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!

HP 3D Printer Specifications

While the new line of HP 3D printers is only available in certain countries, that doesn’t stop you from finding their specifications if you aren’t in their current sales area. We’ve probed to the depths of HP’s vast ocean of web pages to find the specifications for the twin 3D printers announced last week. As… Continue reading HP 3D Printer Specifications

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WaveWash From Stratasys

One of the big challenges with 3D printers is the clean up process. Unlike 2D printers, where you can use the output immediately, most 3D printers produce objects that require various types of post-processing, and this is especially true for support media. While some printers simply use the same print material for support sections that… Continue reading WaveWash From Stratasys

Open Hardware: Defined?

The results of a March 17th workshop on open hardware have been released. The event, termed “A workshop on legal tools for open source hardware”, started discussing ideas for open hardware licenses beyond the software-heritage open licenses commonly reused today. These software licenses (such as Creative Commons, GPL, etc.) do not necessarily account for the… Continue reading Open Hardware: Defined?

SMArchitecture

We ran across a very interesting operation: SMArchitecture, a “Kuwait and London based architectural & design R&D practice”. Their blog, written by Dr. Thomas Modeen describes their design experiments, which are often highly unusual and seem to have evolved from fabrication techniques. Some examples:   The ‘Comet’ vase, which consists of a bundle of hollow,… Continue reading SMArchitecture

DIYLILCNC

The DIYLILCNC is a do-it-yourself CNC machine. Much like open source 3D printer designs, this one is instead for a CNC machine. This one can be built for approximately USD$700. From the site:   Plans and instructions for building the DIYLILCNC are distributed freely and intended for wide distribution and modification with few restrictions. The… Continue reading DIYLILCNC

Finalists Announced in 3D Printing Contest

The annual Dimension 3D Extreme Redesign Contest has announced nine finalists in three categories.   High School Category Finalists: Robby Ridzy, Medina County Career Center, Brunswick, Ohio: Gutter Guide Maxwell Krist, Eckstein Middle School, Seattle, Wash.: Electricity Usage Meter Korrina Reed, Milford H.S., Milford, Ohio: Fragrance Bracelet    University Category Finalists: Donald Nicholson, Columbus State… Continue reading Finalists Announced in 3D Printing Contest

A Little World Idea

We’re checking out the new iPhone app from “Little World Gifts”, which is a rather cool idea. You browse a series of 3D “gifts” via your iPhone – and browsing means viewing in 3D using rotations, zoom, etc. Once you’ve selected something, you can pick one of your contacts and purchase the item to be… Continue reading A Little World Idea

Affordable 3D Printing?

We’re examining a news release from Bits From Bytes, who apparently will be unveiling what they say is the “first fully assembled 3D printer to be put on the market for less than £2,000” at the RAPID 2010 Conference and Expo on May 18th.    The new BFB 3000 has a couple of interesting features,… Continue reading Affordable 3D Printing?

3D Print and Design Workshop in Seattle

Wulf Design owner and 3D print blogger Larry James is offering a “3D Print & Design Workshop” on April the 24th, for any readers in the Seattle vicinity. The session is being offered through the Seattle Free School.    In the four-hour session, Larry will provide an introduction to 3D printing using a MakerBot printer (perhaps his… Continue reading 3D Print and Design Workshop in Seattle

A MakerBot For Free?

MakerBot has teamed with Make magazine in a contest to award one lucky designer with a brand new MakerBot CupCake printer. All you have to do is submit an amazing, awesome and original design to 3D model repository Thingiverse. Bre Prettis explains it all in the video link below.    But you’d better do it… Continue reading A MakerBot For Free?

HP is 3D Printing!

The big news today was the anticipated release of HP’s new line of 3D printers. The printers are actually made by Stratasys, makers of the Dimension line of printers by means of a joint venture the two signed earlier this year.    The announcement specifies two models, which will be available this May only in… Continue reading HP is 3D Printing!

Glass Objects from Shapeways

The big news this week was clearly Shapeways surprise announcement: they now provide glass as print material!     Glass printing has been the subject of much investigation and experimentation this year, and now it appears that Shapeways has made enough progress to offer commercial 3D printing using it. Even better, the glass used is recycled… Continue reading Glass Objects from Shapeways

The Most Popular 3D Printer Brands & Manufacturers?

