The Economist on 3D printing: Print me a Stradivarius
My favorite news source is The Economist. I have a moment of pure zen happiness when I read the magazine cover to cover every week. The next Economist will feature 3D printing. The cover of the February 12th to 18th edition of the magazine features a violin 3D printed by EOS using the EOS SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) technology. Its one of the first cover stories on 3D printing, it will not be the last.
The Economist has an audio preview of their piece on 3D printing here.
The Babbage article Print me a Stradivarius is here.
Another article The Printed World is here.
Via Nicolas De Bock image is via here.
Unfold”s L”artisan Electronique A virtual pottery wheel
I love Unfold. The Belgian design duo are fun & good designers that have a string of interesting projects under their belt. Last year they unveiled their L”Artisal Electronique. This is a virtual potterywheel that you can use. The resulting designs can then be 3D printed on Unfold”s ceramic 3D printers. The duo developed made their own ceramic 3D printing process using RapMan 3D printers. I think its an amazing project and wanted to share with you a video I just saw of their virtual pottery wheel in action. Its months old, eons in 3D printing time, but I really enjoyed watching it and would not want you to miss out. Also, when is someone going to put one of these in every mall?
Designguide.tv interview from Unfold on Vimeo.
Via Gert Kruitbosch.
Titanium 3D printing to be used on the Joint Strike Fighter
Sigma Labs inc. a company made up of Los Alamos researchers has just recieved a grant from the US Air Force Materials Research Laboratory to create a monitoring and control system for 3D printing titanium. Monitoring and control might seem boring but making 3D printing more precise, efficient and repeatable is exactly the kind of thing the technology needs in order to be used in actual manufacturing.
The system is to be used for the Joint Strike Fighter and will acording to CEO Richard Mah “create a quality-assured manufacturing process which will improve titanium”s utilization ratio by a factor of 5 or more, thereby saving millions of dollars in materials costs per aircraft – for military and civilian aircraft alike.” Â
So, this is no fanciful dream “oh won”t it be wonderful once everyone uses 3D printing to make tea cups.” This is a business decision to use 3D printing to save costs on what is one of the biggest US military procurement projects ever undertaken. O
3D printed robot snake
It turns out you can make some pretty amazing things with Objet. In addition to the 3D printed flute and a coffee cup and scissors you can also 3D print a robotic snake. The YouTube video had 14 views when we found it! The robotic snake was made by Objet distributor Tri Tech, in the UK. So far we assume that only the outer shell of the snake is 3D printed but we”re trying to find out more for you!
UPDATE: We”ve magically discovered another video going more into detail about using polyjet 3D printing to create the snake and “real world testing of biorobotics.” We”ve added it below. 3 YouTube views, incredible! People, there is more to the world than just cats.
Inside the .MGX Flagship Store: the world”s first shop for 3D printed goods
As you probably already know .MGX opened the world”s first physical store for 3D printed goods only weeks ago. They”ve just redone the entire interior for this season. We think it is beautiful and would like to congratulate our colleagues at .MGX on their sucessful store for 3D prints. We would also like to show you the first images of the new interior. Besides featuring the work of many other noted designers this season the .MGX showroom has a special focus on the work of designer Peter Jansen.
In the window above you can see the Tulip.MGX lamps at the bottom by Peter Jansen. These lamps are designed with mathematical formulas used in Chaos theory. The large lamp hanging from the ceiling is one of the Minishakes.MGX family by Arik Levy. The Minishakes work is based on an earlier work titled Handshake that currently resides in the Centre Pompidou.
