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
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
Meet the i.materialise Team: meet Anna.
My name is Anna and I am working as a front-end developer at i.materialise. I’ve been working for more than 6 years in web-development. During this period I’ve worked as a developer and as a designer, as a part of team and as a freelancer. Actually, I like to do lots of different kinds of work, and usually I am in love with what I am doing. It makes me happy to see the results of my work, especially if the result is good.
Maybe it is strange for developer but I am not person of logic, usually I am doing everything by how I feel even if it is against all the rules and all standards of work (maybe I shouldn’t write this on the blog!). Even the area I am working in, IT, was chosen incidentally. I entered my faculty at university because there were preparation courses in my school and most of my friends were entering them too. So, I think that the work chose me, I did not choose  the work. And I’ve never  regretted it. I trust my destiny.
I never worked with 3d-models
i.materialise Machine Man Human Augmentation Design Challenge
The i.materialise Machine Man Human Augmentation Design Challenge is inspired by Sci Fi author Max Barry”s book Machine Man. Max, together with other judges, Fab@Home founder and Cornell bio-robotics professor Hod Lipson and 3D printed prosthetics designer Scott Summit will be looking for a design that urges us to look at the future of 3D printing humans.
We’re challenging to design a 3D printed titanium implant or augmentation for the human body. Something that will improve the functionality of the body or improve it aesthetically.
If we can make anything using 3D printing, how will we change ourselves? What will the piercings of the future look like? Will many people use elective implants? What kind of implants will they use? What would be some titanium implants that would make you happy? Some examples could be an earring that attaches to an iPhone to improve reception by turning the person into an antenna, an implant that holds the nose open from the inside to increase ai
The i.materialise Jewelry Design Challenge
Today we have an exciting Design Challenge for jewelry designers. We’re reaching out to you in order to find jewelry design talent. We’re looking for new concepts, techniques and ideas in jewelry design.
We want this challenge to help us discover you so that we can then encourage and promote you and your work.
3D printed jewelry is very new and affords designers with an immense freedom to design. But, very few pieces have really managed to elevate 3D printing pieces to the level of high end jewelry. Can you do this?
Can you design a jewelry piece that elevates 3D printed jewelry? Can you make something that is beautiful, practical and above all “works” as a 3D printed jewel?
What you can win
Ten winners will be selected and their pieces will be offered for sale in the .MGX Store in Sablon Brussels. The jewelry design will always remain your property and you will receive a 5% royalty on every sold item. Due to questions below in the comments we have updated the royal
Affordable Stainless Steel 3D prints, new pricing scheme
You can now check you Stainless Steel upload prices directly on our site. Stainless Steel was launched in January with the relatively simple pricing scheme based on volume of the model. Today you don’t need to get your calculator out anymore, just upload your design and you get your price automatically.
The pricing
Up to 5 cm3 model volume : 35$
For every extra cm3 above 5 cm3 till 40 cm3 : 8 $
For every extra cm3 above 40cm3 : 7.5$
Our pricing scheme is meant to encourage models of 5cm3 and larger because we want to encourage you to make bigger things. There is now also extra discount for compact models. The more material you have within the imaginary box around your model, the bigger your discount becomes for the same model volume. So the pricing scheme is the maximum price you will pay. To know the real (discounted) price, upload your design.
Here are 2 examples :
The dice of 20x20x20 mm, has a 7.1 cm3 model volume would cost 26.6 euro/ 37 dollar.
Our be
3Dtin & Tinkercad, the answer to 3D printing”s prayers?
At i.materialise we”re working hard to lower the barriers to design. We want 3D printing and by extension manufacturing to be available to as many people as possible. We”d like to let you make whatever you want to make. This is why we”ve partnered with GrabCAD to turn your drawings into 3D prints with Sketch to 3D.
3D printers can already make many things, and even though the technology does need to be improved as well as become cheaper the one thing that is holding 3D printing back is the inability of the vast majority of people to design. The greatest benefit to 3D printing will occur when easy to use creation tools let anyone create. This will shift the demand curve for the entire industry upward and add millions of new potential users for the technology.
Luckily there are people working on solutions to turn your thoughts into products. A very easy to use 3D modeling tool is Jayesh Salvi”s free 3Dtin. 3Dtin is very simple and lets you save and share the designs you m
Meet the i.materialise Team: Volodymyr
Greetings,
My name is Vlad, and I’m that guy who is always replying on your e-mails something like “I have just checked your 3D model and…” :).
I really love to check your 3D models – each of them is really different and amazing. Each one requires unique approach that has to be applied in order to make it printable and to have a nice final look. I love this challenge and see it as a competition for me to win, for you.
I’ve been working in Customer Support for five years and when I saw that i.materialse was searching for a new employee that will be working with 3D models, designers and 3D printers– I was so impressed with that job and I was ready to start the next day! My first working day started in the Belgian Materialise Headquarters in the general planning department where I saw how projects were handled. Later on I was shown the production facility, got to speak with the production guys and did some finishing work together with them. That was a really fun and interestin
i.materialise launches Sketch to 3D, A 3D modeling service for 3D printing
Today we are launching Sketch to 3D. Sketch to 3D is a 3D modeling service that can turn your drawings into 3D models. Now you can draw anything you want and get it 3D printed. 3D printing is an amazing technology that potentially can let you make whatever you want. But because few can 3D model it has been impossible for most people to make exactly what they want to make, until now. The democratization of manufacuring has now reached you. Now you have no excuse, you can now 3D print whatever you want to.
We’ve partnered with GrabCAD and together we can turn your thoughts, ideas and drawings into 3D prints. Now you can improve the world around you by making things exactly as you think they should be. Want a better lamp? Make your own using 3D printing. Want a one of a kind gift, sketch it and we’ll make it for you. Need something that doesn’t exist, make it.
The sketch service costs 57 Euro (around $80), the costs of the 3D print will depend on the material you chose and t
