You might recall the Urbee – the world’s first 3D printed car, developed in 2011 by Kor EcoLogic? The design of this amazing car pioneered several important 3D printing techniques. Now Kor EcoLogic is pursuing a second version of the Urbee, with intentions of going into production. Evidently they’ve “worked out the bugs since… Continue reading 3D Print A Car In 2500 Hours
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3D Printed Business Cards. Er, Cubes
CallingCube’s new product serves the same function as a business card: to get you noticed and remembered by a contact. Like a calling card, the CallingCube can contain information and logos. But it’s a cube. A 3D printed cube. To get your own, you simply specify characters and images to be placed on… Continue reading 3D Printed Business Cards. Er, Cubes
Necessity Causes Invention: A GoPro Scuba Mount
If you’ve never used a GoPro, perhaps you should. It’s an inexpensive but very specialized camera designed to be used outdoors in action situations. It’s the camera on the skydiver’s helmet or hanging from bike handlebars giving us those heart-stopping videos. As you might imagine, there are an infinite number of possible mounting… Continue reading Necessity Causes Invention: A GoPro Scuba Mount
3D Printer Starves Astronauts
A science-fictiony proposal in Wired suggests future astro-colonists could feast on dishes prepared by 3D food printers. The concept seems like a good one; current astronauts are subjected to freeze-dried packets of former food, brought back from the dead by injection of lubricating water. While astros put on a brave face when describing their… Continue reading 3D Printer Starves Astronauts
3D Printed Fish Tags
Perhaps you might not need tags for your fish, but the folks at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) do. They’ve developed a way to 3D print titanium tags for tracking larger fish including Marlin and Tuna. Titanium was chosen as it does not react to salty ocean water and can withstand… Continue reading 3D Printed Fish Tags
3D Printed Valentine Chocolates
The Shibuya Fabcafe in Tokyo is offering a very special service for two days in February: they’ll enable you to produce chocolates with your face on them! Wait, how does this work? You first get your face scanned by the FabCafe’s scanner. After some 3D model fixing, they 3D print a prototype of the… Continue reading 3D Printed Valentine Chocolates
3D Printed Fashion In Paris Show
\As part of Paris Fashion Week, 3D printing giants Stratasys and Materialise collaborated with noted 3D fashion artist Iris van Herpen on her “VOLTAGE” haute couture show. van Herpen has previously produced fascinating 3D printed fashions and this show continued with some startling and revealing designs. Two of the eleven pieces made by van… Continue reading 3D Printed Fashion In Paris Show
Just An Engine Block, Printed
Peter from RepRapCentral advises us of a very cool 3D print recently done on one of their MakerBot Replicators: a Ford Engine Block. No, you can’t actually run this engine, but printed in blue translucent PLA it looks pretty good. Check out the high-precision detail of this print in the close view above. … Continue reading Just An Engine Block, Printed
Thoughts On That 3D Printed Building
Widespread media reports describe a project by Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars, who plans to build a home using 3D printing. He’s actually going to 3D print a house. The project will use the D-Shape 3D printing technology from Enrico Dino, who previously used this approach to produce a huge sculpture. The D-Shape 3D printer… Continue reading Thoughts On That 3D Printed Building
Open3DP Gets Gummi
Those researchers at the University of Washington took a break from casting ceramics, glass and other inedible substances to experiment instead with more tasty material using “food friendly molds”. Unfortunately their choice for shape was, um, themselves! They carefully captured full-body scans using a Microsoft Kinect and designed a negative mold and 3D printed… Continue reading Open3DP Gets Gummi
3D Printing For the Hearing Impaired
One of 3D printings greatest strengths is its ability to make customized, one-off products on the fly. In a traditional manufacturing paradigm, creating customizable products is an expensive if not impossible affair. So it should come as no surprise that the medical industry has been dramatically impacted by 3D printing. While not technically a… Continue reading 3D Printing For the Hearing Impaired
Augmented 3D Printing
Architects have long used 3D printing as a means to better visualize their design ideas. By 3D printing a building you can “see” it much better than through a 2D screen and thus gain insight you’d otherwise miss. But the problem is that the 3D model is, well, static. It just sits there. It… Continue reading Augmented 3D Printing
3D Printed LPs? Yes, But not for the Audiophile
