Opening the Pandora’s Box that is 3D Printing
Its great to see that the world is catching on the the potential of 3D printing. It is a transformational technology that will speed up innovation & democratize technology. It has the potential to make almost every single product in our world better either by speeding up product & development or by producing things that fit tasks better. You will be able to make what you want exactly as you want it to be. We will be able to personalize, customize and design our world. Implants, medical instruments and replacement parts of our bodies will be created.
Products will be improved literally, continually, globally by loose networks of people collaborating at speeds we can scarcely imagine. By combining the connectivity of the internet and its creative force with decentralized production the variety of things optimized for a certain task will explode. Every niche will be filled, layer by layer. Not only will innovation be democratized it will be near instantaneous. As soon as an idea ha
Improvements to customer service and feedback
Hi all I”m Karen,
I”m in charge of making sure that we help you in any way we can in getting your idea 3D printed. Together with the launch of the new website we have also improved our support pages. We hope that this lets us capture more feedback, ideas and suggestions from you and that we can translate this into better service. Our aim is to give you the best customer service possible while making it easier and easier for you to 3D print.
 We also want to share knowledge so you can post your questions, idea, problem,…here using Get Satisfaction.
Off course we understand that in sometimes you want personal advice in this case, you can ask it privately using Get Satisfaction or email us. If you have a question about a file or would like our help in fixing files you can email contact (at) i.materialise.com. In most cases we can fix your files and get them ready to 3D print. Do first try to upload your file though our algorithms can fix a lot automatically!
We w
Fluid Forms & i.materialise partnership announced
We”re pleased to announce our partnership with Fluid Forms. Fluid Forms is an Austrian team of designers that have been working on creative design tools since 2005. Their tools are fun ways that let you customize and individualize your own designs. Using Fluid Forms you can for example virtually box your own lamp design or get your own personalized wall clock based on an overhead view of streets of your choice.
We”re very happy to be able to work with such an experienced design team. Fluid Forms makes personalization not only easy but also fun. With their creative and enganging online tools and our 3D printing expertise we hope to be able to offer you many great personalized products in the future. For us this is yet another important step in seeking out the best design talent we can and working with them to help them create and promote their work.
We will be handling the production of three great Fluid Forms designs the Silver Earth Cufflinks, the Silver Earth Pin and t
This week in 3D printing: March 5th to March 11th
March 7th. EADS” Innovation Center 3D prints a bicycle in SLS and gets to show it on the BBC.
March 8th. TCT Magazine takes exception at much of the mainstream media”s coverage of 3D printing.
March 10th. Shapeways reintroduces Silver, Bruce Sterling promptly reproduces the entire press release on his blog.
March 11th. The Open3DP lab 3D prints in bone.
March 11th. Investor blog Seeking Alpha goes gaga over 3D printing.
3D printing in bone now possible
The insanely creative team over at Open3DP have amazed us yet again. Now they have been able to 3D print in bone. For a project with Juliana Meira do Valle and Michael Storey the team developed a way to create a bone mixture that can be 3D printed. The mixture consists of Powdered Bone Meal, Powdered Sugar, MaltoDextrin and urea formaldehyde resin is used as a binder. The team found out that you buy your very own food safe powdered bown meal at your local health or vitamin store, by far the most worrying thing I”ve learned today. The recipe should you want to 3D print your own bone at home:
Powdered Bone Meal — 4-5 parts by weight.
UF plastic resin glue  — 1 part by weight.
