Generated Spaceships

By on August 15th, 2011 in Software

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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. 
 

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!

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