With the resolution of 3D printers increasing every year, the accuracy and detail of prints are now becoming very fine. In fact, a few printers these days are able to produce objects that have a 16 micron resolution. That type of resolution led Amanda Ghassaei, assistant editor at Instructables, to see if she could print… Continue reading 3D Printed LPs? Yes, But not for the Audiophile
The Form 1 Forms Molds, Too
We’ve seen some incredibly fine 3D prints emerge from the Form 1 resin-based 3D printer and now Formlabs has shown another use of their fascinating device: mold making. We think the Form 1 would be a tremendous machine for mold making. Why? Because its fine detail provides a big advantage over traditional plastic extrusion… Continue reading The Form 1 Forms Molds, Too
King’s Resting Place Recreated by 3D Printing
By all accounts, King Richard III’s reign was relatively unproductive. Modern historians believe that this was mostly due to the dynastic struggle that we now know as the Wars of the Roses, of which Richard III’s house came out on the losing end. As is always true, the victors are afforded the opportunity to… Continue reading King’s Resting Place Recreated by 3D Printing
3D Printed Christmas Cookies
It is Christmas today and courtesy of Ralf Holleis we have 3D printed cookies for readers. Holleis’ team used an UNFOLD Plastruder to 3D print several styles of Rhino-modeled holiday cookies directly onto wax paper. The wax paper allowed the fragile extrusions to be easily moved into an oven for finishing, erm, cooking. … Continue reading 3D Printed Christmas Cookies
Ford Equips Engineers With MakerBots
It’s no surprise that engineers at Ford make use of high-power commercial 3D printers; the technology has been in use at major industrial design operations for, well, decades. What is surprising is the revelation that Ford intends to “put the smaller Makerbot replicators at every engineer’s desk in the coming months”, according to a report… Continue reading Ford Equips Engineers With MakerBots
The Most Dangerous Person in 3D Printing
Wired has named their list of the “15 Most Dangerous People In The World”. The list includes some certainly dangerous types, such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexican drug kingpin of Ciudad Juarez, but also includes some persons of questionable dangerousness, such as the scandalous former Army intelligence officer Paula Broadwell. One name we… Continue reading The Most Dangerous Person in 3D Printing
Would You 3D Print Your Foetus?
We all know what happens to 3D data: a 3D print emerges soon afterwards. Now a Japanese company has taken 3D information from a medical scanner to enable the production of 3D prints of an unborn foetus. The process involves a 3D scan of the pregnant customer to capture the required 3D information, including… Continue reading Would You 3D Print Your Foetus?
Recreating the Ancient Past at Harvard
Museum curators at Harvard’s Semitic Museum are using 3D modeling to undo a part of the destruction of the ancient Iraqi city of Nuzi that was sacked by the Assyrians nearly 3,300 years ago. Read More at Engineering.com
Rapid Ceramic Engineering
Ben Becker of HotEnd Works described to us the process his company uses to produce industrial-grade ceramic prototypes. Ceramic prototypes have been around for a very long time, but there’s only so much you can do using conventional prototyping tools. Some geometries simply cannot be produced. However, 3D printed ceramics can replicate any geometry.… Continue reading Rapid Ceramic Engineering
Fashion Design For 3D Printers
If you’re looking for fashion accessories produced on your own 3D printer you may have difficulty finding 3D models in public repositories. Instead you might consider designing 3D fashion accessories yourself – and there’s an Instructables guide to show you how. Instructables user kaadee404 produced a lengthy set of instructions for producing a Lip… Continue reading Fashion Design For 3D Printers
007’s 3D Printed Cars
Not one, but three 3D printed cars were created for secret agent 007 James Bond for his recent film, Skyfall. No, they weren’t full size, but instead were one third of original size. The three Aston Martin DB5’s were used for used rather destructively in the film to avoid the expense (and tragedy) of… Continue reading 007’s 3D Printed Cars
Softkill’s Protohouse
We’ve previously written about experiments in 3D printing for building construction and while these experiments have experienced varying degrees of success, there remains the question of “what do you print” if you can build house-sized objects. That was the question answered by design firm Softkill, whose exhibit at the recent 3D Printshow displayed a… Continue reading Softkill’s Protohouse
NASA’s Space Launch System is 3D Printed
Yes, the venerable Space Shuttle is now retired and host to gawking tourists across the United States, but that doesn’t mean NASA is sitting idle. In fact they’ve embarked on the development of a massive new rocket to take on the task of heavy lifting to outer space: The Space Launch System or “SLS”. … Continue reading NASA’s Space Launch System is 3D Printed
