On The Road With 3D Printing

The Pocket Factory Project seems a little crazy at first, but then it starts to make more sense in this rapidly evolving 21st century. It's two creative guys stuffed into a Prius, driving around the United States seeking inspiration for creative 3D printing. 

 

Bilal Ghalib and Alex Hornstein are those guys and they're traveling the route pictured above. Their ride is "filled with cheap 3D printers" they're using to develop new products and hopefully get a viable business going. 

 

How well is the project proceeding? They're about half-way through their adventure, as documented on their website. The site not only provides a tour diary, but also links directly to their Etsy online store. There you'll find products like the "Automatic Silly String Shooter" or the "iGhettoBlaster", a strange Gramophone-like iAttachment. We can think of some interesting applications of the Silly String Shooter. Hm.

 

Nevertheless, the PocketFactory project is a wonderful mix of advanced tech, travel, adventure and a heavy dose of innovative online marketing. Good luck to PocketFactory! 

 

Via PocketFactory

Send To Print/ Print To Send

We previously mentioned the exhibition at London's Aram Gallery entitled "Send To Print/ Print To Send", in which artists explore the possibilities using 3D printing technology. We just found a bit more information about this event. 

 

ArtsThread discusses the opportunity and as in other industries, the Arts can use 3D printing for custom, one-of-a-kind productions. One of the artists, Riccardo Bovo has codified this approach into a system that produces a custom lampshade based on user input. He says: 

 

The design is constantly redefined in shape by the user with the system and at any moment is ready for production. The time between design phase and production phase therefore drops to zero.

 

There's much more at the link below. Meanwhile, we're wondering whether the artist explorations might eventually collide with patents pending by some of the service bureaus, who may see these experiments as infringement. 

 

Via ArtsThread

3D Printed Exhibition at The Aram Gallery

If you happen to be in London before February 25th, you might want to drop by The Aram Gallery in Covent Garden to see their "Send to Print / Print to Send" exhibition. The exhibition features works by designers exploring the medium of 3D printing, including some folks whom we've written about such as Freedom of Creation and Unfold.be. 

 

The full list of participants also includes: 

 

• Assa Ashuach
• Riccardo Bovo
• Michael Eden
• FAT, Jump Studios
• Markus Kayser
• Dirk vander Kooij
• Chau Har Lee
• PearsonLloyd
• Chloe McCormick & Nicholas O’Donnell-Hoare
• Serie
• Superfusionlab
• Silvia Weidenbach

 

These designers represent a cross section of fields including "architecture, industrial design, fashion, and product design." The exhibition attempts to introduce people to the concept of 3D printing as a design medium by seeing such works as Serie's Mumbai Facade (image above, click for larger image). It should be quite interesting. 

 

Via The Aram Gallery

A Robot at Mallyable

Our sister site and 3D model shop Mallyable just announced a very cool new 3D model: the Sitting Robot. It's an exclusive digital 3D model of a particularly lazy robot that is conveniently sitting to permit easy 3D printing. 

If you haven't yet heard of Mallyable, it's our very own source for 3D models - that's 3D models specifically designed for 3D printing. All designs are carefully engineered to be not only interesting, but also more likely to successfuly print. 

[UPDATE] We successfully printed this little fellow on our BFB 3000, using a relatively coarse 0.5mm resolution and it looks pretty good! Perhaps we'll print it again in 0.125mm resolution to get a smoother finish.

Via Mallyable

Finding 3D Models With Google

We're always interested to find new ways of developing 3D models, be it through software modeling tools, capture through scanning of real objects, physical manifestation of found 3D data, or other techniques. Why? Because you can 3D print them! Now we see artist Daniel Michel of Germany has found yet another way to create digital models: Googling! 

 

Daniel observed that a vase shape is symmetrical and thus its 3D shape can be sorta-derived from a 2D image. Then he went to work digging through Google Images to find vase images. 

 

By taking a one-eighth vertical slice of eight selected vase images, he was able to compose a new composite vase. He clearly had to do some limited 3D shaping to approximate the real vase's curves. In the end he created an entirely new mashup vase. It's called, obviously, the "Google Vase". 

 

This approach seems to provide a way to create a near-infinite number of new 3D composite objects. We're wondering two things:

 

• What other shapes can be composed in this way beyond vases? Faces? Vehicles? Buildings? 
• Will the resulting composites be sufficiently interesting and/or beautiful? 

 

The answers are up to you.  

Via Daniel Michel and TheNextWeb

A 3D Printed Hairbrush Bowl?

Qatar-based designer Thomas Modeen has produced a very unusual fruit bowl design. Well, we suppose it could hold a lot of other things, too. The design is inspired by a hairbrush - but upside down so that the bristles support items placed on top. 

 

There are plenty more pictures of the "Hair-Brush Fruit-Bowl" at Tom's site, smArchitecture, as well as lots of other cool designs. According to Tom:

 

After extensive field-tests, documentation of which can be observed below, the intended functions of the artifact have been proven to be adaptable to almost all generally available fruits, vegetables and hair-types (watermelons, large pumpkins & durians, and dread-locks excluded)

 

Via smArchitecture

Industrial Revolution 2.0

Industrial Revolution 2.0 is the name of a special event taking place at this year's London Design Festival. This event is located at the Victoria and Albert Museum, as are some of the other events. It turns out that most of the items on display at Industrial Revolution 2.0 are 3D printed by 3D print service Materialise. According to the Festival: 

 

Renowned New York-based design gallerist and curator Murray Moss will collaborate with industry leader Materialise, Belgium to create this special exhibition which pushes the parameters of 21st century 3D 'printing'. A series of unique 'printed' works, using cutting edge laser and digital technologies to build three-dimensional objects, are placed throughout the Museum's most important galleries, wittily referencing eight of the Museum's key pieces and spaces.

 

Expect to see 3D printed tables and other very cool items during the Festival's nine days between September 17 to 25th. 

 

Via London Design Festival and The Independent

Shapeways Teaches 3D Design

In an effort to generate more Shapeways designers, Shapeways is offering an in-class evening training class New York City on September 13th. They're hoping to attract people new to 3D modeling who have used some of Shapeways' unique model generators and want more. 

 

The course seems to be pretty basic, focusing on use of Google Sketchup to create a simple design, which can then be printed on Shapeways' service. The cost of the two-hour course is a mere USD$20, and that includes a USD$25 voucher to cover off the cost of printing any model you cook up in the course. 

 

We think this is a great idea: encouraging people to learn how to design their own objects. Not everyone will want to, but we certainly need more people designing printable 3D objects. 

 

Via Shapeways