Kerry Stevenson, Author at Fabbaloo

Wear Your 8Hertz By Speaking to 1234Lab

Yes, we wrote the headline specifically to baffle readers. It’s all about a rather amazing new process developed by 1234Lab, a very interesting operation that is “a design group that is focusing on designing innovative product with business potential”. Among their inventory of radical products is the 8hertz line of jewelry. Here’s how it works:… Continue reading Wear Your 8Hertz By Speaking to 1234Lab

Homemade 3D Printer: The Details

Alvaro Fogassa of Homemade 3D Printer has posted some details about his inexpensive design. We’ve written on Alvaro’s expedition before, and now he tells us how it works, and points us to the software he used. The Lexmark Z12 inkjet-printer based design involves using common dental plaster as it’s material, mixed with a water-based glue… Continue reading Homemade 3D Printer: The Details

The Trends

Every once in a while we troll through Google’s amazing trend service to see what people are thinking about various topics. Of course, we investigated 3D printing. What’s Google’s amazing trend service, you ask? It’s a leverage of their colossal record of search requests. Just as you can search for a term, you can use… Continue reading The Trends

Oh, Really? RepRap Meets O’Reilly

Zach Smith of the RepRap Research Foundation is set to conduct a workshop at the O’Reilly ETech Emerging Technology Conference being held March 9-12 in San Jose, California. Zach’s session is scheduled for Monday the 9th in the afternoon, and his session abstract says: An exciting 3 hour workshop led by Zach Smith featuring… Continue reading Oh, Really? RepRap Meets O’Reilly

ULTEMate Material?

RedEye on Demand, one of the larger-sized 3D print services now offers a new printing material: ULTEM. What is it? We believe it to be the “superman” of materials, offering “a variety of exceptional thermoplastic properties”, according to RedEye’s specs. Does it leap over tall buildings or save cats from trees? Not yet, but… Continue reading ULTEMate Material?

MAKE Makes a Character

Shapeways provides a wonderful and simple way to create many types of objects. Their software does have restrictions, but don’t fret – you can always use your own 3D design software to produce, well, what ever you desire. And that’s precisely what John Park did at MAKE magazine. Using MAYA 3D software and a cute… Continue reading MAKE Makes a Character

Coffee Printer!

Once again another print media has emerged: Coffee Grinds! Yes, this one-of-a-kind specialized printer actually uses coffee grinds as its print media. It can also use tea dregs, according to the documentation. It was an entry into Core77’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition by Jeon Hwan Ju of Korea: RITI Printer is a eco-friendly printer… Continue reading Coffee Printer!

Home Printing? Home-Based Printing?

So you want to print out your model, but don’t happen to have a USD$49,000 3D printer under your desk (because your desk would likely collapse if it was ON the desk). You realize you need to use a 3D printing service. Unfortunately, most locales don’t have such services scattered around town like FedEx… Continue reading Home Printing? Home-Based Printing?

Architectural Concepts via 3D

Readers may notice our occasional rant on how 3D tech is often used to produce common objects, simple things that are merely more conveniently produced than traditional approaches. But that’s not what gets our gears turning. We look for entirely new concepts, things that would not have existed if not for the exploitation of contemporary… Continue reading Architectural Concepts via 3D

Open Manufacturing

Reader Bryan Bishop points us to a new initiative: “Open Manufacturing”, which at the moment appears to be a watering hole for discussions about how to supercharge our space. Now then, exactly how would that be done? Their tagline: Open Manufacturing is about bringing free and open source software development methodology and philosophy to… Continue reading Open Manufacturing

DiMora’s V16 Engine Powered By 3D Printer

Admit it – you need a 1200-HP car, just like us. But now they’re being made much more efficiently due to the use of ProMetal‘s “Rapid Casting Technology”, which can build molds and casting cores of sand directly from 3D models. DiMora Motors is using this new approach to build the startling 1200-HP motor… Continue reading DiMora’s V16 Engine Powered By 3D Printer

Metropolitan Works Exhibits

They’ve just recently opened, and now the new Metropolitan Works has an interesting exhibition going on. According to dezeen: An exhibition featuring work by designers including Tord Boontje, Timorous Beasties and Antony Gormley opens at creative industry centre Metropolitan Works in London on Monday. (That would be Monday, February 9th, 2009) Judging by the… Continue reading Metropolitan Works Exhibits