A strange post appeared last week on Red Chill Media where they listed their thoughts on the “Top 4 Most Popular 3D Printer Brands & Manufacturers”. Their list included: Objet Z Corporation Desktop Factory (!) Dimension/Stratasys We’re not sure we’d agree with this list, particularly item 3, Desktop Factory. While DT was highly touted and… Continue reading The Most Popular 3D Printer Brands & Manufacturers?

TurboSquid

Model makers and consumers might head over to TurboSquid to find and market 3D models. Fabbaloo readers are both makers and consumers, so we felt it was time to point out the benefits of TurboSquid’s amazing service.    What is TurboSquid? It’s perhaps the largest commercial online marketplace for 3D models today. Operating like eBay,… Continue reading TurboSquid

SpaceNavigators Are Free!

We’re a big fan of SpaceNavigators, those pleasant-feeling 3D controllers that are most often found in your not-the-regular-mouse hand. The SpaceNav is compatible with a long list of 3D software, ranging from most modelling tools to 3D games.   There’s several types of SpaceNavs available from maker 3DConnexion, including more advanced models with many buttons,… Continue reading SpaceNavigators Are Free!

Solido Pricing Update

We were contacted by Valori Pagone, VP Technical Support at Solido USA Solido USA, after she read our post from last week examining a sample print from a Solido 3D printer.    In the article we posted pricing we found at typical resellers, but according to Valori:    Consumable kits are $359 USD for any… Continue reading Solido Pricing Update

New Google Sketchup 3D Plugin from i.materialise

There’s already a few plugins for Google’s popular Sketchup 3D modelling program that permit export to formats suitable for 3D printing, but we learned that i.materialise has now released their own version.    The plugin is easily installed into Sketchup by using the instructions linked below. In the image above you can see how it… Continue reading New Google Sketchup 3D Plugin from i.materialise

Make Anything!

That’s the tagline for the new Fab@Home website, just unveiled in the past few days:   Fab@Home will change the way we live. It is a platform of printers and programs which can produce functional 3D objects. It is designed to fit on your desktop and within your budget. Fab@Home is supported by a global,… Continue reading Make Anything!

3D Printing Aids Biohacking

These days people are fiddling with anything that can be made digital, and one of the more interesting digitizations recently is biology! DNA, those tiny molecular strands that define us all, are increasingly being investigated by, well, hackers. BBC News reports on this phenomenon, which has grown recently aided by technological developments.    The idea… Continue reading 3D Printing Aids Biohacking

Stratasys Reduces Support Material by 40%

Stratasys, makers of the Dimension series of commercial 3D printers has announced a breakthrough in support technology. For those who don’t know, support material is frequently used in 3D printing to overcome the problem of printing overhangs. If there’s no support material to hold it up, the printer can’t properly deposit the build material. Support… Continue reading Stratasys Reduces Support Material by 40%

Ponoko Makes MakerBots!

What does a personal manufacturing service from New Zealand have to do with a 3D printer kit manufacturer from New York City? A lot more now, apparently. The two organizations have teamed up to leverage each other’s strengths.    MakerBot has opened a Showroom on Ponoko, where you can purchase and customize not only your… Continue reading Ponoko Makes MakerBots!

Digging Through eBay for 3D

Following up on our earlier article in which we sought out used 3D printers on eBay, we noticed that printers are not the only relevant 3D item you can find on eBay.     We’ve located several instances of individuals selling print services via eBay, but we’d use them only if their price was less than… Continue reading Digging Through eBay for 3D

Print 3D in 2D

A new 3D print service has launched, SnapilyPro, but it’s not what you think: they print 3D models in 2D.    The service accepts 3D photoshop PSD files and uses lenticular printing to produce a flat surface image that appears to move when you rotate the image.    Why would you use a 2D print… Continue reading Print 3D in 2D

RepRap – MakerBot Controversy!

Controversy erupted over the past few weeks where someone was providing an assembled electronics kit for RepRap based on the MakerBot electronics board. The controversy stemmed from the maker’s (kymberlyaandrus) alleged lack of posting the required files with the electronics kit.    The way it’s supposed to work, according to basic open source concepts, is… Continue reading RepRap – MakerBot Controversy!

Ceramic 3D Printer?

