MakerBot Relocates, Expands

MakerBot has evidently outgrown its current BotFarm location on Dean St. in Brooklyn, NY and has acquired new office space to expand its rapidly growing operations. 

 

Now with a staff of 125, the company has grown significantly since 2009 when its three founders were the only employees. Originated in the tiny "BotCave", they expanded to the "BotFarm" and now move to the Metro Tech Center in Downtown Brooklyn.

 

And what a move - they've leased an entire floor (the twenty-first) that holds a massive 31,000 square feet of work space. According to their press release, they'll be leaving 50 folks at the original BotCave to continue manufacturing MakerBots, while the remainder (75, if our math is correct) to the new location in downtown Brooklyn. The press release also says: 

 

The company expects to create a minimum of 50 jobs in 2012 alone at the new location.

 

Congratulations to MakerBot on their continuing success! Their design and marketing approach has not only built a great product, but created a huge number of new jobs so desperately needed. Well done, MakerBot! 

 

Via MakerBot

Vortex Salt and Pepper

There are tons of 3D designs available from a variety of sources these days. Some are very simplistic utility objects, like clamps or basic shapes, while others offer incredibly complexity, perhaps even designed through mathematical algorithms. But every once in a while a truly unique design appears that is not only beautiful, ingenious and functional, but also leverages the unique capabilities of 3D printing technology. 

 

One of those few designs is the Vortex salt and pepper shakers, designed by Shapeways member moloko, "a team of industrial designers located in Frankfurt, Germany".  

 

What is so interesting about a pair of salt and pepper shakers? Aside from their simplistic beauty, they actually function - and they have no orifice other than the "vortex"-like opening at the top. This is where you fill the shaker. But where do the spices emerge when shaken? They come out the same vortex hole at the top, the same one used for filling. 

 

The designers brilliantly created a complex internal design that uses gravity to enable easy filling, but only metered release of salt/pepper during a shaking operation. 

 

Simple, ingenious and beautiful.

 

Via Shapeways and Core77

Put A Sweater On Your 3D Model

Many 3D models are produced by combining and contorting basic shapes, such as cubes, spheres and cylinders, or by distorting a mesh by pushing and pulling vertices. Highly complex objects are quite possible, but laborious to produce. In other words, they're rarely attempted by most 3D printer operators. 

 

But now there may be a way to produce a particular kind of 3D feature that may prove very useful for 3D printing: the "Stitch Mesh". 

 

Developed by Cornell & University of Utah researchers Cem Yuksel, Jonathan M. Kaldor, 

Doug L. James and Steve Marschner, the "Stitch Meshes for Modeling Knitted Clothing with Yarn-level Detail" paper is a tour-de-force examination of how to produce 3D models of knitted garments. They've examined the world of knitting and transformed traditional concepts into usable mathematical models capable of generating a wide variety of stitch patterns. 

 

Using their technology, it should be possible to enable 3D modeling software to automatically wrap 3D models with highly realistic knitted fabrics. The rendered visuals are startling, and one's mind reels with the possibilities. 

 

Once 3D models are created in software, they can potentially be 3D printed. While an attractive concept, we see potential issues: 

 

• Slicing such a 3D model for printing may be computationally difficult. Imagine all the curves to analyze on a full-size knitted surface. Slicing may take an enormous amount of time or even crash less robust slicing software. In fact, the authors report the elapsed time to generate several of their models, the longest duration being 33 hours! Wait, it gets worse: the generation was done on a dual Intel Xeon X5690 CPU @ 3.46 GHz with 48 GB RAM. Not exactly your typical home machine. 
• The resolution of a given 3D printer may not be sufficient to resolve the fine details of a stitch mesh. In other words, all that computation may not result in anything other than a roughly textured print surface. 

 

Regardless of such potential problems, we predict 3D printed sweaters will be forthcoming. 

 

Via Cem Yuksel

Printing Craters

Printing landscapes is something that's been done before on 3D printers, but how about this? Print a 3D replica of an actual lunar crater. 

 

Where does the 3D model come from? It all starts with LROC, the camera on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This satellite, launched in 2009, orbits our moon pole to pole at an altitude of only 50Km (30 miles), snapping images constantly. The objective is to produce a complete 3D map of the lunar surface.

 

That's where we get excited. Occasionally NASA releases an image containing 3D information that can be used in various ways. Image specialist Nathanial Burton-Bradford used the data to produce a visual 3D model, viewable with those kooky red/blue glasses. 

 

But there's another use: transforming the 3D information into a STL-format 3D model, which can then be printed on any 3D printer. At this point we're unaware of anyone who's done the necessary data conversion. Who's up for it?  