Shapeways Winners Announced

You might recall that Shapeways held a design contest, with the winner having the privilege of a titanium 3D print of their model! The grand prize winner was Product Design student Huang Yanying from Singapore, with her amazing Spiral Cage, pictured above. While not the winner, second place finisher Whystler had a rather interesting design:… Continue reading Shapeways Winners Announced

ZScanner

ZCorp, the makers of that very popular line of 3D Printers, does more than just that – they also make 3D scanners. While the ZScanners are not exactly newly announced, we still think they’re worthy of discussion. It fascinates us how one could wander through the real world with a handheld device (and laptop… Continue reading ZScanner

Gateway to the Fourth Dimension

No, it’s not another Stargate, but Richard Jin postulates on the manner of depicting the elusive Fourth Dimension in a thought-provoking article, and his ideas relate directly to our world of 3D printing. Regarding our inability to successfully visually the fourth dimension, he says: I would contest to say that much of the failure during… Continue reading Gateway to the Fourth Dimension

The Homemade 3D Printer

Yes, there’s RepRap and Fab@Home, but it’s also possible to just get down and do the whole thing yourself too. Not everyone would be able or interested to do such a thing, but certainly everyone enjoys a good story. Alvaro Fogassa is publishing an episodic story of how he’s trying to build a 3D… Continue reading The Homemade 3D Printer

Personal 3D Printer Released!

Yes, you can now have one of your own! Imagine it sitting at the end of your desk, spitting out any objects you desire, or at least models you can manage to develop. Two things are interesting about the announcement of uPrint from Dimension Printing: It’s NOT from Desktop Factory It’s NOT under USD$5,000. In… Continue reading Personal 3D Printer Released!

Get That Extreme Redesign Ready!

Dimension Printing, makers of the Stratasys line of 3D printers, is running its annual Extreme Redesign contest once again. This year the deadline for entries is February 1st – so we hope you got your design in on time. We’ve covered this event before, and it always produces some rather unusual and creative results. The… Continue reading Get That Extreme Redesign Ready!

Punched Lamps

Sometimes when we visit the furniture store it gets frustrating, items are too expensive or they don’t have precisely what you want. We’ve seen a bit of this before, but now emerges a new approach to furniture making: punch out the design yourself, literally! Fluid Forms now offers personally designed 3D prints of lampshades.… Continue reading Punched Lamps

SketchBot Comes to Life

SketchBot is a character designed by Brooklyn, NY designer Steve Talkowski. Hsi blog, appropriately named, “SketchBot” covers the gradual evolution of SketchBot through various designs and adventures over more than a year. Steve has created this character using an iterative process over a long period. Once his hand-drawn concept was completed, he built a prototype… Continue reading SketchBot Comes to Life

Step By Step

Replicator has a wonderful post that lists the essential steps for accomplishing 3D printing, although with a ZCorp flavor. Here is what they say (and we agree) are the steps you must get done: CAD Preparation – Always the first step, and perhaps the most difficult. You gotta have a model, and you’re either making… Continue reading Step By Step

A New Beginning and an End for Action Figures

A thoughtful article at Comic Book Bin forecasts both a bright and dark future for action figure collecting. Many people around the world collect action figures modeled after their favorite characters, and it’s a big business. But, as the article suggests, what happens when people can print their own action figures? Or create a design… Continue reading A New Beginning and an End for Action Figures

What Is This Called Again?

A lively discussion erupted recently over the terminology used to refer to our favorite technology. As you’ve probably noticed, manufacturers use all manner of words to describe their particular form of digital manufacturing. We’ve heard terms like: “Rapid Manufacturing”, “Rapid Prototyping”, “3D Printing”, “Additive Fabrication” and many variations. Terry Wohlers believes that the term “3D… Continue reading What Is This Called Again?

