A 3D printed world needs a Birth Certificate for Ideas
On the eve of the first DMCA takedown notice in 3D printing, my post has become quite topical.
In a 3D printed world we will be able to make and reverse engineer anything. Any form can be copied, either through 3D modeling or scanning. It will take us a while to reach a time where “everything” can be copied but this time will come. Upheaval has already occurred in the movie and music industry but this will only expand as books and then all things are dragged kicking and screaming into the digital domain. If we look around the intellectual property landscape we can at a glance instantly comprehend that we are, legally, entirely unprepared for such a world. In this (yes, entirely too lengthy) article I’ll try to give an overview of the issues plaguing intellectual property today, then discuss some solutions and subsequently discuss some relevant examples of modern forms of IP protection that seem to point to answers for us all. This is not some obscure lawyerly discussion. I might no
Who invented the Penrose triangle?
A few days ago Ulrich Schwanitz claimed to have 3D printed a Penrose triangle, hereto thought to be impossible. The news appeared on FastCoDesign. Ulrich did not want to disclose his secret and wanted to let people guess. Designer Artur Tchoukanov saw the post and managed to come up with a solution. He explained this through renderings and shared the solution on Thingiverse. Then Boing Boing posted about the solution. So who invented the 3D printed Penrose triangle? Was it Artur or Ulrich?
Ulrich was first, of this there can be no doubt. But, he did not disclose his solution. Artur did. If we make a paralell to Intellectual Property law and Ulrich claimed to have invented something but Artur disclosed it in a patent application, then Artur would be the inventor. Even if Ulrich could claim that there was prior art. This might lead to Artur not getting a patent but it would not lead to Ulrich getting it. Ulrich decided to keep his invention a trade secret. The risk you run when yo
Naim Josefi”s Melonia shoe nominated for a Brit Insurance Design Award
Naim Josefi”s 3D printed Melonia shoe has been nominated for a Brit Insurance Design Award. This is one of the most prestigious awards in design and we are proud that this shoe was made by our company. We interviewed designer Naim Josefi to discover how the Melonia was made.
Why did you make your Melonia shoes? I designed the melonia shoe to show my view of the future, a better,made to measure, easier and more sustainable design with a touch of love.Â
With whom did you collaborate with on the project? I worked with Souzan Yusouf, studying at Konstfack University of art and craft , to become an Industrial designer.
How did you make them? I left my design sketch of the melonia shoe to Souzan, which she formed in the 3-d modelling software Rhino.Â
Are they currently for sale? Yes they are for sale, but I will when time is given produce the melonia shoe for stores.Â
Are they comfortable? They are relatively comfortable, but they are not made for a stroll in t
Impossible 3D printed Penrose Triangle: solved?
Artur Tchoukanov, the dsigner of the new 3D printed paperclip the Infinite Clip, loves topology and design. This is why he became intrigued by yesterday’s blog post about Ulrich Schwanitz’s impossible penrose triangle on FastCoDesign. Mr. Schwanitz would have seemed to 3D print a triangle that would seem to be mathematically impossible to make. Artur thinks he”s solved Mr. Schwanitz’s riddle on how the Penrose Triangle was made. He has put his solution on Thingiverse here to share it with others. As to how Artur came up with his solution? “The first clue was that the top face was in shadow (darker)… that let me to believe that it was a concave surface. Then I figured that they all need to be connected.” Artur then designed his solution using Rhino. So we’re curious to see if Artur did solve it? Or is there another solution?
P.s, this is not some 3D printing service pissing contest. Its rather more of a topology/geek riddle thing. Fun game though.
Cloning the RepRap Prusa in under 30 minutes
The grounbreaking research/hacking team at The University of Washington’s Solheim lab have begun cloning RepRaps. The RepRap project is a project that aims to make an open source self-replicating 3D printer. If sucessful this would make 3D printers available for the cost of the materials alone. At the Solheim Lab the Open3DP project is undertaking lots of research to support open 3D printing innitiatives. They have just now annouced that they can produce all the plastic parts for the Prusa Mendel in 30 minutes using molding. They call the resulting Prusa clones Clonedels. They represents a significant cost and time saving for producing the Prusa and should help put 3D printers into the hands of more people.
