of a handful of big 3D printing players.
We also saw the continued rise of crowd funding projects in the world of 3D printing and as often happens… more new 3D printers for us to get our hands on. Let’s have a look at the news items in detail…
First, the business news… It seems that 3D Systems got back into its spending habit of last year by acquiring My Robot Nation and Paramount Industries. Could it be the beginning of another spending spree this year? Only time will tell… On the other hand, they also got to present the new Z Printer 850. It promises higher print volume, greater productivity and vibrant full color that empowers designers, engineers, and architects to create more and larger parts faster.
At the same time we can’t really say that the other 3D Printing giant calle
3D print your mom something special
Mother’s Day is just around the corner in a great numbers of countries. How cool would it be to get your mom a customizable 3D printed Lamp or some nice 3D printed jewelry? We’ve made a list of polyamide based 3D printed gifts that you might want to look at as a starting point. Alternatively you might want to tell your mother a special something through our Appear Lamp? I’d say, have a browse through our options and make sure to select that perfect gift for that special mother of yours. Below you’ll find two examples from our Mother’s Day Selection.
The Top 20 from the Hats off to 3D Printing in all their glory
Last week we brought you our pictures, stories and a wonderful interview with Mark Bloomfield from the Materialise World Conference. Today, we proudly bring you the video of the actual Top 20 Designs on the runway. Enjoy!
Of course you can also view the video in 720p on our Vimeo account.
Our lasers are cutting your prices in half
Are you the type of designer that likes to work in small sizes and large numbers? Or maybe a student that wants to try out 3D printing on a smaller scale? Then you’re at the right place, at the right time because we’ve just launched a new temporary pricing model for pieces that undergo laser sintering (This affects the polyamide and alumide materials).
So what are the facts?
- For any design that fits within a bounding box of 125cm3, you will always pay a standard price of 12 euros
- If you decide to 3D print multiples of that same design, you simply add 4 euros per copy on top of the start-up price of 12 euros (this means that if you want your design 3D printed four times, you’ll pay the following: 12+4+4+4=24 euros for 4 copies)
- This is a temporary action that lasts until the end of May
- All of the above does NOT include VAT
What’s the difference with before?
Well with the traditional laser sintering pricing model a bounding box of 125cm3 would have cost you around 24 e