Unfold is experimenting with printing ceramics. They’ve acquired a RapMan 3D printer kit and “Currently we are working on a toolhead that can extrude clay.” This is not something the RapMan was originally designed to do, but what are kits for if not to modify?    The test vase, shown above appears impressive, but it may… Continue reading Ceramic 3D Printer?

Put Your 3D Printer To Work Today!

3D Printing “connecter” CloudFab has come out of private beta and is now accepted registrations from the general public. We wrote of CloudFab earlier when they were in the testing phase.    What’s CloudFab? We term it a “connecter” because that’s precisely what it does: those who require 3D printing are connected to those who… Continue reading Put Your 3D Printer To Work Today!

3D Printing The Roads

There’s a wonderful concept device produced by designers Hoyoung Lee, Doyoung Kim, and Hongku Kim called the “Road Printer”. Click on the image for larger detail. The idea is to have a solar-powered robot paint those nice lines on our roadways. This should be inexpensive and offer a lot more safety than having live crews… Continue reading 3D Printing The Roads

Sampling Solido

Fabbaloo managed to lay our hands on a sample 3D print from Solido, one of the major commercial 3D printer manufacturers. The print, in the image above, is a palm-sized horse. We were very impressed with the strength of the object – it’s quite stiff to handle, and according to Solido’s website, prints are suitable… Continue reading Sampling Solido

HP Ready to Ship 3D Printers

In an update to the blockbuster announcement in January, DesignNews reports that HP will very soon begin shipping their new 3D printers to five selected European countries, eventually widening their market to the entire globe. The printers are being manufactured by HP’s partner and 3D printing leader, Stratasys at their Minnesota plant.    DesignNews believes… Continue reading HP Ready to Ship 3D Printers

Is Hardware Open?

We think hardware could be truly open, but only if the correct legal frameworks are in place. And they likely are not.   Software has gone through all this before, of course. In the 1960’s software was basically homemade, but then commercial software companies emerged and grew in the 1970’s and 80’s. However, in the… Continue reading Is Hardware Open?

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Another Inexpensive 3D Printer Kit Emerges

Competition for Makerbot? Cubely jumped into the 3D printing scene this week at an Arizona Hackerspace meetup. Cubely, a RepRap derivative, hopes to produce a superior hobbyist 3D printer at low cost.    Cubely consists of four major components: Electronics, which they recommend purchasing from MakerBot, as they are “unfortunately” the sole supplier; Stepper motors… Continue reading Another Inexpensive 3D Printer Kit Emerges

Impossible Shoes

Shoes were a hit at the recent Freedom of Creation Future of Fashion exhibition in Amsterdam. Designer student Pauline Van Dongen created several unique shoe designs – and produced them with 3D printing for the exhibition.    With Core77’s recent experiments in 3D printed footwear, we’re beginning to wonder if this could be a growth… Continue reading Impossible Shoes

uPrinting Arms

Tiberius Arms is a small company specializing in the design and manufacturing of advanced pneumatic weapons. You may have used similar weapons on the paintball grounds, but they’re also used by the military for training and police forces as a “less than lethal” weapon. Tiberius has been producing weapons since their first product, a sniper… Continue reading uPrinting Arms

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3D Printing Experimentation with Replibot

There are many inventive hobbyists who are making very good use of the 3D printing knowledgesphere. That knowledge includes hardware, software, electronics, design, tools, models, examples, help, tutorials and services. For those who are not satisfied with the current offerings, they often dig in deep in attempts to find better solutions by leveraging all available… Continue reading 3D Printing Experimentation with Replibot

Laser Scanning Sale!

Laser Design has a special offer on for those requiring a full-scale commercial 3D scanner: 30% discount. This is a substantial amount, given the normal prices for such equipment.    The device in question is the Surveyor WS-Series system:   Surveyor WS-Series scans parts from all orientations, then easily rotates the data back into a… Continue reading Laser Scanning Sale!

