Generated Spaceships

Once you have a 3D printer, the eternal question is, "what should I print?" One can tediously look through online repositories for something interesting, or perhaps tediously design something new with your 3D modelling software if you have the skills, ability and time. 

 

But what if you could generate your own model? And specifically spaceships? 

 

That's just what you can do now, according to a report and tutorial on Ponoko's blog. The generator, Shipwright, is a Blender plugin that contains a variety of different "ship parts" that can be connected together to form some very cool ships. 

 

The plug-in, developed by macouno, is derived from another of his work: Entoform. Entoform similarly generates weird biological shapes, things with the wrong number of legs, etc. Entoforms also includes a "DNA" feature in which a text string (playing the role of DNA) is used to select body parts and generate a unique individual. Of course, the DNA feature is also present in Shipwright: you can type in a string and get your unique spaceship, too. 

 

Via Ponoko, BlendSwap and Entoforms

Comments

[Jeff Mayland]

We printed an Alien for a client last year. Very cool detail for a FDM machine: http://www.modellabs.com/Case-Studies/Alien-Figurine-for-Game-Convention

If anyone wants to print a Shipwright model that fits in a 8"x8"x12" volume we will give you a 20% discount!

We would love to have a spaceship for our alien friend.

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