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3D Printing Blog

The i.materialise blog keeps you updated about outstanding 3D designs, the newest 3D printing technologies and the best 3D modeling software tutorials.

Our impressions of the Brand New Tinkercad

Tinkercad is an impressive browser based 3D printing modeling tool that has brought happiness and joy to many creative minds. Its intuitive interface and its powerful tools have made it possible for countless 3D print hungry individuals to bring their creations to life.  Today they have just made that experience a whole lot better.

With a major new version on their website, designers around the world can now create better 3D prints with an even better interface and, with much more ease. The new release looks stunning and feels just the way you’d want it to feel.

Considering I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Beta version of this new release, I spent some of my time having a look at it. My first reaction was “Wow! The new version looks smooth.” It was like opening Google SketchUp for the first time, it just felt right. With the short amount of time that I had at my disposal, I managed to create the following items without too much hassle. And  I am not a Tinkercad speci

The Week in 3D Printing – 21st Jan to 27th Jan

The fourth week of 2012 has been a week of interesting 3D printing news, but also a week with lots of interesting information from the Rapid Pro 3D printing expo where we exhibited. So without further ado, let’s have a look at that news…

Regarding the news at Rapid Pro:

At Rapid Pro we got to meet some of our community members and designers while also getting introduced to new creative minds that were hungry for some 3D printing. It was quite a busy event with a very interesting crowd and lots of 3D printing potential.

Opposite our stand we had our friends from Ultimaker who seemed to attract quite a crowd as well. They showcased their great desktop 3D printer that still has the fastest controlled horizontal acceleration in the market. It was simply a pleasure as usual to see the Ultimaker do its thing.

The Other exhibitors that were present were the wonderful FabLab guys from Zuid-Limburg that showcased their great services and the creative unit of 3D Systems called Fr

Making your words appear again

Have you ever heard of the Appear Lamp? One of our customers called Steven sure has, and he found a wonderful use for it…

During a guided tour of Materialise’s headquarters, Steven, a young man in love came upon The Appear Lamp and saw the solution to a problem haunting him for 6 months…how to propose to the woman he wanted to spend his life with. On returning home that evening, he snuck online and ordered a personalized lamp that would forever change his life. Written on his Appear Lamp was a carefully chosen message for his love, Brenda.

A little while later, on the evening of their 10 year anniversary, Steven and Brenda sat down to enjoy some celebratory wine and tapas. Joining them at the table, hidden under a blanket, was the Appear Lamp. Brenda was kindly asked to wait until darkness fell that night to unwrap her gift.

When the light in the room finally started to fade, Brenda was allowed to lift the blanket. At first glance, all she saw was a lamp…then she turned it

The Week in 3D Printing – Jan 16th to Jan 20th

With CES 2012 behind us, the third week of 2012 seemed like a week of reflection. We found many articles referring to the moments of the event in Las Vegas while information was gathered on the buzz that it created. From an interesting discussion between 3D Systems and MakerBot, to offering our designers the possibility to put their items up for sale… it’s all in this year’s third week of 3D Printing.

MakerBot creates an awesome Stop Motion Video featuring their Replicator
After unveiling the MakerBot Replicator at CES 2012, Bre Pettis and his creative team took their time to bring together a wonderfully executed stop motion video with 3D printed characters. Great fun guaranteed!

CNET discusses the Future of 3D Printing with 3D Systems’ Cubify and the MakerBot Replicator
Another ripple effect from CES was the video interview that CNET’s Rafe Needleman made with guests MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis and Cathy from 3D Systems. Both the Cubify & Replicator were present and compared. (mak

How to open your own Shop at i.materialise

Want to show off your design talent and make some money at the same time? Offer your designs for sale in our gallery and once a month, we will pay you a fee for every one of your items sold.

Let me quickly show you in 3 short steps how that can become a reality.

Step 1: Setting Up your Gallery Items

As soon as your models are shipped, you can sell them in our gallery. They show up in your profile under gallery items . Click the edit button to fill in the title of your design, add a description, assign it to a category, add tags and add a picture.

Step 2: Offering your item up for sale

The next step is to offer your design for sale… You do this by simply highlighting this in the appearance box. Don’t forget to set your desired designer’s fee. This will determine how much you will earn with each sale.