Metropolitan Works

In London they’re getting set to open a new facility for designers: the Metropolitan Works Building in February of this year. Metropolitan Works is part of the London Metropolitan University, and the Creative Industries Centre will: helping designers and manufacturers develop ideas and bring new products to the marketplace through access to digital manufacturing,… Continue reading Metropolitan Works

360-3D Scanner

At the recent CES in Las Vegas Real-View 3-D unveiled a new 3D scanner. According to a report on Wired’s Gadget Lab, the device is supposedly quite affordable. While information on Real-View’s website is rather scarce, the design of the scanner seems to be quite economical: Simple spinning platter to hold scanned objects Stereo… Continue reading 360-3D Scanner

AnarkikAngels Challenges Conventions

Edinburgh-based AnarkikAngels is trying to break down a barrier that we’ve seen others try to breech: the difficulty in acquiring 3D models. As we’ve said many times before, 3D printing is simply not going to get off the ground until your mom is able to create or find useful 3D models suitable for 3D printing.… Continue reading AnarkikAngels Challenges Conventions

Print Your Baby!

Most women would expect to proceed normally through their pregnancy, but perhaps a few 3D geek fathers would prefer to print their baby instead. Faster, safer, choice of materials, etc. Now it turns out you can actually do this! Well, in plastic or bronze at least. The London Ultrasound Centre in the UK offers… Continue reading Print Your Baby!

3D Printing on the High Seas

You might think you can’t seriously print an entire boat with current 3D printing tech, but Robotboat thinks otherwise. Their ingenious plan: print miniature robotically controlled boats! Robotboat is a startup company intending on producing “advanced robotic boats for the global oceanographic surveillance market”. They intend on using 3D printing to rapidly produce unique hull… Continue reading 3D Printing on the High Seas

Wired Names 3D Printing as Top Story

Wired’s GeekDad blog published a list of their “Top 18 Geek News Stories” for 2008 and the first one on the list was the self-reproducing RepRap device, which occurred earlier in 2008. We suspect non-geek society doesn’t quite realize the importance of this event, as shortly after the reproductive event, the child parts were destroyed!… Continue reading Wired Names 3D Printing as Top Story

Dev Hardware on RepRap

DevHardware has a rather lengthy article talking about the current state of affairs in 3D printing in their article, “The Printer That Prints Itself”. The article describes Dr. Adrian Bowyer’s quest to reduce the cost of 3D printing from the many tens of thousands of dollars to levels affordable by hobbyists. His open source strategy… Continue reading Dev Hardware on RepRap

Introductory 3D Printing Videos

Sweet Onion Creations is one of the smaller niche 3D printing services, specializing in architecture prints; they’ve been around about as long as any service. But their small size enables them to take a more personal approach to business. They’ve produced several interesting and rather well-done videos explaining 3D printing in very basic terms.… Continue reading Introductory 3D Printing Videos

Langford’s Prints

Sean Langford is a “lead artist at Green Grass Studios”, where he works on “modeling, texturing, animation, lighting, compositing, and editing”, but his “focus has always been on character creation”. Recently he entered a model into 3DTotal’s periodic Sculpting Challenge and came in second place. With this amazing magical staff model shown above. Here’s the… Continue reading Langford’s Prints

Does Anyone Want to Speak at HAR2009?

HAR2009 is an International Technology and Security conference taking place in the Netherlands this coming August. Their call for papers (for which submissions are due in May) has an interesting request for their “Decentralization” track: Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, most technologies have been moving towards centralization using economies of scale to create… Continue reading Does Anyone Want to Speak at HAR2009?

CBC Covers 3D Printing

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada’s government-owned media network, recently posted an article introducing the 3D Printing concept to its readers (mainly Canadians, we suppose.) This continues a trend of mainstream media gradually bumping into our tech space, and relating it to the public. The highlights of this article: The inevitable comparison of the technology to… Continue reading CBC Covers 3D Printing

3D Printer Reviews for 2008

Our friends at RapidToday files hardware reports direct from users of several new (and some beta) 3D printers. Included in their report are: iPro 9000 – Is said to be much more reliable than the previous Viper Pro systems, but still has issues in the control interface. ZPrinter 650 – Has new features, but is… Continue reading 3D Printer Reviews for 2008

Do We Really Need 3D Printing?

