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Playing With FreeCAD

Can’t afford a big-time 3D CAD modeling software program? You’re not alone and you’re not without solutions. There are free 3D modeling software options, including the very popular but impossible to learn Blender. But Blender just isn’t CAD. Each 3D modeling system is best used for certain kinds of designs and if you are designing… Continue reading Playing With FreeCAD

Create Your Own Museum With 3D Printing

There was quite a bit of media buzz the other week when it was revealed that the venerable Smithsonian of Washington DC has been digitizing and 3D printing some of their famous works. Imaged is the famous statue of second US president Thomas Jefferson that was scanned & modeled by Studio EIS and 3D printed… Continue reading Create Your Own Museum With 3D Printing

A 3D Printed Heart

We were contacted by designer Mat Schwartz, who’s been experimenting with jewelry printing. Recently he made something unique for Valentine’s Day: a heart. He had been developing jewelry in the form of traditional rings but then was inspired by a Circulation Research report project he’d been working on: If you have been following the… Continue reading A 3D Printed Heart

Will China Be Harmed By 3D Printing?

Last summer we contemplated the idea that China could be harmed by 3D printing, based on a post in Forbes. The idea was that legions of inexpensive Asian workers who’ve been displacing expensive North American workers would have the tables turned when 3D printing takes hold in North America, permitting consumers to simply print their… Continue reading Will China Be Harmed By 3D Printing?

3D Printing Saves Bike Light

German designer and bicyclist Thorsten Wilms writes on his recent personal collision between biking and 3D printing. He had purchased a headlamp for his new bike, but found that the existing contraptions attached to the handlebars didn’t leave sufficient space to attach the new lamp. After trying a couple of variations, he gave up… Continue reading 3D Printing Saves Bike Light

Rapidshape’s 3D Printers

Have you heard of Rapidshape’s line of 3D printers? The one year old German-based company markets several units that focus on jewelry development, as they have significant experience in the lost wax casting process. Rapidshare currently offers three different models: the S60 mini, midi and maxi. These printers use a photo-sensitive resin to form… Continue reading Rapidshape’s 3D Printers

3D Printing Muscles

Organovo, the 3D Bioprinting startup, announced they’ve received USD$6.5M in a private placement investment to bolster their research budget. Organovo has been working on the problem of 3D printing live human tissue – but not with the intention of surgically inserting said tissue into live humans. No, instead they wish to create live human… Continue reading 3D Printing Muscles

The Useful iPod Nano Watchband

You’ve no doubt seen those squarish iPod Nano’s in the Apple Store. They’re so square that someone long ago thought they’d be easily transformed into a Dick Tracy-style watch by merely adding a band. And so it went, until Fernando Sosa decided to improve the design using 3D printing. Sosa has produced an Instructable… Continue reading The Useful iPod Nano Watchband

GrabCAD Ceramic 3D Printing Contest

GrabCAD is pretty huge library of useful mechanical 3D models – evidently well over 25,000 models as of this writing. But that’s not what we want to talk about. No, we want to talk about their new design contest that closes on Friday, March 16th. The theme for GrabCAD’s contest s unusual and specific: Design… Continue reading GrabCAD Ceramic 3D Printing Contest

The 3D Printed Art of Robert Geshlider

Artists have begun leveraging 3D printing technology to produce wondrous creations. This week we encountered an artist who is pushing the technology to its limit by creating perhaps the most amazing 3D printed pieces we’ve ever seen. We contacted California-based Robert Geshlider and asked him a few questions about his work, some of which… Continue reading The 3D Printed Art of Robert Geshlider

Ten Years of Inexpensive 3D Printing

Industry giant Stratasys just reminded us that it’s actually been ten years since they introduced a low cost 3D printer to the world. The term “low cost”, is of course, relative. At the time 3D printers were industrial behemoths costing major dollars. The Dimension introduced in 2002 cost just under USD$30,000, enabling many small businesses… Continue reading Ten Years of Inexpensive 3D Printing