WYSIWYG 3D Printing

Shapeways has taken a step to ease the design process by using Blender to render images of 3D models. This addition to their service permits users to have a reasonably close peek at what their printed object might look like after emerging from Shapeways fleet of 3D printers. The problem up till now has been… Continue reading WYSIWYG 3D Printing

Kick Start Those Earrings

Fluid Forms new golden earrings initiative is a unique approach to personal manufacturing. The idea is to produce individualized earrings based on a geographical location of your choice. The design is actually a street map of that location based on data obtained from open street maps.    Which location should you choose? Perhaps it’s a… Continue reading Kick Start Those Earrings

RepRap Explained

Dr. Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath and the father of the RepRap 3D printer takes us on a video tour of RepRap, including the new Mendel RepRap model. Bowyer speaks enthusiastically on the device, tools for 3D modelling and 3D model repositories.    The Mendel RepRap is physically smaller than its predecessor model,… Continue reading RepRap Explained

The Doctor is In at Shapeways

That’s him in the image, Doctor Shapeways! Well, not exactly. Always an innovator, Shapeways has released another terrific feature for those submitting 3D models to their printing service: MeshMedic.   MeshMedic automatically corrects very common mistakes made in 3D models that render the model unprintable. While the model might look tremendously beautiful on your 24… Continue reading The Doctor is In at Shapeways

OpenStructures

As the world slowly fills with advanced personal and commercial manufacturing equipment, we’re starting to see the emergence of systems to make the resulting manufactured objects fit together in organized ways. Projects such as SKDB and MakerBeam hope to help us locate and assemble independently designed objects.  Another project in this area is OpenStructures:  … Continue reading OpenStructures

The Battle of Big Thinking

We listened to an interesting presentation from John Wilshire on the topic of “Big”. He means the notion of mass production, mass consumption and the resulting mass media, where the goal is simply to have you “buy more” in a “big way”. It’s true. We’ve all been conditioned to think this way as that was… Continue reading The Battle of Big Thinking

Maker Culture

Great article on Maker Culture from Re/Creating Tampa, where they contrast 21st Century maker activities with historical events in the United States. They explain how inventions were largely the domain of the individual (think Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, etc.) These renowned “individual gadgeteers” made a truly significant difference in the history of the United States… Continue reading Maker Culture

3D Printing with Macs

The 3D printing community would seem to be the realm of Windows or Linux, and as a consequence Mac owners might feel a bit left out. Much of the relevant software comes only in Windows form, posing a challenge for Mac users who might have to resort to installing Windows on their machines.     Interestingly,… Continue reading 3D Printing with Macs

Alumide Examples

Joris of Shapeways posted a video showing off several sample 3D prints using Shapeway’s new Alumide material. The semi-metallic material, while less strong than other build materials offered, seems to convey quite a different character to the printed objects. They no longer look and feel like “plain old plastic”.    The video includes several truly… Continue reading Alumide Examples

Changing Prosthetics Forever

Daniel Terdiman of CNET news writes a long article describing how 3D printing is “changing prosthetics forever”. We’ve written several articles in this area over the past two years, and now it’s become visible in CNET.    Terdiman explains how the combination of amputee soldiers’ needs, 3D scanning, 3D printing and individual manufacturing have opened… Continue reading Changing Prosthetics Forever

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3D Printing is Not China on Your Desktop

A 2008 quote attributed to Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google says: “Think of RepRap as a China on your desktop.” We strongly resonate with that image. Instead of receiving goods from China, which evidently manufactures all things these days, you can drop a 3D printer on your desk and manufacture things yourself.… Continue reading 3D Printing is Not China on Your Desktop

Will 3D Printing Win an Academy Award?

It’s entirely possible! Two 2009 films nominated made extensive use of 3D printing in their productions: Avatar, nominated for Best Picture of the Year among others, and Coraline, nominated for Best Animated Feature Film.    James Cameron, the man behind Avatar used 3D printing to produce figurines with which lighting tests were performed for “every… Continue reading Will 3D Printing Win an Academy Award?

Purple Platypus

As the 3D printer market grows, the sales model changes, too. At first we see manufacturers selling directly, but once established they expand their coverage by partnering with hardware resellers. Resellers are a very effective way to market products within a fixed geographical area because they can be much more attuned to local conditions and… Continue reading Purple Platypus

The Khan Academy

During the course of your 3D object design, you might require some knowledge you don’t have, or perhaps have forgotten. Don’t worry – there’s a free service you can use to catch up: The Khan Academy. It’s a website jammed full of great short videos on a wide variety of topics, including many scientific areas… Continue reading The Khan Academy