Step 3: Keeping an eye on your sales and cashing in your earnings

You are all set! As soon as an item is sold, it shows up in your sales. You can start promoting your

The Week in 3D Printing: Jan 7th to Jan 13th

The Second week of 3D printing brought us mostly news from the CES 2012 (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. Some new desktop 3D printers here and some new 3D printing apps there… let’s take a look at where that goes us during this week.

Thingiverse gets a makeover

The famous 3D printing online warehouse Thingiverse got their hands together to redesign their website. Could it be a coincidence that the Makerbot Replicator was released around the same time?

Belgium’s First Face Transplant with the help of Materialise
It was Belgium’s first and the world’s 19th face transplant. Materialise played a major role in this success.

Bre Pettis reveals the Makerbot Replicator
Three days before the official start of CES 2012, the CEO of Makerbot Bre Petits announced their new Replicator on YouTube.

The new Makerbot Replicator

3D Systems reveals the new Cubify.com
As announced last week, it was only a matter of time for this news to be revealed. 3D Systems did indeed keep

Five Reasons to come and see us at Rapid Pro-at-home

i.materialise will be present at the Rapid Pro-at-home event from January 25th until January 26th. For those of you that are lucky enough to be within the region of Veldhoven, in the Netherlands, this might be the ultimate opportunity to come and visit us. Below you’ll find five great reasons why you really should stop by and say hi!

Get introduced to our services through our presentation
For those of you that have not 3D printed with i.materialise before and want to know more about what it is that we do, we have a presentation that will be given on multiple occasions during the two days that we’re present. It’s a great way to get introduced to our services and find out why we’re the perfect support partner for your 3D printing dreams.

Meet the people that assist you on your designs
When you’re working on something personal, it’s always important that your project goes well and nothing can be more comforting than personally knowing the people that help you throughout this p

Belgium”s First Face Transplant + 3D Printing = Wow

A remarkable team of plastic surgeons, led by Prof. Blondeel at the University Hospital of Ghent, have successfully executed Belgium’s first full face transplant. Although it was the world’s nineteenth face transplant, this was the first time that the complex procedure was fully planned using digital planning and 3D printing. During the 20 hour long procedure the patient, who suffered from a large facial defect, received bone, muscles, veins, nerves, and of course skin from a donor who had just died.

Pre-operative planning for both the donor and the recipient was completed in collaboration with Materialise CMF (cranio-maxillo facial) clinical engineers using ProPlan CMF. Using CT data, a digital representation of the patient’s anatomy was created and used in the formation of a detailed plan for this complex procedure. In order to put the surgical plan into action, anatomical models and patient specific surgical guides were 3D printed for use before and during the operation. The anat

The Week in 3D Printing: Jan 1st to Jan 6th

Yes, we are bringing back a great feature from the past! A weekly overview of what’s going on in the world of 3D printing. The year has just started so it’s been a bit of a calm week, but this was also quite expected.

Here’s an overview of 2012’s first week…

3D Systems completes the acquisition of Z Corp and Vidar
3D Systems announced that it has completed the acquisition of Z Corporation (“Z Corp”) and Vidar Systems (“Vidar”) for $135.5 million.

Supercool 3D Printing in Ice
Ok, so we know that this article was from the 27th of December 2011, but we have decided (because it’s such great news), to add it into this week in 3D printing. It will be in the January version of Wired Magazine.

A First Glimpse of the $300 Makibot
If you’ve missed out on the Printrbot: Your First 3D Printer project on Kickstarter last month, then you don’t want to miss the Makibox – the $300 desktop 3D Printer!

Makerbot makes us curious for next week’s CES
On Makerbot’s twitter account you

The New Year starts with You

Before I continue writing… on behalf of the entire i.materialise team, I would like to wish every single one of you a joyful and creative 2012! We look forward to continue helping you bring your wonderful creations come to life and to strengthen our bond with you.

With that said, we would like to give you, our beloved customer an important voice. What is it that you would like to see at i.materialise this year? What new features would you like to see come to life on our website? Is there another service that you would like to get from us?

We have already started the year by giving you the ability to not only showcase, but also make some money by offering your designs for sale in our gallery (we will further discuss this in detail on this blog in the very near future) and there is much more great stuff to come…

But right now we are very interested in your voice, your opinion and your needs. So please don’t hesitate to post your comments, ideas, and thoughts on here so tha