The Case for Finer 3D Printer Resolution

CNET published an interesting article on Quirky, the New York based startup that crowdsources inventions. Reporter Rich Brown visited the company in hopes of seeing how they make use of 3D printing technology in a design firm. He describes his thoughts on the collision design firms such as Quirky vs. up and coming 3D model… Continue reading The Case for Finer 3D Printer Resolution

Tinkercad Now Sculpteos

Everyone’s favourite web-based 3D modeling software now has another partner: 3D print service Sculpteo. Previously Tinkercad could automatically send your 3D design directly to Materialise, Ponoko or Shapeways, but now you have a fourth option: France-based Sculpteo. Actually there is a fifth option: download the 3D model to your own computer and print it… Continue reading Tinkercad Now Sculpteos

HP Launches a New 3D Printer. Not!

We suddenly awoke to read the startling headline: “HP launches new 3D printer” and envisioned a grand update to HP’s long-term relationship with Stratasys. Perhaps a new low-cost 3D printer is now available? Maybe even a consumer version? Um, no. They launched the HP Topshot Laserjet Pro M275 in the UAE today. What… Continue reading HP Launches a New 3D Printer. Not!

3D Systems In USA Today

A great piece on 3D printing appeared recently in USA Today. While the piece says nothing we haven’t already known about here, there is something to notice: USA Today is a very consumer-oriented publication. It’s about as mass-media as you can get and still be a newspaper. The fact that such a publication has… Continue reading 3D Systems In USA Today

Pleasant3D Now Open Source

Zaggo, author of one of our favorite 3D modeling utilities, Pleasant3D, announced that the project is now going open source. Evidently the author, like many of us, was simply too busy to do further work on the software and has passed it on for the community to improve. We think this is an excellent… Continue reading Pleasant3D Now Open Source

3D Systems Deploys Print3D

Industry giant 3D Systems acquired software plugin maker Print3D in April last year and this week saw 3D Systems announce the technical outcome of that acquisition: Print3D is now released as a free plugin for major 3D modeling tools for direct integration with 3D Systems’ print services. Instead of exporting your 3D model and then… Continue reading 3D Systems Deploys Print3D

RAPID 3D Printed Clothing?

The annual RAPID additive manufacturing conference takes place this May in Atlanta and we’re expecting to see some interesting product announcements as usual. However, this year there might be something unusual in the plan, since the conference just put out a call for designers to submit “your most innovative 3D printed fashion piece”. … Continue reading RAPID 3D Printed Clothing?

3D Printing Produces Abundance?

Peter H. Diamandis is well known as the originator of the recent series of X-Prizes that have launched a couple of new 21st century industries. He also founded the Singularity University, too, which led to a unique extra-terrestrial 3D printing initiative, Made In Space. Diamandis and partner Steven Kotler have just come out with… Continue reading 3D Printing Produces Abundance?

Design with ImplicitCAD

Have you heard of OpenSCAD? It’s an open source software project that can be used to produce 3D models without a visual interface. How’s that work again? You write a kind of computer program whose instructions gradually generate all the pieces of your model. It’s a grand idea that we’ll delve deeper into in the… Continue reading Design with ImplicitCAD

Fabbster Beta Launch

The mysterious Fabbster 3D printer that we first wrote about last year is becoming less mysterious. The device, made by German-based Sintermask GmbH is about to be launched in a beta program. First, here’s the highlights of the new 3D printer: Large build envelope: 23 x 23 x 21 cm Incredible print speed… Continue reading Fabbster Beta Launch

3D Printed Dino Robots

We know folks have 3D printed dinosaur bones before. What could possibly be better than that? We know one thing: 3D Printed Dinosaur Robots! The project to produce these entertaining items has in fact a very serious scholarly purpose. Researchers at Drexel University are 3D printing scaled down dino bones and attaching artificial muscles… Continue reading 3D Printed Dino Robots