ProMetal’s Experience

ProMetal is an innovative manufacturing company that uses advanced techniques such as additive manufacturing to get an edge. In a wide-ranging interview and analysis, RapidToday profiles ProMetal and their recent challenges: Identifying the right sales channels to meet the market Enabling customized versions of products Keeping consumer costs low It seems that selling 3D items… Continue reading ProMetal’s Experience

Two Metallic Announcements

In recent days two announcements regarding 3D metal printing have emerged: Shapeways announced a new material and Materialise released new software optimized for metal additive manufacturing. Firsrt, Materialise released the “Magics Metal SG” software package that should make life a little bit easier for 3D designers: Magics Metal SG provides metal AM professionals with a… Continue reading Two Metallic Announcements

The Social Engineering-Knowledge Database

Bryan Bishop provides a great overview of the Social Engineering-Knowledge Database (SKDB) project in an article at HPlus Magazine. The premise of the project is to create a standard environment for the development of complex 3D models by leveraging models and instructions that already exist. This is very similar to the open source software industry,… Continue reading The Social Engineering-Knowledge Database

The New Means of Production

We’ve been reading a very interesting article by Greg J. Smith of Serial Consign, which discusses the implications of advanced personal manufacturing capabilities on art and design. Smith explains the basics for those who aren’t familiar with modern fabbing, but then goes to review thoughts by several designers, writers and analysts. A key concept we… Continue reading The New Means of Production

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Stratasys Results for 2009

We like to follow Stratasys’s financial press releases, because they tell us a little bit about the current state of the commercial 3D printer market. In the past we’ve seen a slight downturn in activity at Stratasys, mainly due to the rather significant economic collapse in the US and elsewhere. In spite of those bad… Continue reading Stratasys Results for 2009

Sweet Onion Dwelling

The nice people at Sweet Onion Creations focus on building highly realistic 3D architectural models, often making heavy use of 3D printing technology. They’ve posted a video of how they go about the build process, which combines advanced 3D printing with many conventional model building techniques. In the video they construct an amazingly detailed model… Continue reading Sweet Onion Dwelling

Converting the Camaro

What do you do if you live in Australia and want an American muscle car? It’s difficult if they’re not sold locally, so you’d have to purchase them in the US and ship them over the Pacific. But then you run into the problem of orientation: the US cars are designed to drive on the… Continue reading Converting the Camaro

Who Is The RapMan?

We’ve covered the very popular RapMan 3D printer kit on several occasions previously, but there’s something a little mysterious about them. We noticed their website and branding changed. We see a new name: “Bits From Bytes”. What’s going on? Clarification arrived from their spokesperson, Rachel Park, who explains: Bits from Bytes (BfB, is how they… Continue reading Who Is The RapMan?

Blender 2.5 Alpha 1 Released

Many 3D modellers use the free Blender package if they can’t afford the sometimes expensive commercial 3D modelling software options. While Blender is rather complete functionally, it has long had a reputation of being difficult to learn. This could be about to change with the introduction of their new version, 2.5. A new alpha release… Continue reading Blender 2.5 Alpha 1 Released

Seth Godin’s Vision

We read Seth Godin’s posts often, and recently completed his latest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?. In the book Godin proposes that the industrial model that we’ve lived with for some 250 years is drawing to a close. With painful accuracy, he describes the fruitless struggles and frustrations many people face at work in the… Continue reading Seth Godin’s Vision

3D Printing: The Trends?

Which 3D printer manufacturers are most popular? That’s very hard to say, since internal company statistics are often difficult to find. However, Google is Our Friend in this case, since they offer a free trending service: Google Trends. Google Trends does not tell you which item is most popular. Instead they simply tell you the… Continue reading 3D Printing: The Trends?

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Chairs You Can Sit On

Some may say that 3D printed items are not robust, but not this time. Design firm Freedom of Creation’s Janne Kyttanen has made an amazing set of swivel chairs exclusively for a yacht and residence. FOC used Selective Laser Sintering to produce the unique chairs, which are based on a previous tray design. The chair… Continue reading Chairs You Can Sit On

Aflac Duck uses 3D Printing

Well, not the duck specifically – but in a Winter Olympics Aflac advertisement, the exasperated Aflac duck snowboards down a mountain – using helmet and bindings printed on an Objet 3D printer. One can imagine typical snowboard bindings don’t account for webbed feet, and they obviously had to be custom made. This is not the… Continue reading Aflac Duck uses 3D Printing

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Fixing Model Problems

One of the issues facing 3D modellers is the ability to create models perfectly suitable for 3D printing. A correct visual appearance does not mean it will print correctly, because the design might be ambiguous, have non-printable shapes or be “leaky” (non-watertight). Shapeways writes: I’ve found that it’s often difficult to retrofit your existing models… Continue reading Fixing Model Problems

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Top 5 Reasons To Get Into the 3D Printer Market?

