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
The 3D prints of the M HKA Challenge are now in the museum
When we announced the winners of the M HKA Design Challenge, we also mentioned that they would be exhibited at the M HKA museum in Antwerp from Dec 19th until Dec 29th. So for those of you who won’t be in the region of Antwerp during the holiday period, we’ve decided to share these lovely pictures of the 3D prints.
My House by 11 year old Kristof van Loock
Holes by designer Luigi Vaghi
Facebooked by teacher/designer of de Kunsthumaniora Filip Verreyke
Facebooked by teacher/designer of de Kunsthumaniora Filip Verreyke
My M KHA Legs by Matthew Pauwels
Senne001 by student of de Kunsthumaniora Senne Roekens
Senne001 by student of de Kunsthumaniora Senne Roekens
And for those of you who will be in the region of Antwerp during the holidays, don’t hesitate to visit the M HKA museum to see the works in person. They always look better up close!
Of course if you like participating in design challenges and just missed this one, no worries because we still have th
Last week of 2011: Our printers need a break, our people keep on going
As mentioned in our previous blog post about the year in 3D printing, we can say with total confidence that 2011 was a big year. Not only was it a big year for the entire 3D printing industry, but also for us at i.materialise. We have seen our monthly orders increase with almost 300% and our turnover has more than quadrupled. For this we want to thank you, our dear customers and creative designers.
Of course, such wonderful labor has taxed all of our hard working machines and so we’ve decided to give them a well-deserved holiday break between the 23rd of December and the 2nd of January of 2012. After all, we don’t want them to turn against us and start a whole Terminator revolt. To be honest with you, we are already taking the necessary steps to avoid this by giving them some extra space in our new (still under construction) building.
Another important date is the 27th of December. On that day there won’t be any access to our website, our blog and any of our online services a
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
Columbia GSAPP Saturated Models 3D printed: Velcro Panel System
Alistair Gill and Veronika Schmid held a Saturated Models seminar at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. During the seminar the Master’s students explored 3D printing and created 3D printed objects. i.materialise made the resulting 3D prints. This is the seventh interview with a team of participating architecture students and their project: Velcro Panel System by John Hooper & Julie Jira.
What is the Velcro Panel System? And does it work like Velcro?
The Velcro Panel System is intended to generate varying degrees of tension within an environment. The tension is facilitated through a hook and loop system, which is conceptually similar to the way Velcro performs. This Velcro panel system works well in tension, especially when hung. The panels are able to adhere to each other and morph into their own set of physical characteristics through interaction with other objects.
Why did you make it?
The intention was to create objects, which woul
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.