Win an Objet 3D Printer

There seems to be a great many 3D printing contests lately, often offering a prize of “your object being 3D printed”. Some even offer a personal 3D printer as a grand prize. But the prize in Instructable’s “Make it Real” contest is a little different. Say, USD$50,000 different: they’re offering a complete Objet 30 3D… Continue reading Win an Objet 3D Printer

Thingiverse Terms Changed

3D Model download site Thingiverse has made a dramatic change in its licensing terms. As most startups tend to do, the initial version of legal terms are typically cobbled together from other sources. MakerBot Chief Bre Pettis writes: I went and looked at Blip.tv’s and Etsy’s and Youtube’s and I basically copied them and… Continue reading Thingiverse Terms Changed

More 3D Printed Shoes

After jewelry, the most frequently 3D printed item of clothing seems to be shoes. Some of the designs we’ve seen up to now were totally fantastic but were perhaps more arty than you’d care to wear in “real life”. Now we’re seeing more practical 3D printed shoe designs by artist Hoon Chung of the University… Continue reading More 3D Printed Shoes

Trademark vs. 3D Printing

Helen Sloan of World Trademark Review writes an interesting analysis of the effect of 3D printing on trademarks. This was prompted, of course, by the recent announcement by The Pirate Bay that they’re adding a category for 3D object files. The implication is that anyone would theoretically be able to download a 3D model of… Continue reading Trademark vs. 3D Printing

3D Printer in the Home of the Future

The UK’s Channel 4’s new show “Home of the Future” takes the idea of a futuristic home beyond just and idea; they’re building it for real! The imaginative home includes numerous 21st century features, some you’d expect to see, like an internet-equipped refrigerator in the kitchen and others you might not expect like the… Continue reading 3D Printer in the Home of the Future

3D Model Printed – Literally

3D models are printed on 3D printers every day, yes? This time engineers at Objet attempted to print an actual 3D model – an object that *looks* like a 3D model. And they succeeded. Just look at the image above (click for larger view) and you’ll see what we mean. This image is not computer… Continue reading 3D Model Printed – Literally

3D printing Down Under

Would you happen to be in the beautiful city of Adelaide, Australia on February 20th? You may be able to attend the “3D Printing Forum: The Next Industrial Revolution?”, which promises to be an interesting introduction to various 3D printing topics. According to the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), the event includes: … Continue reading 3D printing Down Under

The 10 Barriers to 3D Printing In Your Home

Slashgear predicts 3D printing will “explode at a rate incomparable to its 2D predecessor”. We all hope so, but will this actually come true? Things happen when they’re easy – and that might not be the case just yet in the world of personal 3D printing. We considered some of the major barriers to mass… Continue reading The 10 Barriers to 3D Printing In Your Home

It’s Valentine’s Day At BotMill

Normally a day for lovers, Valentine’s is apparently a day for shopping at BotMill, makers of some fine assembled personal 3D printers. BotMill is selling their assembled Glider personal 3D printer for USD$1320 and the DIY Axis Kit for only USD$990 – both are USD$75 off their normal price – and offered with free… Continue reading It’s Valentine’s Day At BotMill

DAZ Studio, Bryce and Hexagon Available for Free!

DAZ 3D has a spectacular offer on now for some 3D tools that readers may find of interest. These three software tools retail for over USD$800 and are apparently available at no charge through February. The tools include: DAZ Studio Pro 4 – A tool for designing and animating human shapes and related… Continue reading DAZ Studio, Bryce and Hexagon Available for Free!

Stackable 3D Print Design

Tom Modeen is at it again, developing weird but artistic techniques for producing 3D objects with 3D printers. This time he’s interrupting the 3D print operation before it completes, revealing the usually hidden inner support structure. By printing similarly sized objects, one can take these partial prints and manually assemble them in different combinations to… Continue reading Stackable 3D Print Design

3D Printing Stack Exchange?

You may have heard of StackOverflow? It’s a very popular question and answer website for computer programming topics. The makers of StackOverflow now permit the same software to be used for question-answer sites on other topics. But which topics get a site? At Area51.StackExhchange.com discussions are held to determine whether a topic warrants a Q/A… Continue reading 3D Printing Stack Exchange?