Weta’s 3D Printed Hobbit Stuff
We’ve just reviewed a report on film studio Weta’s use of 3D printing technology. Weta is the studio responsible for the upcoming movie, “The Hobbit”, as well as the massively successful Lord of the Rings series. What are they printing? According to the report, they’re making various custom props for The Hobbit, including “helmets,… Continue reading Weta’s 3D Printed Hobbit Stuff
3D Printed Eyeglass Frames
Sandra Battistel of Eyespectacle (the “Story behind the frame”) has done a bit of investigation on how eyeglass maker Mykita recently produced the “Mylon”, a unique frame design made through 3D printing. Battistel takes us through the process used by Mykita, including images of the equipment and frames through the production process. It appears… Continue reading 3D Printed Eyeglass Frames
Printing Bricks
Fabbaloo readers are most familiar with the idea of 3D printing plastic, metal or sometimes food, but how about bricks? The method of making common ceramic brick for centuries is giving way for an experiment in 3D printing building bricks. The experiment is being conducted by Building Bytes, who have already designed three styles… Continue reading Printing Bricks
Another Extreme Personalization Experiment
We’ve just been pointed at the JB Figurines Kickstarter project. This is an artistic experiment involving 3D printing and extreme personalization. The project intends to create a totally unique 3D “superhero” printed figurine for each backer. Each figurine customer will have a designer create a 3D model that will be printed only once on… Continue reading Another Extreme Personalization Experiment
3D Systems Receives U.S. Air Force Rapid Innovation Fund Award
3D Systems Corporation announced that its Paramount advanced manufacturing team has received a $2.95M award to transition specially engineered materials and the company’s Selective Laser Sintering technology to the production of various components in the F-35 and other weapons systems to improve affordability and sustainability. The two-year project will reduce cost within the manufacturing process… Continue reading 3D Systems Receives U.S. Air Force Rapid Innovation Fund Award
One Way to Reduce 3D Print Warping
One of the persistent issues with many personal 3D printers has been the tendency of ABS plastic to warp. ABS shrinks as it cools, and this all too often means your ABS prints (and sometimes even your allegedly warp-resistant PLA prints) start curling up at the bottom corners while printing, resulting in a distorted model.… Continue reading One Way to Reduce 3D Print Warping
It’s Magnificently Big!
California artist Cosmo Wenman has created something pretty amazing with his MakerBot Replicator: a replica of a horse head sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens. The first very noticeable aspect of this work is the startlingly realistic bronze patina applied after printing. The second is the size of the work, as you can see… Continue reading It’s Magnificently Big!
Gigantic Titanium Printing: Aeroswift
A brief press release from CSIR, South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research announced a three-way partnership to develop “titanium powder-based additive layer manufacturing for fabrication of large and complex aerospace components.” The other partners in this venture are Aerosud, a South African-based aerospace manufacturer and the more well-known Airbus. CSIR provides… Continue reading Gigantic Titanium Printing: Aeroswift
Rocket Moonlighting Used DMLS to Build Homemade Rockets
Anyone even a little bit interested in rocketry, space travel or just cool engineering should head over to Rocket Moonlighting for a peek into one of the most interesting DIY projects I’ve seen in a while… building homemade rockets! Read More at Engineering.com
3D Printed Optics
We were contacted by Karl D. D. WIllis of the Disney Research Institute, who wished to show us the work they’ve been doing on 3D printing optical mechanisms. This past June we speculated on the importance of clear materials, but we had no idea how far along researchers have taken the concept. The… Continue reading 3D Printed Optics
Now Real: Printing Your Own Replacement Parts
Eventually it had to come to this: a company providing 3D models of their spare parts so that you could print your own copies. Traditionally one would have mail-ordered for the spare parts or had to find a local reseller that carried the inevitably over-priced replacement knob. But now that’s changing due to 3D… Continue reading Now Real: Printing Your Own Replacement Parts
More 3D Gun Printing Controversy
This topic just won’t go away. Last week 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys revoked the 3D printer lease of Defense Distributed, a team intent on producing an open source, 3D-printable gun design – using a Stratasys 3D printer. No doubt Stratasys was concerned they might be sued by someone in the future or the subject… Continue reading More 3D Gun Printing Controversy
3D Print Your Dream House?