The Prusa Mendel is the simlpest 3D printer in RepRap’s line up. Open3DP’s RepRap breeding program set itself a goal of producing ten Mendels in ten weeks. The team redesigned the parts to they could be used for silicon RTV molding. They then 3D printed the parts and pr
3D printing Rodin’s Thinker
Rodin’s Thinker is quite possibly the world”s most famous sculptures. In 2007 the Singer Laren museum was burgalarized and 7 statues were stolen. One of them was a Rodin’s Thinker. The men did not want to sell the statues but rather wanted to destroy them and sell them for scrap metal. 6 statues were destroyed but a badly damaged Thinker was recovered. The statue, with an estimated value of between 3 and $10,000,000 had been hacked in to by the men as the tried to take it apart so they could melt it down. Over these past years the team at Singer Laren have repaired the statue.
Two images below are of the broken Thinker.
The Thinker has a headache.
3D scans were taken of the damaged Thinker and of the original mold kept by the Musee Rodin in Paris and they were compared. Then Materialise was asked to 3D print the Thinker. We 3D printed the statue on one of our Materialise Mammoth machines, the largest 3D printers in the world. A mold was made of the 3D prin
Cats don”t care about Net Neutrality, do you?
Cats don”t care about Net Neutrality, do you?
Currently all the information on the internet is treated equally. The bytes from Mary”s My Little Pony fan site are as important as the bytes from the websites of large corporations. Some sites might load quicker because they have better hosting but all the information enters your home at the same speed. The principle of Net Netraility means that Internet Service Providers can not discriminate between types of content they are giving you internet access to and at what speed they give you acess to that content. You simply pay them a monthly fee and you get all the internet has to offer. All at the same speed. This gives all websites equal opportunity to get the word out and provides for the beautiful chaos made by millions of voices that is the internet today.
In only two days on the 16th the US congress will hold a hearing on Net Neutrality. Currently it seems that congress might repeal Net Neutrality laws and even pro
i.materialised a fruit bowl
Mille et une fruits by Mika De Bruijn
I”m fascinated by graphic patterns and geometrical patterns in particular. Also, I was looking for a new item in my interior that could match both the modern style of my furniture and the souvenirs I gathered during my travels to North Africa and the Middle East.
Inspired by the “Honeycomb” fruit bowl in the .MGX collection, I designed my own version in Rhinoceros, incorporating the previously mentioned elements. Since a free form shape like this one is practically impossible to manufacture using conventional techniques, it was great to be able to print it through i.materialise.
-Mika De Bruijn
The Mille et une fruits bowl was 3D printed in polyamide on an Selective Laser Sintering system.
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February 5th to 11th 2011: This week in 3D printing
Tuesday 8th of February. This press release tells us a tale of an engineer using a Bits From Bytes RapMan to 3D print a scale model. This is interesting because a lot of people now consider “kit 3D printers” such as the RepRap, RapMan and Makerbot to be consumer 3D printers. Desktop 3D printers such as the Objet24 & UPrint on the other hand are considered to be for businesses. Where will the two markets meet?
Wednesday 9th of February. Public Knowledge and Michael Weinberg continue their victory lap around the internet with their Catan Story.
Friday 11th of February. Fabbaloo informs us that the Mcor paper 3D printer is spreading out its wings over Europe.Â
Friday 11th of February. This week 1.6 million readers of The Economist are confronted with a cover story about 3D printing. The articles inside mention Stratasys and EOS and the subtitle on the homepage is a rather positive, “The manufacturing technology that will change the world.” This is a huge step forward. And
3D printing a supercar, the Citroën GT
One of the best selling and most exciting racing games out there is Gran Turismo 5. And one of the most remarkable cars in that racing game has to be the GT by Citroën. In 2008, Citroën, Polyphony (the makers of the game) and Materialise joined forces and the virtual racecar was turned into a real fully-functional car. Later that year, the five-meter long concept car made its global premiere at the Paris Motor Show. We do a lot of 3D printing work on concept cars but are sadly almost never allowed to talk about it. Luckily, this time, we’ve been given permission to show you how 3D printing was used to create a large portion of this supercar.
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