The New Tinkercad

Tinkercad, the amazing web-based solid 3D modeling tool has recently improved its capabilities. This tool permits creation of basic 3D printable objects without an expensive software and more importantly without a lot of training. Tinkercad uses WebGL, so be sure to use a reasonably modern web browser. What did we notice about Tinkercad? Gorgeously… Continue reading The New Tinkercad

Open3DP Goes Closed3DP?

The folks at the University of Washington who’ve been doing stellar work researching 3D printing in concrete, ceramics, glass and other unusual materials have gone dark, so to speak. It appears that the suits at their university have issued new rules regarding participation with outside groups. Specifically, they say: it has become increasingly… Continue reading Open3DP Goes Closed3DP?

A 3D Printed Jaw

This was bound to happen: a person receives a transplant of a major body part made specifically for them by 3D printing technology. In this case the body part was the lower jaw of an 83 year old woman from Europe, which had become infected and required removal. 3D scanning techniques captured the precise… Continue reading A 3D Printed Jaw

We Built About 8,000 Mouths

Did you catch the movie Coraline? If you did you might have noticed that much of the movie was not made using conventional computer graphics. Instead the producers 3D printed billions (well maybe not quite that much, but a Whole Bunch) of character parts that were then used in Stop-Motion filming. The movie was a… Continue reading We Built About 8,000 Mouths

The $300 Desktop 3D Printer?

Another 3D printer startup has emerged: the Makibox A6, billed as: “The $300 Desktop 3D Printer”. The project is led by Jon Buford, who hopes to raise USD$40,000 by the end of February through the funding site Makible. Buford says: “we’ve set out to build the most affordable, compact, and easy to use 3D printer… Continue reading The $300 Desktop 3D Printer?

3D Printed Ceramic Design

Artist Jonathan Keep provided an update on his experiments using ceramic 3D printing to create very unusual works. Using a modified RapMan personal 3D printer that has its usual plastic extruders replaced with syringes, Keep can successfully 3D print ceramic models. The syringes contain a fixed-capacity cartridge full of ceramic material, meaning Keep’s prints have… Continue reading 3D Printed Ceramic Design

3D Print Meat With Your Imagine 3D Printer

We spoke with Essential Dynamics Sales Manager, Stevie Green regarding their new personal 3D printer, the Imagine 3D Printer. As we reported earlier, this printer is unique among ready-to-go assembled personal 3D printers as it uses syringes instead of the more common hot plastic extruders. This means it is capable of printing room-temperature gooey substances,… Continue reading 3D Print Meat With Your Imagine 3D Printer

Pirate Baying 3D Printing

The other week infamous BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay announced a new category for contraband digital media: Other/Physibles. The idea is that this category would hold 3D model files representing physical objects. Horrors! Not only will movies and music will be pirated, but now Everything Else! Listen, it’s just a category. And it’s not… Continue reading Pirate Baying 3D Printing

3D Printing To Disappear?

Christopher Mims writes his opinion of 3D printing futures on the MIT Technology Review blog, where he suggests that 3D printing will never become a “mature technology that can reproduce all the goods on which we rely”. He goes on to suggest that to believe so is a “complete denial of the complexities of modern… Continue reading 3D Printing To Disappear?

BotMill Improves Service

BotMill is one of many companies producing RepRap-based 3D printers, and perhaps it’s one of the largest. In the past our posts on BotMill have sometimes been met with negative comments regarding their service and this negativity appeared in other forums as well. We’re not certain whether the negative comments are true or false,… Continue reading BotMill Improves Service

The Imagine 3D Food Printer

There’s not a lot of information about this intriguing device, but New York-based Essential Dynamics has released their “Imagine 3D Printer”. Now we know you’ve seen a plethora of personal 3D printers explode onto the market in recent months, but this one is different. Very different. It doesn’t print plastic. The Imagine uses… Continue reading The Imagine 3D Food Printer

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… Continue reading On The Road With 3D Printing

North America’s Largest 3D Print?

