Who is (y)our Customer Service Manager?
My name is Karen Meulemans, I am 27 years old and as the customer services manager for i.materialise, I try to help all of you with your 3D printed projects.
I have spent the past 5.5 years at Materialise, working in different departments and gaining a wealth of experience.
I started as project manager in a business unit devoted to 3D printing designs sent to us from companies, artists, architects, etc, and while there I first came in contact 3D printing technology. Immediately, I became fascinated with the results that came out of the printers and the endless possibilities they opened up. However, most of the models I saw there were industrial models used as prototypes, functional models, concept models, models used for photo shoots…
After 2.5 years I moved to the production side of the unit as a project engineer. It was then that I had the opportunity to spend even more time on our shop-floor.
My next function within Materialise was as a quality engineer for our orthopaed
Google 3D Warehouse + silver at i.materialise + 3D printing = one incredible retro ring
Armed with a simple 3D model of a ring and with access to a wealth of objects through Google SketchUp’s 3D warehouse, Materialise’s own Bert De Niel started playing around on the computer one day. The result was a entire range of ring designs with everything from a little buddha, to an aligator, to the great retro cassette you see below, and all ready to be 3D printed if desired. Some of the rings I would be happy to wear as they were and others I would want to change a bit first.
Although not all the designs were exactly to my liking, that is the beauty of 3D printing…the person wearing the ring can have exactly what they want, perfectly adapted to their own personal style. Moreover, thanks to the extensive range of objects already available through the 3D warehouse, not that much effort is needed to come up with something great. You just have to choose the design you like, adapt as needed, and voila, you have the ring (or bracelet, or pendant, etc) that you want!
Knowing Bert a
3D printing from 3DTin
For those of you who haven’t heard of 3DTin (yet), let me quickly explain what it is. 3DTin is the world’s first 3D modeling tool that runs in a browser. The man behind 3DTin is Jayesh Salvi, a software engineer currently based in Mumbai, India. 3DTin lets anyone make anything simply because it’s easy and intuitive to use. To try it out, type in 3Dtin.com in Firefox or Chrome and start 3D modeling… that”s all there is to it! Also, show it to your kids, let them play around with 3DTin. Just don”t be hurt when they catch on to it faster than you do.
…and here”s a robot I made a while ago
During the TEDxKids workshops we experienced firsthand that 10 year olds were creating 3D models within minutes. Jayesh made sure 3DTin worked like a charm during the workshops and he also implemented a great feature: One that exports your 3DTin models straight to i.materialise. From our side, we made sure the color information was saved during the STL export because almost all 3DTin users
Building a generative lamp through parametric design
Just as last year, i.materialise teamed up with the Catholic University of Leuven for a design challenge. First year Civil Engineering & Architecture students got a class assignment to use Java for building a generative table lamp through parametric design. The students were given 2 months to finish the assignment. The best design would be chosen to be 3D printed.
Since we couldn”t choose between 2 of them, we decided to print out both.
The first one we really liked was the Cube lamp by Pierre-Henri Sourbrier and Bram Vandaele.
The second one was the Letters lamp by Annelies Belemans and Anja Billion.
So, which one do you prefer?
A Very Special 3D Printed Wedding Ring
There are few objects in life more valuable or emotionally meaningful than a wedding ring. Imagine then, how amazing it would be to be able to design the perfect wedding ring for someone you love! Thanks to some help from i.materialise, Ann Marie Shillito did just that by designing a gorgeous titanium wedding ring for her daughter Keri. And, here is her story:
When ‘things’ come together, perfectly timed, the outcome can be so gratifyingly fantastic.
How wonderful then that I have been able to give my elder daughter a most precious gift, one that is a culmination of my knowledge and making skills, and is her wedding ring. ‘Things’ came together perfectly timed to enable this to happen.
This all began at the end of December 2010 when Rob proposed to Kari, my daughter, and she wanted a specific engagement ring, similar to one I had designed and made a number of years’ ago. This original engagement ring was in titanium, machined and then hand carved to flow around an oval diamond
Columbia GSAPP Saturated Models 3D printed: Soft Surface
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 third interview with a team of participating architecture students, Jung Woo Yeo and Wonshok Lee, and their project Soft Surface. The first two interviews can be found here and here.
1. Who are you? We are passionate architectural designers who just completed a Master of Architecture program at Columbia University in the city of New York.
2. What is Soft Surface? Soft Surface is an undefined object which is composed of two basic modules that together are repeated to create a network of nylon frames. The object changes its state from rigid to semi-rigid to flexible by controlling the relationship between frames even though each frame is stiff. This object is also made flexible in shape and s
Irresistible 3D printed products now for sale in the (New) i.materialise gallery
Those with a weakness for buying beautiful objects should be afraid, be very afraid – i.materialise now has an online gallery of incredible 3D printed products that can be yours to own and enjoy. Because we’d like to open our store in style, we’ve filled the gallery up with awesome products from very talented designers, many of who you might already know thanks to our jewelry design challenge, the incredible reputations some of these designers already enjoy in the world of 3D printed design, or their presence on i.materialise’s homepage.
For those who followed the i.materialise jewelry design challenge, you will already be familiar with many of the products now for sale, and perhaps already know exactly what you want to buy (I admit, I have had my eye on a couple of these for a while now). The winning ten designs are now part of the .MGX summer collection 2011, meaning that in addition to being available online, they will also be on sale in the .MGX Sablon Shop, the world’s first sh
Rolling out a bigger shopping cart @i.materialise
Dear community members, your prayers have materialised today !
Well, at least some important ones.
Our shopping cart has been enlarged to hold as many models as you like.
This makes it easy to fill it up and reach the 100$/100€ order value free shipping limit.
We also repaved the way to the checkout and improved the easiness of adding earlier uploaded models to the cart.
Requesting offline prices for several difficult models can also be combined in 1 offline price request.
We will put those models back with a price tag on your personal shelf.
And yes, we implemented a test for WebGL.
Let me guide you through the latest update.
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Looking for a unique jewelry design experience?
At i.materialise, we love introducing people to the wonders of 3D printing and the incredible experience of bringing unique designs to life. In order to reach more people than ever, we work hard to identify groups that have the potential to make great use of this technology and try to provide services to get them involved. An excellent example of this has been Sketch to 3D, which has allowed anyone with a great idea, a pencil, and a piece of paper, the chance to realize their design in 3D.
Now, we are proud to announce our newest service, Jewelco, which will give people the chance to design jewelry in collaboration with a pool of international designers. Jewelry is worn to celebrate events and commitments that are nearest and dearest to our hearts, so why not make sure the design really is the perfect fit with what it stands for and who it is worn by.
So, if you are looking for a unique piece of jewelry perfectly matched to your taste, and you would like to experience what jewelr
Join us in changing the future of design
If you love design and love making things
If you like to share information and start conversations
If you would like to shape the future of creation and design
Then we would like to hear from you!
What are we looking for?
It is very important that you are really passionate about the things above, that you are inspired by the beauty of making things – and that you like to share that with the world.
It is ok to be young, nerdy and/or geeky.
We would like you to listen (and talk) to our community and help them create designs that enrich their lives.
Living online and social media are your natural environment.
You speak/write fluent English and some knowledge of 3D printing would always help.
Our offices are based in Leuven – Belgium (We are part of Materialise – a pioneer in 3D printing and we have the world’s largest collection of 3D printers under one roof). The i.materialise team is a bunch of enthusiastic software developers, product designers, marketers an
