Share your projects on our newly launched forum and win a voucher of 250 euro!
Did you ever want to discuss your techniques with other designers? Or get feedback? Or you want to show your project? Now you can! We just launched our forum for all the members to connect and share their experiences related to 3D printing.
It’s a great way to meet your fellow designers and other members of our community. We want to offer you more than just 3D printing service. We are a vibrant community of creative, out-of-the-box thinking artists, designers, thinkers and doers.
To start off we’d love to see your work. Show your project (in a very creative way of course) that was printed by us on the forum in unbox it and after six, on September the 15th, we will choose one of your designs. The lucky winner get’s a voucher of 250 euro for 3D printing. And that’s not all…We will also post the pictures from unbox it in an album on our Facebook page . Whoever gets the most likes can win another voucher of 250 euro for 3D printing. So get your project out there and start liking!
Who is….(y)our Community Manager?
My dearest community
Today is the first day of a new episode in my life, starting as your (and yours only) Community Manager. My name is Tatiana De Wée , but you can just call me Tat or Tati. I’m 25 years young and try to make the most of everyday on this planet. I’ve always been passionate about designing, blogging and communication. To combine these three passions is a dream coming true.
Why I love design? It’s simple. I just love creating and see how material can transform from it’s rough structure into a whole new design. Whether it’s a product you can use in your everyday life or not. It doesn’t matter, it’s about the whole thinkingprocess. I believe as a designer you’re truly blessed. You have the possibility to make other lives easier with your designs or make the world a little bit more beautiful. You can move and touch people.
I started designing and experimenting as a little girl with lots of things like jewelry, clay, drawings or bigger constructions like
Making some room for the next community manager
As with everything in life, something has a beginning and an end. Today is the day where my chapter as community manager at i.materialise ends, and a new one starts elsewhere. For those of you that know me, you’ll know about my creative background as an artist and it is exactly this what I’ll be going back to. As much as I’ve enjoyed this wonderful community and my lovely colleagues, I’ve made the choice to move on as an independent artist. I will be like in the past, cooperating with creative companies from the gaming industry, film industry and advertisement industry.
To find out more about what I’ll be doing and who I’ll be working with, it’s best to visit my website: www.lucidussomnium.com in the near future as it will undergo lots of important changes and will be updated with brand new projects and artwork. From there you’ll also be able to follow my work on all sorts of social networks.
For now, I’ll wish all of you in this wonderful community all the best (keep putting yo
Meet the designer: Da Capo
Da Capo is a unique Dublin-based workshop providing bespoke commissioned jewelry, creative objects and limited editions. They also make use of 3D printing to create their final products and are featured on our blog today to tell their story and experiences. Let’s have a look at what they have to say… (more…)
It’s a Sinter Summer
Remember when we did that laser sintering pricing trial back in April? We said it would be for a limited time only and we also said that we would evaluate it afterwards. Well now we can confirm that the evaluating part is over and we’re ready to offer you our official laser sintering prices here and now! In simple words… laser sintering will cost you 0.1 euro/cm3!
Let’s take a look at how it all works…
- All designs that fit within a bounding box of 125cm3 and have a maximum dimension of 200mm will from now on be sold at 12,5 euros a piece
- If your design fits within a bounding box of 27cm3 (for example 3x3x3cm) and has a maximum dimension of 100mm, you’ll only pay 5 euros per copy of that same design (for example you’ll pay 32,5 euros for 5 copies as 12,5+5+5+5 = 32,5)
- For copies of any other design that still fits within the 125cm3 and have a maximum dimension of 200mm, you will pay 10 euros per copy (for example you’ll pay 52,5 euros for 5 copies as 12,5+10+10+10+10 = 52
Presenting the Top 3 of the Bead Design Challenge
When we announced Metal Month at the beginning of June, we also included a wonderful design challenge where you had to design your own personalized bead in silver. It was the Bead Design Challenge. It became quite a popular challenge with a total of 27 entries from different designers around the world. As the challenge concluded on the 30th of June, our team got together to go through all the entries and choose our top 3 that will be 3D printed.
