The Year of 2011 in 3D Printing: An Overview
As the year comes to an end, we often tend to reflect on the events that occurred within it and boy… was there lot to reflect on in 2011. If there is one thing that became obvious to us, it’s that 3D printing has come a long way since our reflections of last year. This year the 3D printing world was dominated by an impressive amount of 3D Systems acquisitions, a tremendous growth of new desktop 3D printers and a much larger media coverage than it had ever received before.
We went through hundreds of articles and news items on 3D printing and found it quite a challenge to scale down the amount of information. A very difficult and tight selection process was made which became our year in 3D printing of 2011. As we made this selection, we quickly realized that we couldn’t sum up this year’s 3D printing events without a much more detailed Dipity Timeline.
Click on the image to view the timeline
With that said, we hope that you enjoy having a look back in time as you take in the a
When Dreams are Materialised
Meet Ritik, an 11 year old young man with a creative heart and dreams of a 3D printed world. Our first encounter with Ritik was at TEDxKids in Brussels a year ago. It was on that day that Ritik made his first contact with 3D printing and it became quite clear that it was like love at first sight. After receiving an introduction, Ritik’s creative mind began to work overtime. “Could I print an iPod? Or what about a car?” he thought to himself. The answer to his question was eventually found in creating a pair of 3D printable glasses. With a fixed idea in mind, Ritik now started the design process in an easy to use software application called 3DTin.
Little did he know that his design would eventually make its way to the Antwerp based M HKA Museum where it would be exhibited to demonstrate what an 11 year old kid could do with this innovative technology.
But Ritik’s story doesn’t end there. After his first contact with his new passion, Ritik received the great news of his fat
How to Win the Spotlight in a Museum
In September we organized a unique design challenge with the Antwerp based museum of M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp). You could participate as a youngster or beginner, as an illustrative artist or as a 3D designer. With that said and the information out in the open, our brave challengers got their gloves on and got to it. After long hours of working on their designs, we received the entries from our participants ready for judging time! And so, together with a judging panel of the M HKA museum we came to a unified decision on the winners of this challenge.
With well-deserved congratulations, we present to you their works of art that will be on display at the M HKA from the 19th until the 29th of December.
For the category of Designers
For the category of Youngster & Beginners
For the category of Illustrative Artists
So there you have it ladies and gentlemen and as usual we’d like to thank all of the participants for their lovely entr
Using 3D Printing to Entertain your Ears
You’ve seen it with your own eyes, you’ve felt it in your hands, but have you heard what 3D printing is capable of?
For those of you who don’t know him already, let me introduce you to Erec: a man who creates wonderful 3D printed flutes in his spare time. He offers his custom made flutes for sale on his website Cutting Edge Flutes and also provides the service of making them food safe.
The following video will you show you one of his flutes that got printed at i.materialise in multicolor.
More of Erec”s work can be seen on his YouTube account and if you too would like to design something in multicolor, stay tuned cuss next week we”ll discuss the best tips and tricks of this great material.
The Winning Design of the Peeters & Pichal Challenge has been 3D Printed
We recently organized a Dutch design challenge with the Belgian Radio 1 Peeters & Pichal Show. The objective was to design an object that you would give away to someone close to you. In this case, the winning design was that of Dutch designer Ricardo de Koning: A Design for your Flowers as he called it, to be given as a gift to his mother. Today we’re proud to introduce the finished print of that winning design.
Once again, we would like to congratulate the winner and thank all participants for their entries. As mentioned in the past, there are always more design challenges on the horizon and that’s also true at this very moment with our “Hats off to 3D Printing Challenge”. So don’t hesitate to get creative once more and take another shot at the hall of 3D Print fame.
Who is….(y)our Support Engineer?