Of course we do! We at Fabbaloo would have little to write about otherwise. However, there are those who may think otherwise. We’ve been looking at tech from Total Immersion, a company that produces Augmented Reality. What’s Augmented Reality? Simply put, it is a way of adding virtual objects to real life situations. In reality… Continue reading Do We Really Need 3D Printing?

Everyone Needs A Print Service!

We were perusing Kijiji for some, um, stuff, and we ran across a very interesting advert: Address: Toronto, ON View mapDate Listed: 21-Dec-08 Hi everyone,Im offering best prices for 3D prints , manufacturing , solid works objects. From design objects to complete done 3D product (3D PRINT). Feel free to contact me on my email.… Continue reading Everyone Needs A Print Service!

Shapeways Bumps into Ponoko

Shapeways, the European-based 3D print service that is working very hard to make it easy for laymen to produce 3D objects, is stepping into Ponoko’s territory. Ponoko is a repository of 3D models and designs that you can manufacture on demand. Ponoko also allows you to sell prints made from your plans to anyone perusing… Continue reading Shapeways Bumps into Ponoko

SporeZ

Z Corp has taken another step to integrate its equipment into the personal manufacturing cycle. Recently they struck a deal with Bentley software to link with the construction industry. Now they touch the gaming space by providing a way to easily 3D print your Spore creations. Um, what’s Spore again? The Spore Creature Creator is… Continue reading SporeZ

Can You Print a Stadium?

Yes you can, although it will be a touch smaller than you’d expect. That’s precisely what HOK Sport is doing. They are one of the world’s leading architectural firms specializing in major sports facilities. Among their projects is the London 2012 Olympic Stadium. According to a recent Z Corp press release, HOK recently acquired… Continue reading Can You Print a Stadium?

Where’s Your Face?

It was inevitable. Both people and companies are using 3D print tech to wander into all manner of niche services, and today we’ve found another one. The eponymously named ThatsMyFace.com now offers the ability to produce 3D statuettes of your own face! It appears to be an entirely online process, in which you start by… Continue reading Where’s Your Face?

40,000 Lights are Better Than One

That’s the claim made by Huntsman Advanced Materials, who recently announced the availability of their new Araldite Digitalis. It’s a stereolithography machine that produces 3D objects by selectively hardening pixel-sized areas of a resin. Most stereolithography machines utilize a laser to gradually “draw” each layer of pixels into the media resin. Huntsman Advanced Materials has… Continue reading 40,000 Lights are Better Than One

Easton Predicts A Consumer Manufacturing Future

Tom Easton, Professor of Science at the Thomas College in Maine has just released a PDF of an interesting article he’s written for The Futurist magazine. Easton suggests that the combination of low-cost 3D printing technology and new business approaches triggered by commonly available internet connectivity will result in a new world for consumers. Gone… Continue reading Easton Predicts A Consumer Manufacturing Future

There’s Another Stereolithography Vat In Town

While we’re on the topic of giant stereolithography printers, we’ve just been tipped onto a video of another. This one is the iPro 9000 XL, evidently the largest commmercially available SL system. Amazingly, the build chamber is a 59 inch long vat full of liquid manufacturing media. Somehow we just don’t find SL videos as… Continue reading There’s Another Stereolithography Vat In Town

Shapeways Bends Metal

Not for everyone, however. The metal is bent only for the winner of their “metal 3D printing contest”, which closes on the 15th of January. Apparently the alloy metal is quite expensive and is being done only for the contest winner: The material that is used is also more expensive, because it is a Titanium… Continue reading Shapeways Bends Metal

RepRap Video

This wonderful video by Kyle Ronan shows a home-built RepRap printer in action. RepRap is an open source project that intends on providing the design for an easy-to-build 3D printer that is capable of reproducing all the parts that it’s made from. And, it’s actually already done this! Still needs some assembly, however. Back to… Continue reading RepRap Video

Digital Stone Rises in China

We’ve seen examples of interesting uses previously, and here’s another one. Four sculptors were to build exhibits for the Digital Stone Exhibition in China. The purpose of the exhibition was to demonstrate the links between the 21st century digital world and traditional stone carving techniques. Western artists first produced some 20 3D models, “Digitally Sculpting”.… Continue reading Digital Stone Rises in China