Everyone asks how big can you print, but we have a group trying to print something truly massive. JF Brandon of Vancouver, Canada wants your help to print a gigantic version of famed 3D designer Bathsheba Grossman’s “Rygo” for outdoor installation at Gropp’s Gallery of Vancouver. The Rygo is an algorithmic design – generated… Continue reading North America’s Largest 3D Print?

ReconstructMe Makes 3D Capture Easy

A new project by PROFACTOR GmbH attempts to vastly simplify 3D scanning. ReconstructMe is software that uses a Microsoft Kinect 3D sensor to capture highly detailed 3D models of nearby objects. But wait, you say, that’s been done before. Well, kinda. All of the Kinect 3D capture software we’ve seen so far simply takes… Continue reading ReconstructMe Makes 3D Capture Easy

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… Continue reading Send To Print/ Print To Send

3D Printing In Antarctica?

Hundreds of thousands of readers from an amazing 185 countries and territories have visited Fabbaloo since our inception in 2007, but only two visits have ever originated from Antarctica. We’re wondering whether 3D printing could play a significant role at the bottom of the world in the research stations, which are often cut off… Continue reading 3D Printing In Antarctica?

Astronomical Themed Prints

Sister site Mallyable has released a couple of interesting printable 3D models that have an astronomical theme. The Big Dipper Pendant and Constellation Pegasus Pendant both have pinholes in the same configuration as the actual stellar patterns. Adding simple string or chain of your choice makes the pendant wearable. These are not the… Continue reading Astronomical Themed Prints

The Two Titans of Personal 3D Printing

After CES it now seems we have a two-horse race for the lead in personal 3D printing: MakerBot and 3D Systems. Both announced new printers (the MakerBot Replicator and the Cube), while 3D Systems added a comprehensive 3D community/store/service to compete with MakerBot’s Thingiverse. But that’s about where the similarities end. MakerBot’s philosophy revolves… Continue reading The Two Titans of Personal 3D Printing

Awesome Possibilities with 3D Printed Concrete

A provocative article on Construction Digital discusses the idea of matching 3D printing with modern construction. As anyone who wanders through big cities these days knows, the design of buildings is increasingly radical and complex. These amazing designs are wonderful to look at and work within, but they are becoming more difficult for engineers and… Continue reading Awesome Possibilities with 3D Printed Concrete

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… Continue reading 3D Printed Exhibition at The Aram Gallery

Want To Attend A 3D Printing Conference?

Having unfortunately missed this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, we’ve been wondering what other conferences and trade shows exist that might include 3D printing content. Searches reveal what we think might be a fairly comprehensive list of major events involving 3D printing. We’ve not included numerous local events such as local Maker Faires. CES, January… Continue reading Want To Attend A 3D Printing Conference?

The Galileo 3D Printer

There is no shortage of 3D printer kits recently, as it seems everyone is now jumping on the RepRap model to develop improvements of one kind or another. We noticed yet another one today: The Galileo 3D Printer, featured on Instructables and designed by the KentStrapper team. While the Galileo is essentially a RepRap… Continue reading The Galileo 3D Printer

Time to Enter The Extreme Redesign Contest

Stratasys’ annual Extreme Redesign Contest for students is open – but only until the deadline of February 2. If you’ve been thinking about entering, think no longer because you’d better fill out the forms straight away. The contest enables students in grade school as well as university to enter a design (product, enhancement, art… Continue reading Time to Enter The Extreme Redesign Contest

3D Print Animated Beings!

It’s fun printing 3D objects with a 3D printer, but typically the problem is they are fixed, unmoving static objects that sit patiently on your desk. What if you could print objects that literally come alive and move around? What if you printed tiny beings that could walk? Sounds ridiculous, we know. But it’s… Continue reading 3D Print Animated Beings!