The folks at RepRapCentral have produced a short video demonstrating what could become an interesting application of 3D printing tech: producing tactile 3D models of your dream house. While the video appears to be a concept print, the idea is to address the uncertainty home buyers face when evaluating possible home designs. At the… Continue reading 3D Print Your Dream House?
De-Extincting a Mollusk
3D printing is an amazing process, not only to simply watch a print appear from thin air, but also for the things it makes possible. We’re reading how a species of mollusk, the multiplacophoran Protobalanus spinicoronatus, extinct for 390 million years has been re-created using 3D printing. Researchers at the Jackson School of Geosciences… Continue reading De-Extincting a Mollusk
A West-Coast 3D Printer Store
Two 3D printer stores, one on the east coast (MakerBot in Brooklyn, NY) and now another one to tell you about on the west cost: Deezmaker in Pasadena, CA. Deezmaker is the fruit of maker Diego Porqueras, who is also behind the Bukobot Kickstarter project. The intention is to sell not only the Bukobot,… Continue reading A West-Coast 3D Printer Store
Printing Vascular Structures
While rapid prototyping of mechanical parts is still the mainstay of 3D printing, recent adoption of the technology by biomedical researchers has sparked interest in how additive manufacturing might be used in the future. Doug Hendrie at Gizmag recently profiled a new advancement that couples 3D printing with tissue engineering. Read More at… Continue reading Printing Vascular Structures
A 3D Printed Camera – Almost!
The folks at RepRapCentral have just printed what appears to be an entire DSLR system on their MakerBot Replicator. This startling print by Sergey includes the camera body and a permanently attached zoom lens. However, closer inspection shows that there is no optical lenses in the print, as one would expect. Nevertheless, as… Continue reading A 3D Printed Camera – Almost!
3D Printed Beaks!
Grist reports on a touching story involving an American Bald Eagle, injured years ago by a poacher’s shotgun, who has had its beak replaced by a 3D printed equivalent. The injured bird was rescued by animal workers and gradually brought back to health. However, it turns out that the beak is an essential component… Continue reading 3D Printed Beaks!
Quantum International Invests in 3D House Printing?
An interesting press release came from Quantum International the other day. Quantum appears to be an investment firm specializing in various robotic technology. In their press release they talk of USC Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis’s work in developing large-scale concrete 3D printers capable of 3D printing whole houses. They say: Quantum International Corp. (OTCBB: QUAN)… Continue reading Quantum International Invests in 3D House Printing?
Rapid Prototyping Reveals Evolutionary Clues
Over at Scientific American’s Observations blog, Kate Wong has an interesting piece about paleoanthropologists using 3D printers to help recreate the skeleton of one of humanity’s ancestors. Australopithecus sediba, a “nearly two million-year-old” member of Homo Sapien’s evolutionary lineage was discovered at the Malapa Fossil Site in South Africa. Like most fossils, the bones… Continue reading Rapid Prototyping Reveals Evolutionary Clues
A 3D Printed Racing Car
While it isn’t the world’s first 3D printed car, it may be the first 3D printed Racing Car. The Areion was designed by 16 engineers from “Group T” as their entry in the Formula Student 2012 Challenge. Obviously, the entire car was not 3D printed – only the body, which was then attached… Continue reading A 3D Printed Racing Car
MIB 3’s 3D Printed Weaponry
Did you ever wonder where the amazing weapons in the MIB movies come from? They are prototyped using 3D printing by Moddler, a custom 3D printing service based in San Francisco using an Objet Eden 550V. The Objet device is a good choice for this application, since it’s PolyJet technology permits the creation… Continue reading MIB 3’s 3D Printed Weaponry
Legends of Kalidasia Pioneers A New Approach
Jason Rutherford of Kalidesia contacted us to talk about a new approach he’s taken in his gaming business. Rutherford makes the Legends of Kalidasia game, played with traditional resin and pewter figures. His company manufactures and markets these figures, but he’s concerned about the future. You know, the future where people print out their own… Continue reading Legends of Kalidasia Pioneers A New Approach
3D Systems Brings LAIKA’s ParaNorman to Life
3D Systems Corporation’s ZPrinter 650 is the first ever full-color 3D printer used in a stop-motion animated film, ParaNorman, produced by Portland, Oregon based animation studio LAIKA. Known for integrating innovation with the hand-created artistry of the stop motion technique, LAIKA utilized 3D printing to create over 31,000 individual, color facial parts for production. … Continue reading 3D Systems Brings LAIKA’s ParaNorman to Life
Cirque Du Soleil 3D Prints?
