Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

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.

The Periodic Table of Materials

Last week we introduced our redesigned website and mentioned ”The Periodic Table of Materials”. Obviously, we were inspired by Dmitri Mendeleev and we figured something similar would be a nice way to present our 3D printing materials to you. Considering the fact we have a bunch of new materials available and will offer them in the future, we knew it would be easy to extend the table over time.

At the same time, we put a lot of effort into making detailed information pages about each material. This should help you find the material that best suits your needs as a designer or inventor.

So, we’ve described all the materials, made some sample pictures, collected information about coloring options, thought about the typical use of a certain material, and created videos about different 3D printing technologies. For steel and titanium we wrote design guides to get you on the right track. And we did even more, but we”d rather let you discover that for yourself.

Learning about mater

First World War Soldier identified using 3D Printing

A team of researchers from Canada”s Directorate of History and Heritage have managed to identify the remains of a First World Soldier. The team used forensic anthropology, facial reconstruction, isotopic analysis and…3D printing to identify the fallen soldier.

Canadian private Thomas Lawless was killed on June 8th 1917. His body, along with a comrade, was discovered in 2003 on a construction site. The comrade could be identified using DNA testing but the team were unable to find a  mitochondrial DNA sample to compare Private Lawless” DNA to.

The initial scan of the remains. Image credit Steve Kruithof.

“The identification team created 3D computer models of Lawless”s skull, derived from CT scan data of several large skull fragments, in order to narrow the list of possible matches for the remains. Physical models of the skull were produced using a Z Corporation 3D printer (..).  Using muscle markings on the skull model, scientific tissue-depth tables and plastili

Opening the Pandora’s Box that is 3D Printing

Its great to see that the world is catching on the the potential of 3D printing. It is a transformational technology that will speed up innovation & democratize technology. It has the potential to make almost every single product in our world better either by speeding up product & development or by producing things that fit tasks better. You will be able to make what you want exactly as you want it to be. We will be able to personalize, customize and design our world. Implants, medical instruments and replacement parts of our bodies will be created.

Products will be improved literally, continually, globally by loose networks of people collaborating at speeds we can scarcely imagine. By combining the connectivity of the internet and its creative force with decentralized production the variety of things optimized for a certain task will explode. Every niche will be filled, layer by layer. Not only will innovation be democratized it will be near instantaneous. As soon as an idea ha

Improvements to customer service and feedback

Hi all I”m Karen,

I”m in charge of making sure that we help you in any way we can in getting your idea 3D printed. Together with the launch of the new website we have also improved our support pages. We hope that this lets us capture more feedback, ideas and suggestions from you and that we can translate this into better service. Our aim is to give you the best customer service possible while making it easier and easier for you to 3D print.

 We also want to share knowledge so you can post your questions, idea, problem,…here using Get Satisfaction.

Off course we understand that in sometimes you want personal advice in this case, you can ask it privately using Get Satisfaction or email us. If you have a question about a file or would like our help in fixing files you can email contact (at) i.materialise.com. In most cases we can fix your files and get them ready to 3D print. Do first try to upload your file though our algorithms can fix a lot automatically!

We w

Fluid Forms & i.materialise partnership announced

We”re pleased to announce our partnership with Fluid Forms. Fluid Forms is an Austrian team of designers that have been working on creative design tools since 2005. Their tools are fun ways that let you customize and individualize your own designs. Using Fluid Forms you can for example virtually box your own lamp design or get your own personalized wall clock based on an overhead view of streets of your choice.

We”re very happy to be able to work with such an experienced design team. Fluid Forms makes personalization not only easy but also fun. With their creative and enganging online tools and our 3D printing expertise we hope to be able to offer you many great personalized products in the future. For us this is yet another important step in seeking out the best design talent we can and working with them to help them create and promote their work.

We will be handling the production of three great Fluid Forms designs the Silver Earth Cufflinks, the Silver Earth Pin and t

i.materialise site redesign

Today we launched the first version of our new site. In the coming weeks more updates will follow. We”ve updated the look and feel of the site and hope you like the results. The most important thing is that we”re going to give your stories and your designs a much more central place in the website. We want to emphasize that we as a company are a factory for your ideas. Your creativity as a designer, inventor or artist coupled with our 3D printing prowess leads to the expression of your idea in an object. This object could be a keepsake, a Design Academy graduation project, an invention, a jewel, an art piece or a product meant for sale. For each object we will use all our skill, years of experience and equipment to create the most accurate representation of your idea that we can. We will treat each file and each 3D printed object with care and take the time to give you the advice you need. And to show the world what your idea and design skill and our manufacturing leads to

3D printing in bone now possible

The insanely creative team over at Open3DP have amazed us yet again. Now they have been able to 3D print in bone. For a project with Juliana Meira do Valle and Michael Storey the team developed a way to create a bone mixture that can be 3D printed. The mixture consists of Powdered Bone Meal, Powdered Sugar, MaltoDextrin and urea formaldehyde resin is used as a binder. The team found out that you buy your very own food safe powdered bown meal at your local health or vitamin store, by far the most worrying thing I”ve learned today. The recipe should you want to 3D print your own bone at home:

Powdered Bone Meal  — 4-5 parts by weight.
UF plastic resin glue   —  1 part by weight.

After five weeks of testing the team was sucessfully able to 3D print the bone 3D prints needed for the project. This is still an early test and by no means does this mean you can take your 3D printer with you on your next ski vacation, just in case. But, it is another piece of groundbreaking

PeliDesign”s Machine”s Perception doorhandles, 3D printed in steel

We”re proud that our collaboration with Alexander Pelikan of PeLiDesign has resulted in some beautiful doorhandles. A few years ago Peli (you can try call him Alexander but he prefers Peli) worked with TNO and Studio Ludens on his Machine”s Perception project. This project aimed to look at how machines percieve things and explored the limits and resolutions of 3D scans of a number of household objects, including doorhandles. Now Peli has turned his project into a line of doorhandles that he will present in Milan at the International Furniture Fair.  

We think that the first of these doorhandles shows great promise. Not only is it an interesting design but it is also a sophisticated working 3D printed product. Not a just a concept, not just a fun model or a shape but something that people would and could have in their houses. Something that will replace boring doorhandles. We believe that there are  people all over the world looking for more interesting, more engaging

Get your Xbox Avatar 3D printed on FigurePrints

Figure Prints has been letting World of Warcraft afficionados 3D print their WOW avatars since 2007. The company is now looking beyond the hardcore gamer and is letting anyone 3D print their Xbox Live Avatar.

Just enter your gamertag and up pops your avatar. You can then choose to pose your Avatar and order a 3D print of the mini-you for $49.95 excluding shipping. The resulting avatar will be around 5 inches in height and will arrive within a month. The Avatars are 3D printed in Zcorp and so will be in color. Acording to FigurePrints CEO Ed Fries, “We decided to print Xbox Live Avatars because there are more than 30 million members of the Xbox Live service and Microsoft believed in what we do and worked closely with us to make sure the launch was successful.”  This is a fun 3D printed product for a wide market and we hope Figureprints puts a lot of these on your desks!