Fiction vs. Reality: What 3D Printing Is and How Pop Culture Sees It
How Pop Culture Sees New Technologies
I love CSI and its legion of lab coat wearing copies. One of the reasons I like those shows is that science is one of the heroes of these series. I enjoy hearing about new technologies such as tricorder-like scanners, new ways to lift fingerprints and minute trace evidence that can be tracked back to its source.
My only worry is that every time one of these shows deals with a subject that I understand they screw it up. Probably the most famous example is the CSI New York episode where one cast member says she will “create a GUI interface using Visual Basic to see if I can track an IP address.” Believe it, there is a clip right here.
It’s as if someone got the 1997 edition of ‘The Information Superhighway for Dummies’ and randomly strung glossary entries together to form a sentence. This error could have been averted by one phone call placed to most of the people I know.
A 3D Printer in the TV Show ‘Bones’
Recently I watched a Bones epi
Customize Your Ikea furniture with Mykea
Mykea is a Dutch company that lets you personalize your Ikea furniture. According to the company, “We are now the company that enables everybody to customize their Ikea furniture and thereby giving their interior a trendy look and making their homes more personal and unique with the MyKea Design Covers.” The covers, giant stickers, can be made for a number of furniture pieces. You could take your own design or buy one from a designer. Once you order a piece it is delivered to you and you can stick the cover on your furniture.
Designers can participate and earn money by uploading designs and selling them on the site. The company aims to create a community and the website is very slick and easy to use. I wonder if they”ll stick to the covers or offer more services such as painting or even more fundamental customization. Previously several groups of artists and designers were involved in more radical customization with Ikea furniture with Hacking Ikea projects. Do check ou
New SketchUp 3D Printing Plugin & Cheap 3D Printing Tip
Make 3D printing your SketchUp models easier: here is the i.materialise 3D printing plugin you’ve been waiting for. As the for the cheapest 3D printing in the world? I’ll qualify and explain that statement below. The process of going from SketchUp model to 3D print can be a complex one. Architects, students and people renovating there homes are using this tool to make it easier for them to 3D print their architectural designs. We’d love to get feedback from you on what you like (or dislike) about our newest plug in so we can make it better. We think this is the easiest way to take a SketchUp design and get it 3D printed, but we want to improve it even more. (more…)
i.materialise buys a Makerbot!
Our software development team and most of our customer services team are in Kiev, Ukraine. Since we don”t have a production facility there they aren”t surrounded by 3D printers like the rest of us here in Belgium. To compensate the team bought and built a Makerbot. One of the main reasons for getting it was to show job applicants going through the interview process a 3D printer in action. Franky (our designer) took some pictures of the wonderful little device while he was over there. The team loves it and enjoyed building it very much.
The first thing the team 3D printed was the Materialise Ukraine logo.
Maksym, one of the builders reports that, “It took 3 evenings * 3 hours each * 5.5 people = 49.5 man hours to assemble the thing. The build went smoothly but they did have some issues,
- Initially it was difficult for plastic to stick to the platform:
- When the structure is flat and thick it starts to deform and peel off the platform
- Small details can cause plastic
Shapeways: Revenue, Profit, Competitors
In a Dutch interview Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen talks about some interesting Shapeways facts. The company generated 244,000 Euro in Revenue over 2009. During the same period Shapeways lost 1,400,000 Euro. He also mentions that the outsourced production companies Shapeways uses to make its 3D prints are 3D printing 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. Peter mentions that the Shapeways sells 10,000 objects a month and reiterates that Union Square Ventures & Index Ventures have put $5 million into the company.
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The Cutest 3D Printed Robot Ever
Robots are mostly portrayed as evil cold calculating creatures. Cylons, HAL, ASH have a cute deficit. Even Commander Data misses a certain degree of warmth. As you may know we’re doing a lot of work with customizing robots using 3D printing. We love the idea of “pimp your robot” and think that there is a lot of potential there.
But, in Japan..in Japan people are always light years ahead. Our Business Development guy in Japan Hiro shot a video of an extremely customized robot at Dekinnoka!7. She, wears a skirt, has glasses, is a competitor in robot wrestling and has had us all in stitches laughing all morning. Introducing, the world’s cutest robot… wanmi be sure to watch the video, we think its hilarious. She comes on stage at around 55 seconds.
Eric van Straaten exhibition
i.materialise Community Member Eric van Straaten is part of a joint exhibition called Zilverlingen in Haarlem the Netherlands. Eric”s 3D printed work will be displayed until the 10th of December in the “provinciehuis” in Haarlem.
One of Eric”s works on display is pictured here and called Glaucoma. It is 3D printed with Zcorp and depicts Glaucus, a merman. The statue was inspired by the Greek myth whereby Glaucus, a fisherman, was transformed into a merman. He ate a magical herb that brought fish back to life and this transformed him. The unquenchable thirst it gave him caused him to have to live in the sea. Quite the reversal of fortune for our fisherman. He does go on to become a minor underwater god and fall in love with a beautiful nymph. The nymph then runs away because she feels more than a little stalked. He goes to another nymph called Circe to help him. Sadly, Circe falls in love with Glaucus and turns the rival nymph into a six headed sea monster. This monster is ca
Marloes ten Bhömer 3D prints individualised shoes
One thing I’ve always been interested in 3D printing shoes. To make custom made shoes that look exactly how people want them, that fit exactly and that are customized for my weight and walk is a dream of mine. So I was happy to read about designer Marloes ten Bhömer”s Rapidprototypedshoe.
The shoe is intended as a 3D printed couture shoe customized for the individual. The shoe is also designed to wear and break down in layers so it can be augmented and repaired. I really think that 3D printing individualised shoes is an industry waiting to happen. If you are a shoe designer and want to get involved with our efforts in 3D printing shoes, please email joris (at) i.materialise.com
Marloes has a lot of very creative and beautiful shoe designs on her site here.
via Core77.
Iris van Herpen wins Rado Young Designer Award
Dutch Fashion designer Iris van Herpen won a Rado Young Designer Award at Dutch Design Week. The Dutch Design Week is the Netherland”s largest design event and the accompanying awards are a a great win for her. This is her second Dutch Design Award, having received one last year also. One of Iris” most well known works is the “Crystallization” fashion collection she did with Daniel Widrig. The collection was 3D printed here at Materialise and made in conjunction with Materialise”s own design label MGX. Congrats (and sorry I didn”t post this earlier) to Ms. van Herpen!
3D Printing a Xeno-coRPus
Koen Boonen, who works in HR and prevention at Materialise made a wonderfully arty and geometric piece called Xeno-coRPus using i.materialise. The model cost 44 Euro to make using Zcorp 3D printing.
“This model is an adaptation of the Julia-fractal in a xenodream metamorph. I optimised the mesh in Cinema4D, created some renderings, and the result was so appealing that I simply had to have this object! The i.materialise result is stunning:Â it is heavier than expected and has the look and feel of a rough stone sculpture.
The object now fills the void in my living room like an alien artifact: wonderful and strange…
Koen”