Fabbaloo has learned that international dance company Cirque Du Soleil uses both 3D scanning and 3D printing technology. Evidently most of Cirque Du Soleil’s acrobats are 3D scanned and the models are held in a repository. Custom masks and other personal-fitting equipment are 3D printed for each member of the troupe for use in… Continue reading Cirque Du Soleil 3D Prints?
More 3D Printed Shoes
There’s more cool stuff from the folks at Continuum Fashion, who have previously produced a 3D printed Bikini. They’ve now released the “strvct” 3D printed shoes, a mesh-like design printed in nylon. Don’t worry, they are indeed wearable as they include a “patent leather inner sole, and coated with a synthetic rubber on the bottom… Continue reading More 3D Printed Shoes
3D Printing Titanium Bike Parts
There’s a detailed story on Road.cc describing the process of producing a metal dropout bike part using DMLS – Direct Metal Laser Sintering. Producing bike parts is much like any other product; prototypes must be tested and final versions become mass produced. The problem is that producing prototypes has been time consuming and wasteful… Continue reading 3D Printing Titanium Bike Parts
Battlefield 3D Printing
In Afghanistan the US Army has deployed the first of several USD$2.8M mobile prototyping labs. These container-sized labs house 3D printers and CNC machines capable of rapidly producing spare or replacement parts that would otherwise take months to order and be delivered using conventional approaches. The Army has a special unit known as the… Continue reading Battlefield 3D Printing
Google’s 3D Pasta Printer
Incredible as it might seem, Google apparently has a 3D printer in its kitchen – and it produces pasta, according to a report on WebProNews. In a video interview Google chef Bernard Faucher admits they operate some type of 3D printer in their kitchen to produce unique pasta shapes for hungry Google staffers. Faucher… Continue reading Google’s 3D Pasta Printer
Emma’s Story… And More
A wonderful story emerged last week when Stratasys published the story of Emma, a young girl with congenital biomechanical problems. She was unable to raise food to her mouth, among other issues. The story told how Emma’s doctors used 3D printing technology (from Stratasys) to produce a custom-fit armature that fits around Emma’s upper… Continue reading Emma’s Story… And More
Cubify’s Robots
3D Systems now has robots! Well, not actual robots, but instead a system of 3D models that can be assembled into a huge variety of robot shapes. The robot pieces include arms, legs, torsos, etc., but also accessories such as ray guns and backpacks. The pieces are intended to be assembled and fit together… Continue reading Cubify’s Robots
Hot Pop Factory
Two Toronto architects have used 3D printing technology to start a new business in their own home: designing and manufacturing jewelry. Matthew Compeau and Biying Miao have launched Hot Pop Factory, producer of striking 3D printed jewelry designs. Hot Pop Factory offers inexpensive necklace, earrings and rings based on a consistent design theme. But… Continue reading Hot Pop Factory
Saving The Past With The Future
Peter at RepRap Central tells a story some of us have lived through, although not nearly as dramatic. The story involves Malcolm Messiter, whose decades-old Robert Goble Harpsichord required some maintenance. Specifically, the string-plucking jacks, made of Delrin, were cracking and needed to be replaced. Worse, there were some 183 such jacks in the harpsichord. … Continue reading Saving The Past With The Future
NASA Testing 3D Printers For Space Use
NASA is taking their Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication (EBF3) technology to the next level, according to a report in The Daily Mail. EBF3 is a type of 3D printing that uses a high-power electron beam to instantaneously melt metallic wire. The fluid metal is then positioned incrementally to build up arbitrary solid metal objects.… Continue reading NASA Testing 3D Printers For Space Use
3D Printed Weaponry Now Functional
Another first for 3D printing: A pistol constructed from 3D printed parts has been successfully fired. The gun design was an AR-15, a “a lightweight, 5.56 mm, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed, semi-automatic rifle”, according to Wikipedia. Gun enthusiast HaveBlue selected this configuration due to its small caliber and the uncertainty of whether the 3D printed parts would withstand… Continue reading 3D Printed Weaponry Now Functional
HeadBobble!