Z Corporation Leads the Way

You might not be familiar with “Project Lead The Way”, but it’s a: not-for-profit organization that promotes pre-engineering courses for middle and high school students. PLTW forms partnerships with public schools, higher education institutions and the private sector to increase the quantity and quality of engineers and engineering technologists graduating from our educational system… Today,… Continue reading Z Corporation Leads the Way

Stratasys Smoothes it Out

One of the shocks encountered by those first seeing a 3D printed object is that they aren’t always smooth. We’re all used to seeing and feeling totally smooth/polished plastic objects, and when we handle or look closely at a 3D printout we instantly recognize roughness. This often puts the objects in a bad light,… Continue reading Stratasys Smoothes it Out

Giant Prototypes

The typical 3D printer of today has a rather small build chamber, usually 10 cm, give or take. The more expensive devices have somewhat larger build chambers. Parts that don’t fit within build chambers must be broken down into smaller pieces that are manually assembled later. But an anonymous tipster put us on to a… Continue reading Giant Prototypes

Print That Chopper!

Stratasys’s service division, RedEye RPM produced a rather eye-catching surprise at the recent Autodesk University conference in Las Vegas. Yes, it was a complete, life-size custom designed motorcycle made entirely from parts produced on a 3D printer. According to their press release: The prototype chopper included many fully functional parts, including: articulating steering, illuminating headlights,… Continue reading Print That Chopper!

A 3D Spime Gateway in Every Home

We noticed an interesting article on the Cisco blog, where author Dennis Mancini postulates the future of Spime technology. Spime? Proposed by author Bruce Sterling, a Spime is “a type of technological device that, through pervasive RFID and GPS tracking, can track its history of use and interact with the world,” according to Wikipedia. While… Continue reading A 3D Spime Gateway in Every Home

Guitar Technology Fabbed

GooCart reports on a musical adventure involving his ’98 R8 honeyburst guitar and 3D printing. Evidently the pick guard did not fit, so he “scanned the ’53 GT guard into my 3d software and modified it for the R8, then I used our 3d printer for this cutting template”. The new part (pictured) will be… Continue reading Guitar Technology Fabbed

Automake Makes

What do they make? Objects you design, or at least “co-design”. It’s a very interesting concept, somewhat reminiscent of the approaches used by Shapeways, Ponoko and other consumer-oriented 3D print services. Here’s the issue: printers can produce objects from 3D models, but where do the models come from? It turns out that you need quite… Continue reading Automake Makes

Shapeways Goes Brown!

The consumer-oriented 3D print service Shapeways has improved their shipping capability by teaming up with UPS. UPS is well-known for their ability to efficiently organize shipping operations in an end-to-end fashion, and it looks like Shapeways has taken up their offer. This means they will be able to ship printed objects anywhere in the world… Continue reading Shapeways Goes Brown!

Desktop Factory Update

Desktop Factory is a startup company seeking to build a usable 3D printer at a cost of less than USD$5,000. Their device is still under development, but we’ve seen some tantalizing evidence that they are getting closer to a release date, touted to be in 2009. They’ve recently issued a status update, as they usually… Continue reading Desktop Factory Update

The Objet Eden260V

Objet, a manufacturer of 3D printers renowned for their ability to print objects using more than one type of print media, have announced a new device that goes well beyond their previous devices. The Eden260V is a small-footprint 3D printer suitable for office location. Larger-scale Objet devices used their unique “Polyjet Matrix Technology” to print… Continue reading The Objet Eden260V

ShapeShop 3D Modeling Software

A new 3D Modeling tool has emerged: ShapeShop! It claims: ShapeShop is a new 3D modeling and design tool with a fun, easy-to-learn interface. Sketch-based shape creation and editing tools make it simple to quickly translate your ideas into a 3D shape, and drag-and-drop decal compositing makes texturing simple. Best of all, ShapeShop is free!… Continue reading ShapeShop 3D Modeling Software

World’s First Consumer 3D Camera – And it Prints, Too!

