A Moore’s Law for 3D printing
Moore’s Law (transistors per chip) and Hendy’s Law (pixels per dollar) have been useful predictors of where processing power and digital photography were going. Tech thinker and write Johnny Ryan believes something similar would be really useful for 3D printing. He already tried to plot a law for the quality of print per dollar of 3D printers for an article he has been working on for the McKinsey Quarterly, but he doesn’t have the data. So he needs your help to gather it. What he wants, is to plot something along these lines: quality (lower microns etc. + multi-materials) improves at the same cost every X months/years. Plotting this would help people plan for, and benefit from, the disruption of 3D printing.
3D printing will create massive opportunities. But it will also disrupt many businesses. According to Dr. Ryan, we need to be able to plan properly for it to get the best out of this transition. A Google spreadsheet has been set up where anybody can contribute data points to
Columbia GSAPP Saturated Models 3D printed: Liquid Joint
Alistair Gill and Veronika Schmid held a Saturated Models seminar at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. During the seminar the Master’s students explored 3D printing and created 3D printed objects. i.materialise made the resulting 3D prints. This is the fifth interview with a team of participating architecture students, Molly Calvani and Michi Ushio, and their project: Liquid Joint.
1. Who are you?
Molly Calvani + Michi Ushio, classmates at Columbia University. Master of Architecture 2011.
2. What is Liquid Joint?
… Good question. Originally it was the goal to create a multi-directional, rolling joint that when assembled as a whole, could make up a system that seemed fluid, or liquid. Through different iterations and ultimately trying to realize a solid version of ”liquid” we arrived at something that perhaps begins to describe a model of an architectural discourse on the fluid and organic verses rigid and mechanic.
3. Why did
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.
Trial for Prime Gray ending
Mid June we introduced a new 3D printing material on i.materialise, Prime Gray, as a trial for 1 month. Because we received a lot of positive feedback on the material, we extended the trial period with one extra month.
This means that next Tuesday the 16th of August, Prime Gray will be removed from the material options in the 3D print lab. We will then evaluate the past 2 months the material was offered and decide whether or not to introduce it as a definitive material. We will take our time to do so, which means somewhere between 2 or 4 weeks. So, if you really like it a lot, you can still place Prime Gray orders before next Tuesday.
Just to refresh your memory: Prime Gray is a highly detailed stereolithography material, shiny and classy looking for design and art pieces and as well as for characters. More information about the material will still be available here . Have you ordered Prime Gray models? What did and what didn’t you like about it? Let us know, we highly appreciat
Columbia GSAPP Saturated Models 3D printed: Postcard
Alistair Gill and Veronika Schmid held a Saturated Models seminar at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. During the seminar the Master’s students explored 3D printing and created 3D printed objects. i.materialise made the resulting 3D prints. This is the fourth interview with a team of participating architecture students, Sarah Carpenter and Dalia Hamati and their project, ‘Postcard’.
1. Who are you?
We are a pair of architects hailing from Lebanon and the United States. We met at GSAPP and we have a weekly TV watching date. Our future plans may or may not include designing a truck that sells Lebanese street food.
2. What is Postcard?
Postcard is an inquiry into the developing process of 3D printing, and more specifically, into investigating the role of the designer in this process. At the outset the infinite possibilities of 3D printing technology left us scrambling for constraints. Where the designer would have previously used the na
Google 3D Warehouse + silver at i.materialise + 3D printing = one incredible retro ring
Armed with a simple 3D model of a ring and with access to a wealth of objects through Google SketchUp’s 3D warehouse, Materialise’s own Bert De Niel started playing around on the computer one day. The result was a entire range of ring designs with everything from a little buddha, to an aligator, to the great retro cassette you see below, and all ready to be 3D printed if desired. Some of the rings I would be happy to wear as they were and others I would want to change a bit first.
Although not all the designs were exactly to my liking, that is the beauty of 3D printing…the person wearing the ring can have exactly what they want, perfectly adapted to their own personal style. Moreover, thanks to the extensive range of objects already available through the 3D warehouse, not that much effort is needed to come up with something great. You just have to choose the design you like, adapt as needed, and voila, you have the ring (or bracelet, or pendant, etc) that you want!
Knowing Bert a
3D printing from 3DTin
For those of you who haven’t heard of 3DTin (yet), let me quickly explain what it is. 3DTin is the world’s first 3D modeling tool that runs in a browser. The man behind 3DTin is Jayesh Salvi, a software engineer currently based in Mumbai, India. 3DTin lets anyone make anything simply because it’s easy and intuitive to use. To try it out, type in 3Dtin.com in Firefox or Chrome and start 3D modeling… that”s all there is to it! Also, show it to your kids, let them play around with 3DTin. Just don”t be hurt when they catch on to it faster than you do.
…and here”s a robot I made a while ago
During the TEDxKids workshops we experienced firsthand that 10 year olds were creating 3D models within minutes. Jayesh made sure 3DTin worked like a charm during the workshops and he also implemented a great feature: One that exports your 3DTin models straight to i.materialise. From our side, we made sure the color information was saved during the STL export because almost all 3DTin users
Building a generative lamp through parametric design
Just as last year, i.materialise teamed up with the Catholic University of Leuven for a design challenge. First year Civil Engineering & Architecture students got a class assignment to use Java for building a generative table lamp through parametric design. The students were given 2 months to finish the assignment. The best design would be chosen to be 3D printed.
Since we couldn”t choose between 2 of them, we decided to print out both.
The first one we really liked was the Cube lamp by Pierre-Henri Sourbrier and Bram Vandaele.
The second one was the Letters lamp by Annelies Belemans and Anja Billion.
So, which one do you prefer?
A Very Special 3D Printed Wedding Ring
There are few objects in life more valuable or emotionally meaningful than a wedding ring. Imagine then, how amazing it would be to be able to design the perfect wedding ring for someone you love! Thanks to some help from i.materialise, Ann Marie Shillito did just that by designing a gorgeous titanium wedding ring for her daughter Keri. And, here is her story:
When ‘things’ come together, perfectly timed, the outcome can be so gratifyingly fantastic.
How wonderful then that I have been able to give my elder daughter a most precious gift, one that is a culmination of my knowledge and making skills, and is her wedding ring. ‘Things’ came together perfectly timed to enable this to happen.
This all began at the end of December 2010 when Rob proposed to Kari, my daughter, and she wanted a specific engagement ring, similar to one I had designed and made a number of years’ ago. This original engagement ring was in titanium, machined and then hand carved to flow around an oval diamond
Columbia GSAPP Saturated Models 3D printed: Soft Surface
Alistair Gill and Veronika Schmid held a Saturated Models seminar at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. During the seminar the Master’s students explored 3D printing and created 3D printed objects. i.materialise made the resulting 3D prints. This is the third interview with a team of participating architecture students, Jung Woo Yeo and Wonshok Lee, and their project Soft Surface. The first two interviews can be found here and here.
1. Who are you? We are passionate architectural designers who just completed a Master of Architecture program at Columbia University in the city of New York.
2. What is Soft Surface? Soft Surface is an undefined object which is composed of two basic modules that together are repeated to create a network of nylon frames. The object changes its state from rigid to semi-rigid to flexible by controlling the relationship between frames even though each frame is stiff. This object is also made flexible in shape and s