Scan The World With MatterPort

3D Printing Buzz Increases

With the close of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show it seems like a good time to check the buzz level of 3D printing, which we suspect is higher than its ever been. By using Google Trends, a free tool that shows the frequency of search terms used on the omnipresent search engine, we can see… Continue reading 3D Printing Buzz Increases

Sculpteo’s Cloud Engine

3D print service Sculpteo announced their “3D Printing Cloud Engine” that provides a way for websites to create online stores for 3D printed items. The service apparently permits customization of 3D models to some degree. The customized models are then automatically submitted to Sculpteo’s print service for production and shipping. Sculpteo also says they… Continue reading Sculpteo’s Cloud Engine

CNET Names MakerBot’s Replicator Best of CES

CES has now closed and the media now reports on their observations. CNET produced a list of their “best 10 of CES”. On the list was the MakerBot Replicator personal 3D printer, winner of the “Best emerging tech product” category. Why the MakerBot instead of its competitor the 3D Systems Cube? According to CNET: … Continue reading CNET Names MakerBot’s Replicator Best of CES

The Society for Printable Geography

There have been many attempts to print landscapes with 3D printers, but here’s a whole service dedicated to that pursuit: The Society for Printable Geography. While it’s called a “society” it’s actually a specialized 3D print service. The Society uses the Shapeways 3D print service to produce its attractive items. They have a huge… Continue reading The Society for Printable Geography

True 3D Scanners for Phones?

Developments at MIT by professor Vivek Goyal may lead to very inexpensive and ubiquitous 3D scanning equipment, perhaps even embedded in your mobile phone. A dream for many 3D printer owners is the ability to capture 3D shapes efficiently. Today one must use very expensive 3D scanners or be satisfied with rudimentary solutions such as… Continue reading True 3D Scanners for Phones?

Mineways!

The popularity of Minecraft has blossomed into several 3D print-related services. One of the new ones is Mineways. Minecraft users spend hours designing complex and amazing 3D environments and it’s only natural they’d want to see them in real life if at all possible. It is possible with Mineways, but with some effort. Mineways… Continue reading Mineways!

Unboxing A Stratasys

Brad Rigdon, the owner of PrintTo3D, a small 3D print service just received a brand new Stratasys Fortus 250mc commercial 3D printer. While we often see unboxing scenes of much smaller personal 3D printers, here’s an opportunity to see the unboxing of a much larger – and much more expensive – commercial 3D printer. Check… Continue reading Unboxing A Stratasys

Another 3D Printed Proposal

Earlier we wrote of how an Objet employee created a special engagement ring using 3D printing and successfully proposed marriage with it. Now we’re pointed to another similar scenario, this time involving 3D print service MyRobotNation. MyRobotNation is one of several small 3D print services that specialize in a particular genre. Of course, theirs… Continue reading Another 3D Printed Proposal

Sculpteo’s New App

3D print service Sculpteo just released a new iOS app that hooks directly into their service. With the app you can select a variety of 3D models that are tweaked with your personal data. You can take a side view image of your face (or your dog’s, we suppose) and it automatically creates a… Continue reading Sculpteo’s New App

3D Print Time, Size and Accuracy

With the announcement of MakerBot’s giant Replicator 3D printer, we’re now entering a stage where most personal 3D printers have a significantly large build envelope, typically around 200mm wide by 200mm deep by 150+mm tall. This means we can print big things! But should we? Sure you can print something “twice as large”, but… Continue reading 3D Print Time, Size and Accuracy

More on Cubify

As we mentioned the other day, 3D Systems was set to announce something big at CES and they did: plenty of details on the new Cubify system are now available. Cubify is a very comprehensive 3D printing “system” involving a new personal printer, 3D print services, an online community, a model repository, an API and… Continue reading More on Cubify

Thingiverse Updated

MakerBot’s source for freely available 3D models has been updated. Thingiverse, the repository for thousands of 3D models had a makeover yesterday and now sports a much cleaner look. The site still focuses on the key categories of objects: Who’s Making What? Newest Derivatives, Most Popular Things and the Newest Things, making it pretty… Continue reading Thingiverse Updated

Slic3r Instead of Skeinforge?