Before you get too excited, it’s not what Fabbaloo readers might expect or want. Yes, the camera, pictured above, will indeed take 3D pictures as it clearly includes stereoscopic capability. And it (or an associated printer) will produce “3D Prints”. But they are actually 2D prints that merely look 3D, like holograms. According to the… Continue reading World’s First Consumer 3D Camera – And it Prints, Too!

The 3D Printer in You

No, we’re not suggesting there’s a ZCorp 510 next to your left kidney. But there ARE 3D printers inside of you. Many of them. That’s a least the analogy suggested by Phun Yan Yan, guest blogger for the NUS School of Computing in his article “Biology for Computer Scientists”. He proposes: This predefined sequence of… Continue reading The 3D Printer in You

AutoCAD 3D Bonus Pack

A new Bonus Pack is available for AutoCAD via your subscription. In fact, there are three available. The first provides extra measurement techniques, PLINE and rotation functions and a few other items. The second permits PDF underlays. The one we’re interested in is the third, the “3D Printing Bonus Pack”. What does it do? Well,… Continue reading AutoCAD 3D Bonus Pack

Two Hours to Stargate!

Madox has done the impossible – building a real Stargate in less than two hours! Heh, it’s not a *real* Stargate, but it is a true 3D object you can hold in your hand. And the iris does open and close, mostly. What’s this all about? Engineer Madox observed the recent 66% off materials cost… Continue reading Two Hours to Stargate!

Desktop Factory Test Sample Video!

BadBrad is back at it, and this time he’s somehow managed to infiltrate the secret Desktop Factory laboratories to try out the highly anticipated, world’s first sub-USD$5,000 3D printer. The object he chose to print was an iPhone case, and as you’ll see in the video, it’s a little bit rough around the edges. But… Continue reading Desktop Factory Test Sample Video!

Ponoko’s Designmake Prime

Ponoko, one of the most innovative self-manufacturing services we’ve yet seen, has come up with a new service for makers: DesignMake Prime. It’s similar to their regular service, which allows individuals to create designs, manufacture products and even sell them online. But the the new service has some key differences. Here are the new bits… Continue reading Ponoko’s Designmake Prime

An Interview with Sculptor Bathsheba Grossman

We’ve noticed Grossman before and been very impressed with her work. Now we find a full-length interview with the sculptor from Desktop Engineering Online, in which she explains how she came to use 3D print tech. Highlights we observed: Grossman feels that she was “backed into” working with 3D printing as a way to accomplish… Continue reading An Interview with Sculptor Bathsheba Grossman

Oklahoma 3D Printing

We’ve seen 3D printers appear at many educational institutions across the world and reported on them previously. Here’s another example, this time at Oklahoma City Community College as reported by the Pioneer Press. While this type of event has been repeated many times over in other schools in the past and soon in the future,… Continue reading Oklahoma 3D Printing

ReFabbing!

Tipster Jean-François Allie points us at a couple of very interesting projects that exploit 3D fabbing in a way we hadn’t considered: ReFabbing! The idea springs from observation of tremendous waste deposits of unused manufactured gear. For example, what happens with that old toothbrush, cell phone or other non-functional plastic thingy? They get thrown into… Continue reading ReFabbing!

ProMetal

Clank! That’s what you will hear when you drop an object printed by the ProMetal 3D print service. Their tagline says, “Functional direct metal parts printed directly from CAD”. According to their website: Using a sophisticated 3-D direct metal printing process, artists are able to produce fully functional metalwork projects from CAD drawings in… Continue reading ProMetal

Print Your Christmas Angel

We’ve already seen 3D print services try to overcome the “I don’t know how to build a 3D model” problem by specializing in pre-made designs. Typically minor customization is offered, such as color, size or adornments. These services have been very successful, as the majority of the population doesn’t have a hot clue how to… Continue reading Print Your Christmas Angel

Individual Olympic Shoes Fabbed

3D Systems recently assisted Loughborough University in the UK to produce highly customized shoe soles for olympic athletes. Researchers observed that the margin of victory in recent Olympic track events has been vanishingly small, sometimes as low as 0.01 seconds. You can’t get much closer than that. But a close margin of victory means that… Continue reading Individual Olympic Shoes Fabbed

Sketch Furniture Into Reality

Swedish design firm FRONT is pioneering a rather unusual method of developing 3D furniture models. They use 3D motion capture techniques to trace the movement of a sketch artist’s pen in three dimensions. The sketch artist, in this case, is drawing life-size furniture in empty space. Once you have a 3D model, what might you… Continue reading Sketch Furniture Into Reality

David Scans in 3D for Free!