Channel Insider writes of five reasons they believe value added resellers should consider adding 3D printers to their catalog of products. Let’s examine their rationale: Reason # 1: Soaring Market Growth Who knew? The 3D printing market is in major growth mode. In a down economy, companies that want to stay afloat need to innovate… Continue reading Top 5 Reasons To Get Into the 3D Printer Market?

The Sculpteo 3D Printing Service

A new European 3D print service has emerged: Sculpteo. This friendly service appears to compete with Shapeways, as it offers not only a straightforward method of uploading your designs, but also has a “community gallery” from which you may choose pre-made designs.    Once your design is set:   You choose the material, the monochrome… Continue reading The Sculpteo 3D Printing Service

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BlenderArtists Competition

i.Materialise has launched a design challenge on Blender designers at the BlenderArtists site: “BlenderArtists.org is the most popular community site dedicated to the free, open-source 3D animation program Blender. On the site, users of the program can discuss their artwork, ask questions and find resources such as textures and tutorials.” The competition closes on February… Continue reading BlenderArtists Competition

RapMan Wins BETT Award

A1 Technologies, the makers of The RapMan, an inexpensive 3D printer kit targeted at the educational market, recently won the BETT award in the  Digital Devices category for their Bits From Bytes kit. The BETT Awards recognize “the best in educational technology solutions”.   The Bits From Bytes “complete” kit is priced at £750.00 and… Continue reading RapMan Wins BETT Award

Matthew du Plessis on 3D Printing

Matthew du Plessis, columnist at the Times Live, provided his thoughts on the world of 3D printing. While he begins with the obligatory comparison to Star Trek replicators (“Tea, Earl Grey, Hot!“), he then recognizes the potential of the future:    … I think it’s fair to say, without any hyperbole or undue exaggeration, that… Continue reading Matthew du Plessis on 3D Printing

MCOR Prints A Car

MCOR’s Matrix 300, the 3D printer that prints in plain paper, was recently used by design students from London’s Royal College of Art to produce a vehicle design, shown above. The MCOR Matrix is unique among 3D printers due to its use of paper as a print material, resulting in extremely inexpensive (and recyclable) media.… Continue reading MCOR Prints A Car

The .MGX Collection

Earlier this week we encountered iMaterialise’s .MGX collection at the Parallellepipeda Exhibition, and we wanted to learn more. iMaterialise, as we’ve written before, is one of the notable and larger 3D print services today. Like most 3D print services, they allow you to upload your own 3D design (and even help you do it successfully)… Continue reading The .MGX Collection

Sterling’s Kiosk

It’s possible that Science Fiction inspired the creation of 3D Printing; we’ll never know for sure. That inspiration continues today, as we recently listened to Starship Sofa’s rendition of Bruce Sterling’s amazing short story, “Kiosk”. Published to the web in 2008, this story follows the career of Borislav, a street-savvy Belgrade entrepreneur who somehow gets… Continue reading Sterling’s Kiosk

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Wallpaper’s 30 Concept Houses

Wallpaper commissioned 30 concept houses for the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam. They felt their exhibit would best show the concepts by having actual 3D models on display. The DMC (Digital Manufacturing Centre) London produced these models for 30 different architectural clients for the exhibition. 3D design files were obtained from the architects and… Continue reading Wallpaper’s 30 Concept Houses

The Parallellipipeda Exhibition

The Singularity Hub reports on an exhibition taking place at the M Museum in Leuven, Belgium, where the Parallellipipeda Project attempts to leverage the Parallelepiped geometric shape.    Amazing sculptures, plates, light fixtures and even furniture are being shown until 25 April. They’ve even included a 3D scanning booth, courtesy of EyeTronics, in which you… Continue reading The Parallellipipeda Exhibition