Yet another use for 3D printing: Printing Your Head. Yes, this has been done before quite a few times, but HeadBobble seems to have simplified the process and produces great 3D prints in full color. And you get a Bobblehead! How does it work? At their website you go through a selection process, where… Continue reading HeadBobble!
WOOF’s 3D Printed Boat
The University of Washington’s WOOF group (Washington Open Object Fabricators) did something we haven’t seen yet: they produced a 3D printed boat that didn’t sink. In fact, it worked well enough to be entered into “Denny’s Seafair Milk Carton Derby”, a boat race. Hold on, how do milk cartons fit into this scenario? It… Continue reading WOOF’s 3D Printed Boat
Crack Open Those Handcuffs With Your 3D Printer
A report on Forbes describes the feat of a “German hacker and security consultant who goes by the name ‘Ray’”, who was able to reproduce master keys for a couple of models of handcuffs. In fact, the keys were produced both on an inexpensive 3D printer as well as on a laser cutter, which,… Continue reading Crack Open Those Handcuffs With Your 3D Printer
A Pair of 3D Print Fashion Designers
Mashable interviews a pair of fashion designers with a twist: they use 21st century techniques to create their items, including web-based fitting, embedded electronics, computational design generation and of course 3D printing. Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel own Continuum Fashion where they explore the possibilities of applying new technology and techniques to the fashion… Continue reading A Pair of 3D Print Fashion Designers
AirBus Envisions Gigantic 3D Printer?
The designers at Airbus propose creating a giant 80m x 80m 3D printer to produce entire aircraft. Whoa, that’s a near-outrageous statement, but it appears in an article published in Forbes, where Airbus seems to have a rationalization for such a project: their future visions cannot be easily made with conventional manufacturing approaches, as you… Continue reading AirBus Envisions Gigantic 3D Printer?
The Rygo – Printed
We wrote of an unusual crowd funding project to back what would be North America’s largest 3D print to date. The project was to print noted 3D artist Bathsheba Grosman’s Rygo sculpture using the D-Shape concrete 3D printer. We’re happy to see that the project was indeed successful as the print has been completed,… Continue reading The Rygo – Printed
Zheng3’s Seej Gamifies 3D Design
We’ve heard how many industries try to incorporate gamification into their process to make things run better. It seems that people are typically competitive and when faced with a game situation, they feel personally challenged to win. But how can you engage 3D designers in ramification? One way is to use Zheng3’s Seej game.… Continue reading Zheng3’s Seej Gamifies 3D Design
An Interview With The DreamVendor
Actually we’re not interviewing the DreamVendor itself; instead we’re interviewing Dr. Chris Williams, the Director of the DREAMS Lab at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, the organization that produced the DreamVendor. (Wait, what’s a “DreamVendor”??? Read on and you’ll find out.) Fabbaloo: We’re wondering what the DREAMS lab is all about? Can… Continue reading An Interview With The DreamVendor
Dinosaur Printing in Detail
There’s a terrific article on The Verge describing all the details of actual Dinosaur printing. That’s the science of 3D scanning dinosaur fossils and using 3D printing technology to produce accurate replicas of the bones. Why do this? Why not just use the original bones? It turns out there are a number of benefits.… Continue reading Dinosaur Printing in Detail
Foundation Offers Help and Hope to Victims of Orthopedic Trauma
The Foundation for Orthopedic Reconstruction (FOR) is the culmination of two years of planning that heralds an exciting undertaking for the orthopedic and additive manufacturing communities. FOR was developed with a dual mission: To provide patient-specific medical implants at no cost to those in need and to encourage and fund innovative research within the orthopedic… Continue reading Foundation Offers Help and Hope to Victims of Orthopedic Trauma
Bioprinting Advances
Bioprinting is something you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the future. It’s the application of 3D printing for medical purposes. The idea is to produce human tissue for replacement of damaged portions, but it’s much more complicated than 3D printing simple plastic objects. Not only are you dealing with microscopic bits, but… Continue reading Bioprinting Advances
3D Printed Fish Breeding Gear
We’ve seen many applications of 3D printing to a wide variety of situations, but this one is pretty interesting: Indiana-based research scientist Shane Graber has been using his MakerBot to produce a variety of specialized items for his salt-water fish breeding experiments. He’s designed an incredibly simple brine hatchery composed of a base that’s… Continue reading 3D Printed Fish Breeding Gear
Print a Chocolate Brain!