After some debating and vote counting the following three made it to the top.
Pocket Rockets & Love Bombs by Eva Tucek
Hoss Bunny Head by Francisco Galan Manzo
OX8 by Luigi Vaghi
We congratulate our winning three and thank everyone for participating. The top 3 will get their design 3D printed and send to them by the end of this month. And because we know all participants love their designs, they’ll all receive a discount of 15% (to be used on their design entry) sent to their email addresses shortly. This gives you the opportu
A look back at yesterday’s meetup
Yesterday we held our summer meetup at the Materialise headquarters. As with the previous meetup, we saw an international community visiting our facilities filled with curiosity about 3D printing and about what happens behind the walls of this company. We also combined this event with the announcement of the winner of the wires challenge we organized with Mookum. To present this award we had Gert Gijbels from Mookum attend our meetup where he also gave an interesting view behind the creative platfom that is Mookum. And of course, as the final cherry on top we provided our attendees with a quick look into the customizable capabilities of our friends at Digital Forming.
The group got an introduction to 3D printing and i.materialise in the form of a presentation. This was then followed by the traditional guided tour of our facilities and of course a get to know each other moment at the end of the event. But before we got to the great socializing bit, there was the presentation of M
Finish it!
The surface of a 3D printed model is determined by the material and the technology. It will define the look and feel of your printed design.
Most technologies print your model layer by layer. The goal of post-finishing is to reduce evidence of these layers as much as possible, without damaging the geometry of your model. However, the difference in surfaces can be seen when the natural surface option is chosen – for example, a powder based model will be rougher than a resin based model.
So what can you do with your model after it’s printed? Well, we already have a wide range of post-finishing options available but a lot of times, our designers create their own magic. Welcome in the world of polishing, dyeing, painting, and so much more. Don’t consider these pages to be omniscient but will add more and more information as time goes by.
Check them out here:
http://i.materialise.com/materials/finishing
Tinkercad Father Day’s challenge winner
About 2 weeks ago we announced the winner of the Father’s Day Challenge hosted by Tinkercad. Sam McCulloch’s Vulcan Bomber was voted as the number 1 design. Not only was his Dad very happy with the 3D printed gift, he also did a nice job on painting the model.
But there’s more to it. Sam’s Dad, David McCulloch is a volunteer at the XM655 maintenance and preservation society. He’s been a lifelong fan of aircrafts, got his pilot license at the age of 17, and works closely with the Oxford 150 Squadron Air Cadets.
As Father’s day 2012 coincided perfectly with an annual event called “Wings and Wheels”, the real Vulcan Bomber did some taxi runs, engine blasts, and was available for the public to examine.
Being a volunteer, David McCulloch dedicates a lot of time to the restoration project. It also seems they’re actively looking to continue to raise funds of ongoing restoration costs. So, all you aviation enthusiasts out there get in touch!
Tinkercad is the easiest way to do and l
Let your steel get a taste of Gold
Today we are introducing a new finishing process for your stainless steel designs: Gold Plated Stainless Steel. This is a finishing procedure where we take your stainless steel model and dip it in a gold bath giving it that gold plated look. We can offer your model in a polished or unpolished gold plating. The big difference here is that your polished pieces will feel smoother and look shinier whereas the unpolished ones will have that natural gold plating feel to it.
The model that you see here was made in Tinkercad by one of their community members called Whystler.
So… what’s it going to cost me to add some gold to my stainless steel? The answer is 6,00US$ whether its with a polished or unpolished finish (please note that this is on top of your cost for the stainless steel model).
The above model was designed by Tommy Rombouts (www.tommytones.com)
Okay… so I like the way it looks, but what I would also like the know how it feels in my hand? For this we