After five weeks of testing the team was sucessfully able to 3D print the bone 3D prints needed for the project. This is still an early test and by no means does this mean you can take your 3D printer with you on your next ski vacation, just in case. But, it is another piece of groundbreaking
PeliDesign”s Machine”s Perception doorhandles, 3D printed in steel
We”re proud that our collaboration with Alexander Pelikan of PeLiDesign has resulted in some beautiful doorhandles. A few years ago Peli (you can try call him Alexander but he prefers Peli) worked with TNO and Studio Ludens on his Machine”s Perception project. This project aimed to look at how machines percieve things and explored the limits and resolutions of 3D scans of a number of household objects, including doorhandles. Now Peli has turned his project into a line of doorhandles that he will present in Milan at the International Furniture Fair. Â
We think that the first of these doorhandles shows great promise. Not only is it an interesting design but it is also a sophisticated working 3D printed product. Not a just a concept, not just a fun model or a shape but something that people would and could have in their houses. Something that will replace boring doorhandles. We believe that there are people all over the world looking for more interesting, more engaging
Get your Xbox Avatar 3D printed on FigurePrints
Figure Prints has been letting World of Warcraft afficionados 3D print their WOW avatars since 2007. The company is now looking beyond the hardcore gamer and is letting anyone 3D print their Xbox Live Avatar.
Just enter your gamertag and up pops your avatar. You can then choose to pose your Avatar and order a 3D print of the mini-you for $49.95 excluding shipping. The resulting avatar will be around 5 inches in height and will arrive within a month. The Avatars are 3D printed in Zcorp and so will be in color. Acording to FigurePrints CEO Ed Fries, “We decided to print Xbox Live Avatars because there are more than 30 million members of the Xbox Live service and Microsoft believed in what we do and worked closely with us to make sure the launch was successful.” This is a fun 3D printed product for a wide market and we hope Figureprints puts a lot of these on your desks!
Open Source 3D printing goes psychadelic
Previously we spoke about the Open3dp project by the Solheim Lab of the University of Washington. One of the exciting things they are working on is in cloning the RepRap Prusa. The Prusa is the simplest 3D printer in the stable of the open source 3D printer RepRap Project. A team of students managed to create molds that let them mold most of the body of the 3D printer within half an hour, they called the result Clonedels. Now the team has been playing some more with the molding and the result is very psychadelic.
The Clonedel parts they made this time has molded in colors. And the team went for a crazy crazy color palette that turns the solid RepRaps into something that would have fit well into a 1970”s Haight-Ashbury or a 2005 That 70s Show.  The RepRaps look like Jackson Pollock went to town on them. This makes the RepRap positively the only 3D printer for the late Mr. Timothy Leary.
This week in 3D printing: February 26th – March 4th
Sunday, March 27th.  Karl Willis” turns the Xbox Kinect into scanner and 3D prints the results.
Tuesday March 1st. On an article concerning the Borders bancrupcy and the end of physical stores, “Â “McLaughlin continued. “But Kinkos may have an opportunity to reinvent itself over the next 10 years by embracing the burgeoning 3D printing market.”” Good quote!
Tuesday March 1st. Objet enters the dental business. “Using Objet 3D printing solutions, Remedent is able to create temporary clip-on veneers, also known as ”Try in Smile”, allowing patients to realistically evaluate how their final ceramic veneers will look and feel before the order is placed.”
Thursday March 3rd. Dr. Anthony Atala of Wake Forrest University 3D printed a kidney live on stage at TED. You”ve got to feel sorry for whomever presented after that.
Thursday March 3rd. Stratasys stock hits 52 week high.
Friday March 4th. A great interview with the team behind the Candy 3D printer at the MIT media l
The titanium 3D printed Persian pattern Gaia 1 ring by Da Capo
DaCapo is a boutique Irish firm of designer goldsmiths that designs bespoke jewelry pieces together with customers. They tailor each piece to the customer’s wishes and work in gold, platinum, palladium and titanium. And now they’re working in 3D printed titanium together with us!
According to goldsmith and i.materialise Community Member Sé O’Donoghue the team makes “engagement rings, wedding bands, corporate gifts” and has made everything from books, to DomoKuns, to wheelbarrows, to scale replicas of Spitfires and Messcherschmidts, to Maori tattoo cufflinks, to anything you can think of” since the year 2000.
The DaCapo Gaia 1 ring is named, “after one of the first of the Titans from greek mythology after which Martin Klaproth named titanium in 1791.” The special Persian inspired pattern on the ring is similar to the one Sé has used for his family’s personal line of jewlery. He, his wife and 3 children all have variations on their own family pattern. That was a nice idea I