 

Via Universe Today and LROC

The 3D Printing Network

Want to connect with other 3D print folks? One way might be the newly created "3D Printing Network". The network, which appears to be a mailing list and IRC channel, is sponsored by the Fellowship of Free Software Foundation Europe, or Fellowship of FSFE. 

 

According to the network's description: 

 

The 3D Printing Network (3DPN) is a neutral, non-partisan, public network of 3D printing professionals facilitated by FSFE. 3DPN is an Free Software driven network, which enables co-operation among multiple companies and a volunteer community. One goal is to develop future 3D printing related solutions such as a 3D Printing management platform. 3DPN aims to engage all existing 3D printer manufacturers and software developers in the project, both Free Software and non-free software developers, and gather the broad 3D printing Free Software community under one brand.

 

If you're looking to find others interested in 3DP, this just might be the place. 

 

Via 3D Printing Network

The B9Creator 3D Printer

It seems that KickStarter is chock full of 3D printers kits these days and every week there is a new startup company with an improvement to the latest designs. This week we're looking at the B9Creator 3D Printer. 

 

Michael Joyce's B9Creator is a resin-based 3D printer, unlike most other inexpensive 3D printers that are based on melted plastic filament. The B9Creator gradually solidifies layers out of liquid resin, eventually building an entire object. 

 

But how well does it print? You must first understand how the resin process works. It uses a miniature projector, similar to one might be found in an office meeting room. The B9Creator's projector renders a 1024 x 768 pixel image. 

 

Software slices each layer into a 1024 x 768 image, which is then displayed on the surface of the resin. Ingeniously, the resin solidifies once exposed to light from the projector, instantly creating an wall solid areas of each layer - far faster than plastic filament 3D printers, which must mechanically traverse each solid area of each layer. 

 

The resolution of the B9Creator is dependent on how wide you focus the projector. In all cases it solidifies 1024 x 768 bits, but they'll be smaller if you focus within a smaller real area. It sounds like you can go at least as low as 50 microns (that's 0.05 mm, smaller than any plastic filament 3D printer we've heard of). What about the vertical resolution? The B9Creator can apparently perform lower than 10 microns (an astounding 0.01 mm!) However, the time required to print a layer remains identical, so printing at a higher vertical resolution will correspondingly increase your print time. At "typical" resolutions of 0.1 mm you can print "12-20 mm per hour". Hm, perhaps we should print tall objects sideways to make them faster? 

 

The KickStarter initiative closes on June 12, but the project has already almost tripled its goal of USD$50,000. As is customary, there are several donation levels offered, but the interesting ones for printer kits and assembled versions range from USD2,375 to USD$3,775 depending on several factors. It appears that the final price will be in the USD$2-3K range, based on these levels. 

 

Finally, the best part: the entire project will be open sourced at the conclusion of the launch! This means that other individuals and companies would be able to improve the design and we think we'll soon see a menagerie of powerful resin-based personal 3D printers. Can you imagine the MakerBot Resinator? The BFB Flash? What will come of Junior Veloso's proprietary resin-based 3D printer?  

 

Via KickStarter and B9Creator (Hat tip to Holto)

A New 3D Printer From Objet?

There's something brewing at Objet, makers of the Connex line of commercial 3D printers. First we saw a mysterious art exhibition of color objects apparently produced on a color-capable Objet 3D printer - but there are no color-capable Objet 3D printers! Then we hear that Objet issued a press release indicating the art was produced on an unannounced Objet color-capable 3D printer. 

 

Yesterday we read a post and watched video on Objet's blog saying:

 

"On the 22nd of May we’re launching our latest 3D printer. All I can say for now are 3 words: Professional. Versatile. Desktop."

 

Mysterious for not much longer. 

 

However, we suspect they forgot one thing and need four words: "Professional. Versatile. Desktop. Color."

 

Via Objet

Print a Chocolate Brain!

They didn't actually print a chocolate brain, rather the team from Inition took MRI scan data from their founder Andy Millins and created a 3D model. Once you have a 3D model, as readers know well, you can do some 3D printing. 

 

In this case the team created detailed 3D model of the brain from the MRI data, which was then 3D printed on their ZCorp Zprinter 450 3D printer. A negative mold was created by painting the solid brain with latex - and then peeling it off. Finally, melted chocolate was poured into the mold and set for three hours in a refridgerator. Once completed, were only two tasks left to do:

 

• Post the entire procedure to Instructables (Done, Check!)
• Eat the brain (Done, Check!)

 

Along with 3D printing stuff with your name on it, there seems to be a fascination with printing body parts and eating them. No, we're not offering any further speculation on this matter!

 

Via LaughingSquid, Instructables and Inition