RepRap Grandchild Produced

Maker Erik de Bruijn has already persuaded his RepRap 3D printer to produce parts for a “child” printer, as have others using the RepRap design. That’s one of the main objectives for the RepRap project: a self-replicating machine. This was first accomplished in mid-2008, as we reported then.    On Friday Erik announced on Twitter… Continue reading RepRap Grandchild Produced

3D Collaboration Puts 700 Year Old Monolith In Your Hands

We’ve all seen the enigmatic Easter Island monoliths called Moai, erected for mysterious purposes by long departed pacific islanders some 700ish years ago, and we find them quite intriguing. They were also very interesting to Mark Ganter of Open3DP, who wanted to 3D print one. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a readily available dataset containing a 3D… Continue reading 3D Collaboration Puts 700 Year Old Monolith In Your Hands

Animation with 3D Printing

It has been done before, with Coraline, but now a post from Creative Review walks us through how the title sequence for Dutch TV programme “Het Klokhuis” (“The Apple Core”) was created.  The process involved printing numerous objects corresponding to frames of the sequence, which were then placed on a mini-stage and recorded. Animation… Continue reading Animation with 3D Printing

3D Printed Kitchen

This week has seen several articles on Food Printing, and today we can tell you that not only can the food be printed, but so can the Entire Restaurant! Instructables Restaurant is the first open source restaurant in the world. Everything you see, use and eat is downloaded from instructables.com. It’s an experiment in internet… Continue reading 3D Printed Kitchen

The Atomic Kitchen

For some reason there seems to be increasing mentions of “Food Printing” recently, including an article in The Independent. We’re all for that, being a hungry lot here at Fabbaloo. Today’s FoodPrint comes once again from Wallpaper, where they’ve posted an amazing vision of 3D Food Printing potential. The Philip’s molecular gastronomy concept is perhaps… Continue reading The Atomic Kitchen

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EuroPonoko!

As we suspected a short while ago, Ponoko has announced a new build location in Europe. The new hub will be located in Berlin, and joins the existing build hubs in San Francisco and New Zealand. This development means European makers or consumers will have significantly less shipping costs when using Ponoko: For example the… Continue reading EuroPonoko!

Chocolate Printing

For some reason this week a wave of chocolate fever passed through the Fabbaloo offices. After gorging on several delectable chocobars, we wondered about the current state of 3D chocolate printing. Certainly we saw early experiments by the Fab@Home folks, but what else is happening? After some searching, we encountered ChocALM: Customized Chocolate Made by Additive… Continue reading Chocolate Printing

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Test Parts

Television has the famous colored Test Pattern. 2D printers have “Test Pages”. But what should 3D printers use as the gold standard for testing and comparing output objects?   With the recent marketing comparisons of 3D Systems and Objet technology, and now a post from Open3DP, it’s seems logical that the industry should develop defacto… Continue reading Test Parts

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3D Printed Art

There’s always a stream of magnificent artwork emerging from 3D printers. Here’s a round up of some interesting pieces we’ve seen recently: A 3D printed ring in stainless steel by noformdesign        Ancient Critters by smallstuffstudio          Human skull demonstrating multicolour capability by ZCorp           Valentine… Continue reading 3D Printed Art

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Categorized as Design Tagged

The Tyee on 3D Printing

There’s a long article introducing 3D printing concepts appearing at The Tyee, a British Columbia-based electronic newsmagazine: “The Replicator, No Longer a Star Trek Dream”. The article contains interviews with Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, Adrian Bowyer, inventor of the RepRap, Fab Lab users, a RepRap owner, University of Missouri… Continue reading The Tyee on 3D Printing

The Homemade 3D Printer

Those new to the concept of 3D printing are often even more amazed to find out that it’s entirely possible to actually build a 3D printer yourself! It’s not particularly easy and you must have very reasonable hardware talent, but definitely possible.   You’ll need to select a method of depositing print media from many… Continue reading The Homemade 3D Printer

Wallpaper Magazine Awards “R-O-B” Best Builder Award

Normally we who follow the 3D printing world expect to see a (probably) beige printer-like box containing a steamy build chamber from which excellent 3D objects are extracted. But the R-O-B is a very different kind of additive “printer”. It’s actually a full-scale industrial robot that’s mounted inside a standard shipping container. The shipping container… Continue reading Wallpaper Magazine Awards “R-O-B” Best Builder Award