Well, almost. The David 3D Laserscanner software can do some of the job using equipment you probably have lying around your shop. You need a handheld laser, a calibration backdrop, a good webcam and the David-Laserscanner software running on a Windows PC. Yes, we did say “handheld laser”. The system requires your hand and arm… Continue reading David Scans in 3D for Free!

Round the Clock FigurePrints

You’ll recall FigurePrints, the 3D print service that specializes in transforming your World of Warcraft avatar into an actual, hold-in-your-hand figurine. It seems they’ve generated a bit of interest among WoW players. So much so, that they’ve decided to operate 24×7 nonstop punching out WoW figurines! Their Vancouver, Canada production plant now has eleven… Continue reading Round the Clock FigurePrints

Stratasys Defies Economic Swing

Stratasys, makers of the Dimension line of 3D printers, recently released their 3rd Quarter 2008 financial results. Surprisingly the company produced “record third quarter revenue”, some 16% higher than the previous year. Their income also increased 15% year over year. Now, we don’t know how you feel, but it seems to us that there is… Continue reading Stratasys Defies Economic Swing

New 3D Printer Video

We just bumped into this fascinating video which takes us briefly through the entire lifecycle of a 3D print process. In this case, the goal is a to produce a small pile of wrenches. A wrench is designed on a CAD system The CAD model is sent to the printer The printer produces the objects… Continue reading New 3D Printer Video

Organ Printing Pondered

We encountered several reports dealing with the fantastic idea of printing human organs using 3D printing technology. The premise is to deposit cells in the appropriate shape. Various prototypes have been attempted, including liver tissue, branched vascular trees and cartilage. The bad news is that the experts predict it could be decades before such… Continue reading Organ Printing Pondered

A Jeweler’s First Time

MadeByDan reports on his first experience using 3D print technology. Ironically, it was not jewelry that came out of the printer, but instead o a simple platter. We expect that he’ll soon be printing jewelry models too. He used Shapeways, a popular 3D print service. Here’s the part we found most interesting: I thought it… Continue reading A Jeweler’s First Time

Shapeways Repackages!

Those model railway fans we wrote about the other week are pressing hard on Shapeways. They’re attempting to print a model of a Dutch steam heater car, and have had some difficulties. Some parts were not printed correctly, and the standard Shapeways packaging actually distorted the shape of the parts while in transit. Not Good!… Continue reading Shapeways Repackages!

Desktop Factory is Ponoko’d

Our friends at the revolutionary manufacturing service Ponoko recently interviewed Cathy Lewis, CEO of Desktop Factory, the company attempting to market a quality 3D printer for less than US$5,000. We’ve interviewed Ms. Lewis here, but Ponoko covered different areas. Some highlights we noticed: Desktop Factory believes their big opportunity lies in providing 3D technology to… Continue reading Desktop Factory is Ponoko’d

Take the Train from Shapeways

Shapeways, that upstart 3D print service that seems to be everywhere these days has another set of fans: model railway builders. A recent blog post on the Shapeways blog tells the tale of how they were contacted by Dutch specialist train builders who wanted to “test whether 3d printing could be a feasible option for… Continue reading Take the Train from Shapeways

3dtotal GrowIts a Service

The variety of 3D printing services continues to astound us. This time we have a partnership arrangement between 3dtotal (“The CG Artist’s Homepage) and GrowIt (a rapid prototyping print shop). While the basic mechanics of the printing are provided by GrowIt, there is extensive instructions and assistance to model builders available on the 3dtotal site.… Continue reading 3dtotal GrowIts a Service

Paper Launched!

Remember mcor technologies? They are the folks building a 3D printer that uses plain old ordinary paper as its media. In fact, the printer is beyond development – they launched it two weeks ago at the TCT Exhibition in Coventry, UK. According to their press release: The Mcor Matrix is the only 3D printer in… Continue reading Paper Launched!

