3D printing vs Mass production Part I: The Power of Unique
Many people have been talking lately of 3D printing versus Mass Production. The implication is that localized individualized production will supplant the current manufacturing paradigm with a third industrial revolution. We will all become manufacturers and make exactly what we want using 3D printing. Although I applaud such optimism and would postulate that 3D printing will bring about a third industrial revolution I don”t think it is “going to go down” in that way. Instead, I think 3D printing will develop in a more concentrated manner and focus on Bleeding edge consumers and 1% of all goods. 3D printing will not be used by “everyone to make anything” but rather be used by some to make the things they care about most. Furthermore, I believe that through this path 3D printing will come to slow down mass production and ameliorate the heavy burden that mass manufacturing is exacting on our planet. This is the first part of 5 blog posts detailing how I believe this process will unfold
RapidFit+ using 3D printing to check mass produced parts
One of the things I completly did not understand before I came to work here was Rapid Fit+. Rapid Fit+ is a Materialise busines unit that sells fixtures that test mass produced parts. I simply had no idea that a market for this existed and that you could increase the accuracy of 3D printed parts to such a degree that you could measure mass produced things. I sat down with Jo Massoels the Business Director of RapidFit+ to understand what it is they do and how it works.
In the automotive world you have the OEM”s and Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers. An OEM is an Original Equipment Manufacturer, the car brand that sells the car such as BMW or Bentley (all Rapid Fit+ customers). A Tier 1 supplier is a company such as Rieter, Magna, Plastal  that sell directly to the OEMs (these are also Rapid Fit+ customers). Rieter for example is a company that might make all the fabric and textile parts in your car. Faurecia supplies entire plastic and seating systems. Magna supplies many things i
i.materialise at TEDxKids 3D printing for ten year olds
On June 1st i.materialise participated at TedxKids Brussels. This event brought together people as diverse as Walter Bender (of Sugar Labs), Maarten Lens Fitzgerald (the Founder of Layar), Mark Frauenfelder (Editor of Make Magazine and Boing Boing), Mark Surman (of the Mozilla Foudation), Gever Tully (of the impecably awesome Tinkering School), the great team of Technology Will Save Us and more inspiring and wonderful people. Also in the mix were Franky and I on behalf of i.materialise. One part of the day was to give a TED style presentation to a group of 450 adults. Â
The “TED style presentation” was daunting enough. I mean you”re standing on the same red dot as that mind blowing guy with the windmills. At the same time it does not help that all the other speakers have clearly done this kind of thing before and that everything is being recorded and simulcast. All I wanted was one crappy speaker so that I”d look good. Alas, the presentations were all informative
3D printing for model makers
3D printing is not competing in any way with traditional model making. Instead it is adding something new and exciting to the range of tools model makers are using. What if you were working on a scale model and needed a complex part and time was valuable? You’d simple have it 3D printed and integrate it with the existing model. Here are 2 examples of how model makers turned to 3D printing (and i.materialise) to make it happen.
Turnova
Turnova is an urban development project going on in the Belgian city of Turnhout. Professional model maker Piet Vanherle was commissioned to create a large scale model for Turnova. One of the eye catchers in the whole project is a ‘stoa’ (colonnade) that connects the northern and southern part of the project. Looking at the size and the complexity of this remarkable piece, the model maker turned to 3D printing. According to Piet Vanherle, finalizing this piece was tough, but the result turned out gorgeous. On demand of his customer, he spray painted the
Columbia GSAPP”s 3D printed Saturated Models Seminar
Alistair Gill & Veronika Schmid presided over the Saturated Models Seminar at Columbia”s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. As part of this course 8 groups of students explored 3D printing. We were very happy to support this innovative project as i.materialise. In the words of the instructors:
 ‘Saturated Models’ interrogates the question of the ‘model’ in architecture. This is not simply an exposition of the ‘model’ in the history of architecture. It starts rather from an understanding and unpacking of a seeming obviousness of the ‘model’ in architecture, as if it comes naturally with the territory. The fine balance between a preciousness attached to a need to create objects, and a simple dismissal of such desires, was the terrain where the experimentation took place. A certain idea of ‘saturation’ enables this questioning of the multitude of uses of ‘model’ in architecture, whether that be as Idea, the sensory, idealizations, the basis of simulations or
Fried wins RTAM/SME Industry Achievement Award
We”re very proud to announce that Materialise CEO Fried Vancrean has just been awarded the Rapid Technologies & Additive Manufacturing/Society of Manufacturing Engineers Industry  Achievement award. We”re pleased that it not only recognizes Frieds pioneering work at Materialise over the past 20 years but also his work for the entire industry. We”re also pleased that as well as Fried”s involvement with i.materialise was one of the specific reasons he was commended.  This is amazing considering “Fried also pioneered several major applications in the AM sector including stereolithographic medical models, colored stereolithographic medical models, perforated support structures, RapidFit Fixtures, surgical guides for oral and orthopaedic surgeons, and automated hearing aid design” as well as work in 3D printing software.
Above is one of the very first articles about Fried Vancraen after starting Materialise, it appeared in the October 1990 “Industrie, Magazine voor Pr
i.materialise at ICFF
Our Business Development Manager Martijn Joris teamed up with .MGX”s Joris Debo to create a i.materialise presence at ICFF. Peeved at not being invited to what would have been a  Joris, Joris & Joris event I”ve been trying to ignore their efforts.
Martijn”s impressions of ICFF is that it got very busy especially during the weekend. We met a lot of designers working on very interesting projects. The big draw at our stand were the Columbia designs. These designs were coursework for ‘Saturated Models’ Seminar GSAPP, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University. This class lead by Alistair Gill & Veronika Schmid made some excited and groundbreaking 3D printed work. We provided the Saturated Models class with free 3D printing of their designs. You can see the models in the images but I”ll show you each design individually in the weeks to come.
People were also very interested in Alexander Pelikan”s Machine”s Perception door handles
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
Design your own 3D printed Stainless Steel Door handles
At i.materialise we”re all about providing people with high end, complete 3D printed products. Our 3D printed Stainless Steel door handles kit is our newest example of this. Inspired by PeLi Design”s Machine”s Perception door handles we made a kit and manual for you so you can make your very own door handles. The stainless steel 3D printed door handles come complete and one set costs $299 (199 Euro) including shipping. A designer can download the design  kit for Sketchup, 3DS Max, Rhino and OBJ. Together with the manual a proficient designer, 3D modeler or CAD engineer will have the information they need to make their very own. The door handle page, kit and manual is here. Â
We hope people will use this to make their homes more to their liking. At the same time we expect some designers to enter into the world of fixtures and compete directly with established manufacturers by offering their door handles for sale. Are you not a designer? No problem. Use our Sketch to 3DÂ 3D mod
i.materialise Etsy & Facebook shops (copy paste our strategy here)
A question we get often is, “why don”t you have a gallery of designs for sale on i.materialise?” Even though we do incidentally sell some designer”s designs on i.materialise we don”t really believe in having our own gallery. Even though being a destination site makes one more of a platform and is a way to get to more revenue quicker we believe that in the long run its better for designers to sell their designs on their own websites. We might not believe this for ever but we currently believe that in this crowded, info full world, you should grab every lumen of attention given you and convert this into sales. We like the idea of being able to showcase high quality work but don”t feel like in the long run you can guarantee the legitimacy and quality of the work in a gallery. At the same time if you should at one point become popular or produce high quality work we want you to be the center of attention. This will lead to higher conversion rates and more attention and revenue for