The sculpture in the centre is titled Runner by Peter Jansen. This is the only work in the showroom that is not curren
Objet 3D prints a skateboard deck, faucet, coffee cup & scissors
Objet, the Israeli 3D printer manufacturer announced a few months ago that it was coming out with a number of new materials. I was just tipped of this video where they show some of the applications of their new stronger ABS-like materials. In the video they show you how they”ve 3D printed scissors and a skateboard deck with Objet machines and materials. Objet”s polyjet process has traditionally had a high level of detail but the parts have not been strong and have had low heat resistance. These new materials are a great improvement and you can watch the video below.Â
The video is 8 minutes long. You can skip directly to a nice transparent piece here, the skateboard deck here (they only talk about the deck, the rest seems not to be 3D printed), they also have a multimaterial piece that is printed in rubberlike and other material on the same printer, you can see a faucet or tap they made here and here you can see 3D printed scissors. The working coffee cup is here but i
This week in 3D printing: 29th of January – 4th of February 2011
January 30th. 3DTin is on Makezine. 3DTin is basically “lego like” 3D modeling tool in the browser whose designs can be exported for 3D printing. Also, if you”ve heard of Minecraft you should take to this. By limiting us to making things in blocks 3DTin does limit what we can make with the tool. But, because of this limitation we are able to create things. 3DTin and its brethrenwill be very sucessful. How do I know? Because the Makerbot put out this lengthy and wonderful article out and a a few days later had a follow up with more tips.  I”ll show you some test 3D prints of 3DTin things as soon as I get to it.
Feb. 2nd. Iris van Herpen”s 3D printed fashion collection is featured on FastCo and many news and fashion blogs worldwide.
Feb. 3rd. NeoMetrix to Display 3D Scanning & 3D Printing Solutions at MD&M Show in Orlando, FL. If that sounds like a press release it is because it is. I quote, “a  great opportunity to introduce the benefits of 3D scanning and
The 6 Geekiest 3D Prints Ever
At Materialise we’re an unabashedly geeky company. We have more engineers than non-engineers and you’re more likely to run into a medical researcher, PhD, cryptographer, software devloper or a structural engineer than a marketing person during lunch (last time I checked we had 6 marketing people out of a 1000 employees). So when Materialise employees use i.materialise we exepct some geeky 3D prints. We combed through them all and came up with what we believe to be the 6 geekiest 3D prints of all time.
6. The Sinusoid Lamp. by Volodymr Chabanenko (a copy is currently serving as my desk lamp at the office!). “I suppose that a figure generated by mathematical equations looks better than something I would be able to design myself. I am just better at mathematics than at 3d modeling. I spent a few days using wxMaxima to look for the set of equations. I finally found that an ordinary sinusoid being stranded to a cylindrical shape looks pretty good.”
5. The Greeble Effect by Urs
Colleen Jordan”s Wearable Planter necklaces, wear a plant wherever you go
Colleen Jordan has made some lovely Wearable Planter necklaces. The necklaces are 3D printed and then finished by hand. A small plant or cutting is then added and you can have your very own portable garden to take with you wherever you go. Colleen sells her necklaces on Etsy. They are $55 and you can add $15 for international shipping and $5 for shipping in the US.
One designer with a great idea using 3D printing and a sales platform like Etsy to create a beautiful thing and sell it worldwide. It is a great idea and you should think about doing that too. Â
via Greenmuze.
Iris van Herpen’s new 3D printed Escapism couture collection for .MGX
Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen has just shown her Escapism couture collection during the haute couture week in Paris Spring Summer 2011. This is her second 3D printed fashion collection after Spring/Summer”s Crystallization. The collection is a collaboration between Iris van Herpen and architect Daniel Wildrig with our label .MGX by Materialise. The hats are designed and made by Stephen Jones. The shoes were made by Rem Koolhaas” United Nude. “Escapism is about the addiction of constantly escaping reality by digital entertainment, something that nowadays is a big part of everyone’s world.” We loved that our company could be a part of creating something so beautiful and feel that the collection is stunning.
Luckily, we’re not the only ones. The collection was very well recieved with fashion critic Philippe Pourhashemi saying of it, “I got emotional watching her show and felt transported to a different world. Her women looked like beautiful insects or seductive crea
