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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.

Featured Friday: Showing your 3D printed designs

It’s our favorite day of the week again: Friday! Check out our latest gallery entries.

Chris Peters designed a custom wedding band in titanium:

Matthias Flück made a copy of Sydney’s famous Harbour Bridge in multicolor (scale 1:2500) and is currently working on a copy of the Opera House.

The last design is also a ring. This one is created in silver by Edouard Gautier and inspired by the -very cool- street artist ArtofPopof.

Don’t forget to put your designs in the gallery for Mother’s Day. Enjoy your weekend!

Prepare your gallery for Mother’s Day!

Most countries in the world celebrate Mother’s Day this year on May 12th. So start preparing your shops for our Mother’s Day theme page!

From Monday the 14th of April till the 12th of May (Mother’s Day) we will showcase the perfect gifts for Mother’s Day on a special theme page. So do you still need to upload your pictures? This is the perfect chance to work on that!

Do you want to make something in 3D, but you can’t find the time? Not a problem. Ever thought about a personalized trophy, specially for your mum? Check out Twikit to make a customized trophy or medal in no time!

 Read more about putting your designs in the gallery and selling them.

Come and Check us out at Make Munich!

Only 3 more weeks and i.materialise will join the maker movement in Munich! Say hi at our booth or join our lecture.

The Tonhalle in Munich is getting prepared for their first Maker Faire. So are you dying for an event full of 3D printing, DIY and hacking: pack your stuff and visit us.

WHEN
From the 19th till the 20th of April our Product Designer, Bert and I will be present at this German Maker Faire:

  • Saturday 20th of April:  10:00-18:00
  • Sunday 21st of April: 10:30-16:00

Check out our booth to see our wide range of materials, ask your questions and see designs made by our community members such as Eric van straaten. Or bring your own 3D printed design to our booth to show it to other community members.

LECTURE
We will give a lecture on Saturday 20th of April about the i.materialise services at 3PM.

We look forward to meeting you!

The Spring Meetup was amazing!

Another great meetup has passed. To get an impression of what a meetup looks like at our head quarters you can take a look at our pictures below!

Okay, we couldn’t actually call it a spring meetup, since temperatures were still below zero and we were still waiting to see the first flowers and birds, but luckily that didn’t bother us. We were all sitting nice and warm in our co-creation room: ready for a whole afternoon of 3D printing!

 

Do you want to see more pictures? Check out Facebook!

We’re already looking forward to the next Meetup. You? Follow the blog to find out our next date!

Don’t forget our Accessory Challenge or do you feel like making a 3D printed lamp?

Featured Friday: Showing your 3D printed designs

Happy Friday everyone! Watch our newest gallery entries.

James William Kincaid III designed this cool belt buckle in gold plated brass:

The second design is created by Visa Jaamuru in natural white polyamide. It’s a phone stand for the Nokia Lumia 920: “I think it’s a stylish design coupled with added functionality. The phone can sit nicely in both portrait and landscape orientations. In portrait orientation the sound from the phone speakers is amplified by built in design. That makes it perfect for skyping, watching videos or simply browsing the internet on your Nokia Lumia 920.”

marco ferrarin has got something with spaghetti. He designed these nice earrings for real pasta lovers and 3D printed it in gold plated brass.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Tutorial Thursday: stand out from the crowd!

There are so many artists and designers out there that it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. But nothing is impossible: follow our tips and tricks.

Marketing yourself is hard work, but if you’re a designer and you want to make a living, it’s a necessity. There are so many ways to put yourself in the spotlights, but it’s very important to come up with your own personal plan that suits your style. 

1. Start networking
If you’re just starting to expand your network, there is one simple rule: start spreading your news in familiar places. Contact friends and family, use your social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or  Google +.
Go step by step. Try to get in contact with interesting people through the people in your personal network.

2. Seduce bloggers (or seduce us)
It’s very important to make a good impression. Start simple by making good pictures and visuals of your project (see our previous tutorial to make your pictures tip-top). Do you have a a design with mo

Lighten up with the Instructables Lamps and Lighting contest!

Instructables.com is coming out of the dark and hosting a Lamps and Lighting contest! Got a bright idea for a 3D printed lamp? Make it and publish it on their website!

CREATE
Create a new step by step, photo, or video instructable that fits the guidelines outlined in the right-hand column. Instructables must be published between April the 15th latest (11:59pm PT) to be eligible.

ENTER
Upon publishing your Instructable you’ll see checkboxes for open contests. Select Lamps & Lighting Contest. If you have entries currently eligible for entry, it will also show up by clicking ‘Enter this Contest’ on the right side of this page. ACCEPTING
Entries are accepted by Instructables staff within one business day ( from Monday till Friday). What matters is the submission time, not acceptance time.VOTING
Instructables members can vote for an entry during the contest plus 3 days after the contest closes.JUDGING
A panel of judges made up of Instr

Goodbye Tinkercad. 3DTin anyone?

It’s so sad to hear Tinkercad will disappear. But luckily it’s not the only modeler tool that works in a browser. Jayesh Salvi, founder and developer of 3DTin has ensured i.materialise the continuation of his software platform.

We haven’t heard from 3DTin in a while, but this web based CAD program is, like Tinkercad, also an app that lets you save and share the designs you make.  If you export your file you can print it through the i.materialise service.

Some people say its user interface is more complex, but Jayesh Salvi is working on that: “Over 3 years we have built a simple 3D modeling workflow in 3DTin. A lot of users who find traditional 3D modeling tools too daunting, use 3DTin to quickly put together their ideas. We have built a well thought interface for this crowd. At one point we reached a feature-complete state for 3DTin. It became clear that adding more functionality to the existing tool without careful thought is going to spoil it for our existing user-base. So

Tinkercad announces its closure

Only one hour ago we heard the sad news about Tinkercad its closure. The founders decided to concentrate on a new simulation environment called Airstone.

” Our vision was that a software platform created specifically for supercomputers would let us build some very exciting applications. In early 2011 we launched Tinkercad on this platform. It was the first cloud-based 3D CAD ever built and has grown to be a successful product in its category.

In parallel with Tinkercad, we continued development of the core platform. In October 2012, we launched a scripting interface for one of the key components, the Gen6 geometry modeling kernel. And finally, in late 2012, we had several major breakthroughs in our research work on the core platform that opened up application possibilities we had never imagined possible.

In response to these breakthroughs, I’m excited to announce an updated roadmap. There are two major parts to the new roadmap: 1) we are working on an innovative new simulation

First tests with our flexible material!

Our Product Designer Bert is having a blast with the material. Read more about his experiments!

When we open this window in our office and the wind is too hard, the window normally slams against the wall. But not any more! Bert designed a boxing glove with the flexible material TPU which you can attach to the window door handle: bye bye wall slamming windown!

Or what about this cute ergonomical grip for your pencil?

Or this cute squeezable octopus?

We’d love to hear your opinion about this material! What would you do with TPU?