CoReFabulous Chair!

Designer Amar Eloueini’s CoReFab chair is constructed using digital design and produced using 3D Print technology. At first glance the chair is certainly interesting, but it gets more intriguing when you learn how it was designed: CoReFab#71 is one chair within a series of infinite possibilities. This chair is the result of a computer designed… Continue reading CoReFabulous Chair!

RepRap Chicken and Egg: Solved?

RepRap, the project aimed to develop a 3D printer that can reproduce itself, has an obvious problem. Where do you get the first printer from, if you don’t have one to print itself? Yes, you could order a kit, or make it from plans. But there is now an easier way: using the Ponoko personal… Continue reading RepRap Chicken and Egg: Solved?

3D Printing from Amazon?

That’s the proposition by Tony Hirst in his blog, OUseful.Info. Tony examines the digital assets of Amazon and their growing electronic distribution mechanisms. And then the eureka moment: So here’s where it struck me: Amazon is increasingly capable of turning digital bits into physical stuff. This is good for warehousing, of course – the inventory… Continue reading 3D Printing from Amazon?

Alaris 30 Video

We’ve uncovered a video that demonstrates the new Objet Alaris 30 3D printer. We wrote about this amazing new device last week, but you must see the video. They obviously highlight all the statistics, but videos of the resulting objects really brings it home for us. They’ve printed objects that fit together, and fit together… Continue reading Alaris 30 Video

3D Printing is Name This’d

Yeah, that’s an awkward title for certain. But it’s about an interesting name validation on NameThis. For those that are not familiar, Name This is a Web2.0 service that crowdsources the generation of names for products, services, sites or groups. If you want a name, you post a description and then Name This’s users have… Continue reading 3D Printing is Name This’d

Z Corp Engages Bentley

Z Corp announced a special arrangement with Bentley, makers of various products related to building, construction and architecture. Bentley’s software is used by a majority of such firms, and the deal is to ensure smooth use of Z Corp’s 3D printers from Bentley’s software. We have two observations on this development: Z Corp is making… Continue reading Z Corp Engages Bentley

ModelMakers Doomed?

An interesting thread at pushpullbar.com debates the future of professional architectural modelmakers. These are the guys that take the blueprints or designs from the architects and create miniature 3D representations in cardboard or other materials. The proposition posed by poster Curlz says: As a current student of a modelmaking degree and hoping to get a… Continue reading ModelMakers Doomed?

Z Corp 650 Announced!

Z Corp has reacted to the Objet Alaris 30 announcement with one of their own: the shiny, new ZPrinter 650! Here are the highlights we found interesting: Color! ZPrinters have done color before, but the 650 adds a separate black print head, which means the 650 will punch out truly black stuff. This is so… Continue reading Z Corp 650 Announced!

Print3D Service

Yet another 3D printing service has appeared, Print3D. While there are numerous 3D services, we thought Print3D had an interesting angle on price quoting. Rather than sending your model to the service for analysis and subsequent quoting, they instead provide a plugin to your favorite 3D modeling tool that can develop a quote for you… Continue reading Print3D Service

Print Your Sketchup Objects

Google Sketchup, by far the most popular 3D modeling tool in the known universe, now has a great way to send your Sketchup model to a 3D printer. Simply install the new plugin from CADspan and you’ll be able to generate solid .STL files suitable for submission to most 3D print services and printers. The… Continue reading Print Your Sketchup Objects

Sell Property With 3D

We know that architectural firms produce 3D printed models of their designs in order to sell the proposal to a client, but what about more common realty activities? The estatepromo service goes all out by providing full 3D services to “Investors, Developers and Estate Agents”. They use “3D models, architecture visualisations and 3D printing” to… Continue reading Sell Property With 3D

Objet’s Alaris 30

Objet has announced a rather interesting new 3D printer, the Alaris 30 Desktop 3D Printer. The key features are: 30x20x15cm (11.81 x 7.87 x 5.9in) build chamber 600x600x900 dpi resolution, typically 0.1-0.2mm accuracy normal office or home power desktop format 36 hours of continuous unattending printing UV light curing during printing for immediate results Gel… Continue reading Objet’s Alaris 30