You own a RepRap 3D printer and you’re preparing a 3D model for printing with Skeinforge, the time-tested, defacto standard for slicing 3D models into printable GCode. All you need to do is wait for the slicing operation to complete. And you’re still waiting. That’s the problem with Skeinforge – while it has… Continue reading Slic3r Instead of Skeinforge?

MakerBot Announces The Replicator

We anticipated some announcement action this week coinciding with the annual Consumer Electronics show and we were definitely not disappointed. Today we find 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot has announced a brand-new personal 3D printer: The Replicator! The replicator appears to be much more capable but also strongly based upon its predecessor the venerable Thing-O-Matic.… Continue reading MakerBot Announces The Replicator

A 3D Marriage Proposal

Sometimes it’s what you do after work that counts. Objet sales engineer Idan Eshel had access to some amazing 3D printer gear and decided to prepare a unique marriage proposal to his girlfriend, Tamar. He 3D printed a very unusual ring with which he proposed. Evidently the strategy worked, as the couple were married… Continue reading A 3D Marriage Proposal

The Materials Project

We’re not sure how useful this is to most Fabbaloo readers, but it is very cool. The Materials Project is an online database of, well, materials. Once you register for free you can access the service by entering a chemical formula and the service returns you a wealth of information about the selected material. You… Continue reading The Materials Project

3D Printed Bike

Serious cyclists need their bike to precisely match their body for optimum performance, but how can you do so when bikes are pre-made to someone else’s specifications? The answer is to 3D print a bike to your exact specs. That’s what was done recently by German bike maker Vorwaertz, who use 3D design to prepare… Continue reading 3D Printed Bike

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 –… Continue reading A Robot at Mallyable

KraftWurx’s Patent Available

The legalities behind the KraftWurx 3D print service/software are now available for public viewing, courtesy of the US Government’s Patent and Trade office. Patent application number 20110313878, entitled “Made-to-order direct digital manufacturing enterprise” includes this abstract: Methods and systems for designing and producing a three-dimensional object selection of a base three-dimensional object from a… Continue reading KraftWurx’s Patent Available

Secret Cubify Project To Be Unveiled

A fascinating press release from 3D Systems describes what appears to be a whole new product line: Cubify. Is it a 3D printer? Yes. Is it 3D modeling software? Yes. Is it an online service? Yes. Whew! Several announcements bundled into one! 3D Systems is to formally announce this product in a few days… Continue reading Secret Cubify Project To Be Unveiled

The Prusa Air

The standard RepRap 3D printer designs are made to be changed and many inventors have developed modifications to improve them in various ways. One such design is Mecano’s Prusa Air, a modification of the standard Mendel design. The otherwise unrelated Prusa design provided the inspiration for the new Prusa Air through its radical efficiencies, hence… Continue reading The Prusa Air

Did Our 3D Print Wishes Come True in 2011?

In January 2011 we posted a short list of three “wishes” for 3D printing in 2011. Now that 2011 has officially been placed on the expired list, we thought we check in on our wishes to see if any of them actually happened. Here’s the results: We wished for “A capable and assembled 3D… Continue reading Did Our 3D Print Wishes Come True in 2011?

Anil Dash on 3D Printing Futures

Entrepreneur Anil Dash recently posted his thoughts on the world of 3D printing as we find it at the end of year 2011. We agree with most of his propositions, which basically boil down to the fact that personal 3D printing is at the most early stages of development. Here are his positions and our… Continue reading Anil Dash on 3D Printing Futures

3D Printed Kite

Boing Boing reports on an amazing 3D printed kite. Well, the kite wasn’t completely 3D printed – instead just the numerous connectors were. They were used to connect carbon fiber rods to form the strange looking craft. While the kite looks incredible, it didn’t fly very well, at least as far as we can tell… Continue reading 3D Printed Kite

