The Global Village Construction Set

Want to build a civilization? Sure, we all do. But now you can with the Global Village Construction Kit. It's a set of tools you'll need to produce and maintain an modern, industrial civilization. From their wiki: 

 

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that enables fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.

 

The concept includes a number of devices and processes in several areas: Habitat, Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Materials and Transportation. 

 

In the industry category, we have: Multimachine, Ironworker, Laser Cutter, Welder, Plasma Cutter, Induction Furnace, CNC Torch Table, Metal Roller, Rod and Wire Mill, Press Forge, Universal Rotor Drill Press, 3D Printer, 3D Scanner, CNC Circuit Mill, Industrial Robot and a Chipper Hammermill. Just the kind of things you'd see in a contemporary makerspace. In the Materials category there's also a Bioplastic Extruder to keep your 3D printer fuelled.

 

Via Open Source Ecology

A1's Subtractive UNIMAT Series

A1 Technology, sellers of a variety of additive 3D equipment including the low-cost BfB 3000 3D printer and RapMan 3D printer has introduced an entirely new line of products: The UNIMAT series, a collection of subtractive manufacturing tools. 

 

The premise is UNIMAT's extremely low pricing and modular design that should enable the technology to get into the hands of many more people, particularly educational institutions. How accessible is it? If you were to purchase the UNIMAT 1 Classic package, which includes a jigsaw, drill press, milling machine (both horizontal and vertical) and a metal lathe - all for only £399 (approx. USD$580). That's accessible!

 

The series includes "PowerLine" system that permits expandability by adding modules to provide different functions. The "MetalLine" package provides precision tools for highly accurate and professional use, and the CNC package is of course, a CNC machine.

 

Pricing in Pounds Sterling is as follows:  

 

• Playmat £99
• Unimat 1 Basic £199
• Unimat 1 Classic £399
• Styrocut 3D £149
• Unimat MetalLine Classic £699
• Unimat Power MetalLine £2,450
• Unimat CNC line £1,990

 

Via A1 Technologies

3DFilter: Just a Small Box

 

Many years ago you might recall the early days of web search, where there were several services competing to be the best search engine. At the time, the leaders might have been yahoo, altavista and others. But they were bested by upstart Google. Not only did Google provide excellent results, but they tried a new interface strategy: simplicity.

That's right, one of Google's brilliant insights was to reduce the complex search problem to a single query box. That, and eliminating most of the other page clutter, helped Google become the favorite for many Internet surfers.

It's a great strategy, and we've just seen another example of this with new 3D model search engine 3DFilter. This amazing service provides a search layer over top of several 3D model repositories, including:

• Cadyou
• Google 3D Warehouse
• Form Fonts Exchange
• The 3D Studio
• Fallingpixel
• 3D Xtras
• 3D02
• 3D Export
• Polantis
• 3dvia

3DFilter also can search for textures within these repositories:

• Cadyou Textures
• Stock.xchng
• The 3D Studio Textures
• Texture Spot
• Texturez
• Dreamstime

And there's that simple query box, too.

Results are presented in a straightforward display, showing image, creator and price (and many are "FREE"). It's not quite perfect yet, for example: a search for "Star Trek" yields 198 results, but some of the results have a questionable relationship to the search query. Sigh, that's what you get from the meta data. We're hoping 3DFilter can add a tagging layer on top to allow searchers to refine the searchability of the models.

The service is beta at this stage, since it appeared only very recently. A feedback tab permits you to send in your ideas for the service. Enjoy!

Via 3DFilter

netfabb Studio 4.2

 

Yes, it's just been updated and available for download. netfabb is a lightweight Windows software tool specifically engineered for additive design. netfabb offers a "basic" version completely free of charge, which includes these features, among others:

• Advanced model browsing and STL management
• Automatic part fixing, mesh editing and analysis
• Measurements and quality assurance
• Packing and machine preparation
• Slice editing

netfabb is capable of handling .STL files for browsing and editing, and even includes "various tools to detect and fix errors in triangulated meshes". The pay-for version includes their "Selective Space Structures" feature that allows "the creation of geometries of almost any freedom you could not have dreamed of only 10 years ago".

Via netfabb

Hands-On Design. For Real!

 

Josh at SolidSmack posts on a just-discovered video of a truly amazing development: using touch-screen multi-touch gestures to design a 3D model!

The software is from SpaceClaim Corp, makers of SpaceClaim Style, Engineer and Viewer. If you look closely in the HD version of the YouTube video, you'll see they are demonstrating with SpaceClaim Engineer. According to their website:

SpaceClaim is the world’s fastest and most innovative 3D solid modeler. It gives engineers and industrial designers the freedom and flexibility to capture ideas easily, directly edit solid models regardless of their origin, and simplify designs for analysis, prototyping, and manufacturing.

SpaceClaim lets the extended design and engineering teams work concurrently, finish projects at a fraction of the cost, and accelerate time-to-market. You can edit 3D designs based on your intention, regardless of how the model was created, and experiment freely with design concepts, unrestricted by complex parameters and restraints.

Intuitive tools such as Pull and Move let you directly select portions of the model and put them where you want. The Combine tool slices divides parts into pieces and lets you merge in portions of other designs. The Fill tool cleans up small features and fills holes. Take designs where you want them to go without worrying about how to get there.

Strangely, there is little mention of touch tech on their site, yet the mysterious video ominously says "This Fall".

As one commenter suggested, this isn't really going to change 3D modeling much because you can do all that stuff with your keyboard and mouse already. So true - but this type of interface will be quite attractive to those who are NOT familiar with complex 3D tools today. We could imagine a company like Ponoko or Shapeways using this approach to widen their market by attracting another slice of less-technical customers.

Via YouTube, SpaceClaim, SolidSmack and Shapeways

Make No Mistakes

One of the wonderful aspects of online services is the communities that form around them. These communities can not only share ideas, but sometimes they create very useful tools and add-ons that make the original service even better.

That's just what happened when Shapeway user Virtox created a special script for 3DS Max that computes the final price for printing the model at the Shapeways service. Evidently Virtox spent considerable time performing these calculations manually or uploading them to Shapeways to verify pricing. Instead, the calculation is now done quickly and efficiently. The script not only calculates pricing, but also computes final volume and verifies polycount. You can find the script at the link below.

Via Shapeways Download