They didn’t actually print a chocolate brain, rather the team from Inition took MRI scan data from their founder Andy Millins and created a 3D model. Once you have a 3D model, as readers know well, you can do some 3D printing. In this case the team created detailed 3D model of the brain… Continue reading Print a Chocolate Brain!
Ghana Social Centre Aided by 3D Printing
A terrible storm in Ghana badly damaged the Catholic-operated community hall, resulting in the demolition of the ruins. The diocese contracted the replacement build to Munich-based architect Wieland Schimdt, who had to design a structure that used nearby materials, was environmentally friendly and was able to withstand the oppressive tropical heat – both structurally and… Continue reading Ghana Social Centre Aided by 3D Printing
3D Printer Assisted Super Bowl Ads
We know that 3D printing was used extensively or partially in the production of several recent movies, including Iron Man and Coraline. But did you know that 3D printing was employed to assist the development of some of this year’s Super Bowl advertisements? Objet reports that 3D printing was used in two Bridgestone ads… Continue reading 3D Printer Assisted Super Bowl Ads
SparkLab: BuildMobile
Of all the Kickstarter-style 3DP projects we’ve seen lately, the SparkLab concept may be the most valuable to society. No, you won’t get a fancy sculpture but you will get the satisfaction of supporting the spread of 3D printing and DIY making knowledge. What is the SparkLab concept? It’s quite simple. They proponents realized… Continue reading SparkLab: BuildMobile
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
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
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
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
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?
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Another 3D Printed ATM Skimmer
This isn’t the first time a crime was committed with 3D printing technology, and it won’t be the last. Curiously, it’s exactly the same kind of crime: ATM skimming! Krebs on Security details the plot, in which perps carefully replaced the “card reader” portion of a California Chase Bank ATM with their own compromised… Continue reading Another 3D Printed ATM Skimmer
Making Dinosaurs
It’s been the fantasy of many kids (and adults) to recreate dinosaurs. Those almost mythical, but real beasts from prehistoric times challenge our curiosity. What were they really like. Probably they’d eat you if they had a chance, but is there a way to rebuild the dinosaurs? The late author Michael Crichton proposed doing so… Continue reading Making Dinosaurs
Printing Blood Vessels
Printing solid objects is pretty easy: you just extrude/fuse/sinter/flash the layers and you’ve got your whatever-it-is-you-wanted. It’s easy because typically these 3D prints are a uniform material all the way through. Occasionally experiments are done with multiple materials and one commercial 3D printer maker (Objet) has a technology that can print mixes of two different… Continue reading Printing Blood Vessels
A 3D Printed Hairbrush Bowl?
Qatar-based designer Thomas Modeen has produced a very unusual fruit bowl design. Well, we suppose it could hold a lot of other things, too. The design is inspired by a hairbrush – but upside down so that the bristles support items placed on top. There are plenty more pictures of the “Hair-Brush Fruit-Bowl” at… Continue reading A 3D Printed Hairbrush Bowl?
The Hamburger Shoe
People always get excited about 3D printed food in spite of the fact there are precious few ways to do so. While we await the development of a consumer food printer, others continue to experiment. Shapeways reports on a great experiment in which their member Tristan Bethe 3D scanned his shoe, 3D printed a slightly… Continue reading The Hamburger Shoe