My name is Darya, I am 24 years old and I am a customer support engineer at i.materialise. Meaning, I’m one of those people who are e-mailing you every day saying that you are about to get your desired 3D printed models and I must admit that I’m more than excited to be one of them! I’ve been working for Materialise for almost 2 years and my way to get to i.materialise was more than unusual. I started my career as a part of the HR team at the Materialise Ukraine office. It was the very first time that I came in contact with 3D printing and it became an amazing discovery to me. I was impressed and proud to work in such a company and told everyone about King Tut’s replica made by Materialise. As soon as a vacancy for customer support engineer at i.materialise opened up, I jumped at it to become a part of the world of 3D printing and I did not miss it. Everyone was surprised with such an unusual shift from HR to support, but here I am!
There are several things that bring it clos
The Hats Off to 3D Printing Challenge
Do you have big dreams of seeing your hats or accessories hit the runway, gracing the heads of glamorous models? Or, do you love 3D printing and enjoy pitting your creative abilities against those of others? Either way, this is the competition for you! So, get on your thinking caps, because it is time to get creative!
You now have the chance to get your work exposed on a fashion runway at the Materialise World Conference of 2012 in Leuven. It’s the ultimate place where the top industry professionals from all over the world gather to celebrate the latest achievements in additive manufacturing. In the world of 3D printing, you couldn’t hope for better exposure than that!
The competition will be running from today until the 15th of February of 2012 with in the jury panel none other than the Master milliner himself, Elvis Pompilio. The winner will be announced on the 1st of March and will have a spot on the runway amongst the top 20 designs.
So if you are looking for some expo
Exhibiting Dutch artist Eric van Straaten
Some of you might already have seen his work in the past. While some of you might have seen his recent work on our flickr account. But for the lucky few amongst us, Eric van Straaten’s work awaits us at PAN Amsterdam 2011. His great works of art will be on display from the 20th of November till the 27th of November at the RAI Parkhal on the stand of Majke Husstege.
At the exhibition you will find seven of Eric”s recent achievements. Amongst them, the images below which were 3D printed in our multicolor material: his primary weapon of choice.
If this kind of art is your cup of tea, you can always view what the great artist is up to on his personal website.
Multicolor is a great and affordable material for also other models than these of Eric. Detailed characters can be brought to life in color just as well as architectural models. So if you have a great design planned and your mind is thinking in color, don’t hesitate a second longer and give this material a tr
And the Winner is…
The Peeters & Pichal challenge has come to an end and together with the Radio 1 jury members we’ve come to our decision on a winner. As with all challenges, it’s never easy to choose the winning design, but as we all knew… there could only be one…
…and that winner is the Dutch designer Ricardo de Koning with his stylish Design for your Flowers.
Our winner was in search of a nice vase that could match the modern interior of their house but ended up finding the same old traditional vase designs everywhere he went. Nothing really stood out and his search was getting him nowhere until he stumbled upon this challenge. It was the perfect opportunity to remind us of the power of 3D printing. So instead of buying a simplistic vase, Ricardo took it upon himself to participate in this challenge and design the perfect vase that would match the look of their home. He decided to dedicate the vase to his mother. For those who speak Dutch, you can listen to the interview between Belgian Rad
Meet the Team: Dmitriy
Hi everyone, I’m Dmitriy or you can also call me Dima. I’m the part of the team that makes sure your models are printed as nice as possible, who clarifies your questions and keeps you happy.
I’m quite new in the world of 3D printing. I’ve started working at i.materialise roughly half of a year ago, but I have learned a lot since then. It was so fascinating to discover the technologies and materials, to see the possibilities of it. Like our teammate Franky said, 3D printing sounds like the coolest thing in the world. I totally agree. And I’m willing to share all the knowledge with all of you guys: talented designers, creative people and simply everyone who is interested in 3D printing.
In my work I get most of the pleasure when I see a 3D printed model which has a part that was somehow fixed or improved thanks to our support service in cooperation with the designer. In such case I see the results of work and when I realize that this is absolutely nice, I’m really glad. I also like
