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!
Treat your Christmas tree to some “free” 3D Printed Decorations
Christmas is coming and with it comes the fun of decorating your Christmas tree at home. Yes… it’s that time of the year where you take the decoration box out of the closet to dress your tree. But aren’t you tired of always seeing the same kind of decoration hanging on your tree year after year? Wouldn’t it be great if you could give it some designer’s touch? Make it feel pretty and special for this year? I can see your tree nodding and smiling already, so we’ve decided to give you the opportunity to treat it to some exclusive 3D printed designs.
For this Christmas, we have a collection of 3D printed decorations available for you in our online gallery. Better yet, we are giving a Christmas item out of our collection for free with each order at a value of 50 euro and above (shipping and VAT costs NOT included) that you place with us. And as with all collections, people often want to complete the set, so we’ve also made our entire collection available through our online gallery and at
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.
Got inspir
Brave New World with Stephen Hawking featuring Materialise
We are proud to announce that our mother company Materialise will be featured in an upcoming episode of ‘Brave New World with Stephen Hawking’, a Channel 4 documentary series during which “Professor Stephen Hawking examines how science is striving for humankind”s next leap forward”. So, for those of you who are living in the UK, be sure to set your DVRs because you will not want to miss a minute of this show. The episode will air on Monday the 31st of October at 8pm on Channel 4. Although airing on Halloween, we promise you that the only thing scary about the show is how much further technology has come than many expect.
Filming took place at Materialise’s Belgian Headquarters earlier in the year and we are excited to finally see the result of what proved to be an exciting day of shooting. Materialise is being featured in the third episode of the series entitled: Technology. It will be designer Max Lamb who will guide viewers through the world of 3D printing and who will give y
Looking back at the 3D Printing Event in Eindhoven
Yesterday I visited the one-day 3D Printing Event that ran as part of the Dutch Design Week (22-30 Oct) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. I was there to catch a glimpse of what others were doing with 3D printing and how it was being used by the public at home.
The event attracted companies like Ultimaker, A1 Technologies and Origo amongst many others to showcase their latest ideas and products to the public. 3D printing at home was set as the main theme of the event and the adequate printing machines were there to showcase their quality and possibilities.
Clearly present was the Dutch based company Ultimaker who managed to impress with their fast and qualitative kit 3D printers. They are great contributors to the spreading of 3D printing at home in which they might help to stimulate that much-needed price drop that thousands of hungry home designers are waiting for. Whatever your opinion on the price of an affordable 3D printer may be, one thing is sure… they are definitely a compan
Tips & Tricks for working with Polyamide
Polyamide is one of the most popular materials amongst our designers due to its creative flexibility. It gives them the creative freedom they often seek at an affordable price. We already provide basic information about this material on our website but because we love our designers, we decided to share the four most useful tips from our past experiences.
Tip 1: How to hollow out your designs
Even though it isn’t a requirement to hollow out your 3D prints, it is often advised in many cases. This can be useful to avoid deformations and discolorations during the printing process. There are two options you can follow… You can either keep the polyamide powder inside the hollow structure or you can design a strategically placed hole (two is even better) for the powder to escape once your work is 3D printed.
Also don’t forget that Polyamide isn’t really made for designing big flat plains the size of an A4 page because the chance of deformation is quite big. Even if you hollow out
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
Belgian Radio 1 show “Peeters & Pichal” organizes a new design challenge with i.materialise
You know that feeling in the mornings when you’re still in between worlds with a coffee in hand while getting ready to start your day? Computer is ready, radio is on, you sit down and once again you can’t find a single spot on your work invested desk for that coffee mug! Don’t you just wish that there was some way to extend your desk and create some extra space for that mug? Well if you live in Belgium and listen to the Peeters & Pichal show on Radio 1, keep on reading cuss here’s your opportunity to solve such a problem!
Many people often have great ideas to solve simple issues like the one above, but it doesn’t often happen that they can turn them into reality. This is where we come in and provide the listeners of the Peeters & Pichal show the opportunity of a lifetime.
An example for the challenge
The objective is simple… create an awesome 3D design that makes your life a bit easier, submit it between the 18th of October and the 1st of November and whoever brings in the be
WIRED 2011 through the eyes of our buddy Sid
As I write this, our dear colleague Sid is having the time of his life at the WIRED 2011 Conference in London. It’s a two-day conference that celebrates ideas, innovations and the people reshaping our world. Therefore it’s no surprise that Materialise would feel quite at home at such an event. As excited as Sid was, he decided to give us a quick glimpse into what WIRED 2011 has to offer.
A little message from our colleague Sid:
“I just moved a ball hovering in mid-air … With my MIND! Now how cool is that? It is a technology based on using brainwaves to enhance the interactions with our environment. The thing is… this is just one out the many mind-blowing topics that I”m exposed to here at Wired 2011. From nanotechnology to talking robots to Scandinavian skiing slopes on top of a waste factory … As crazy as you can imagine it, here you meet people that actually do these things.”
“And 3D printing…? People here love it. The Materialise Bloom lamp (designed by Patrick J
The power of 3D printing at the push of a button in Google SketchUp
Google SketchUp is used by thousands of people around the world to create and share wonderful 3D designs, so it comes as no surprise that i.materialise introduced a 3D printing plugin to provide you with that extra level of awesomeness. Not only can you translate your creative ideas into virtual 3D models, but you can now actually get them 3D printed at i.materialise by simply clicking a button within the program! That’s 3D printing made easy for you.
But as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words so we’ve decided to swamp you with them in the following video.
Try the plugin here!