Microsoft’s Secret 3D Printing Lab

Joshua Topolsky toured Microsoft’s product design lab on video. The lab uses a triplet of Objet 3D printers to produce prototypes of Microsoft products, most notably Mice. In the video Topolsky interviews Karsten Aagaard, User Experience Designer in Microsoft’s Hardware Group, who explains how the 3D printers can produce prototypes that can be… Continue reading Microsoft’s Secret 3D Printing Lab

MCOR’s 3D Christmas Cards

MCOR’s 3D paper printer created a rather unique design for a Christmas card: a 3D object emerges from the (thick) card when you open it. As you can see in the image, the sheet-built Christmas tree is surrounded by the excess material, which is normally removed and disposed of. However, in this case the “excess”… Continue reading MCOR’s 3D Christmas Cards

3D Prints Hit The Apple Store

If it’s in the Apple Store it’s got to be good, right? That might be debated, but regardless Freshfiber has landed their custom-printed iPhone covers in US and Canadian Apple Stores. At this point only two models are offered (the “Weave” and the digital-like “Double Mesh”), but you can check out large quantities of… Continue reading 3D Prints Hit The Apple Store

MakerBot Reaches Retail

New York City-based retailer AC Gears now sells MakerBot’s Thing-O-Matic personal 3D printer, in another step by growing Brooklyn-based manufacturer MakerBot’s strategy to get more MakerBots in the hands of more people. AC Gears is “New York’s Gadget Emporium”, selling a quite amazing selection of cool stuff such as a Breath Tester, LED lantern… Continue reading MakerBot Reaches Retail

The SUMPOD 3D Printer And Router

Time to look at another inexpensive 3D printer kit seeking funding. This one is called the SUMPOD and it’s not just a 3D printer – it’s a router as well. Designed by Richard Sum of the United Kingdom, the project now appears on IndieGoGo looking for USD$5,000 from sponsors until the close date of… Continue reading The SUMPOD 3D Printer And Router

The RepRap Food

Among the numerous successful and unsuccessful 3D printer kits seeking funding on IndieGoGo and Kickstarter is a rather unusual project: The RepRap Food Printer. The project goals are to develop a rudimentary food printer based on the trusted RepRap platform. While many food printing experiments have taken place on previous RepRaps and you can… Continue reading The RepRap Food

T-Splines Eaten by Autodesk

If you use Rhino3D or Solidworks for preparing your 3D models you might have heard of T-Splines. It’s a special plug-in that permits easy creation of organic shapes and thus greatly extends the usefulness of Rhino3D and Solidworks, at least for some designers. But that may change abruptly. The other week 3D software giant Autodesk… Continue reading T-Splines Eaten by Autodesk

Unfold Imagines Streetside 3D Printing

Several design firms specialize in doing amazing things with 3D printing and one of them is Belgium-based Unfold. Their new concept is streetside 3D printing. What? Yeah, it’s exactly that – a street vendor that prints arbitrary stuff on demand. Not hot dogs, but objects. Possible? Technically yes, but we suspect the clientele… Continue reading Unfold Imagines Streetside 3D Printing

3D Printing Hot Stuff

We’ve been reading a post from BFB in which they’ve offered another christmas 3D model free for download as part of their Advent Calendar program. It’s a tea light holder. The item holds one of those standard-sized metal candle holders, which of course, you ignite and enjoy. But this got us thinking. Should 3D… Continue reading 3D Printing Hot Stuff

Dozens of MakerBot Jobs!

Popular 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot is hiring. And boy, are they ever! A recent check of their jobs list revealed a startling number of required positions in wildly different roles. It’s almost as if MakerBot suddenly gained a ton of money and started recruiting for every job they felt they needed. But then, that’s exactly… Continue reading Dozens of MakerBot Jobs!

Bodyworks Human Models

Want to 3D print a person? Need a 3D body model to put your head on? Go no further than Bodyworks – an online store specializing in sales of 3D models of people. All of their products are SolidWorks models, suitable for modification for your own purposes. Prices range from USD$99-149 for body models… Continue reading Bodyworks Human Models