As many designers have discovered, 3D printing can be very useful to render an actual three-dimensional model of their imagined item. From idea to sketch to drawing, the next stage is a model. But rather than using the traditional tedious process of manual construction, contemporary designers are frequently finding that a 3D printer can be… Continue reading Designer Uses 3D Printing
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Online Group for 3D Fans
Dave Mainwaring has created a Google Group for discussions of 3D printing technology. There’s not many members yet, but I am sure it will grow. Via Google Groups
Objet Wins Gold Award
At the Euromold fair Objet Geometries won the Gold award for their new Connex 500 3D printer. We’ve covered this amazing device before, but if you didn’t read our post, the 500 is notable for its ability to print using multiple materials simultaneously. This means that you can print objects with hard and soft parts,… Continue reading Objet Wins Gold Award
Buy Your Own Fab – Today!
It’s getting dangerously close to that holiday season, and what better gift than your own fab? What, you don’t have $40,000 for a Z-Corp? Neither do we. Sure, we’ve heard about the DesktopFactory $5000 3D printer, but who’s seen them in the stores? Meanwhile, you could always build your own Fab@Home or RepRap 3D printer… Continue reading Buy Your Own Fab – Today!
More 3D Figurine Services
There seems to be a sudden outbreak of services for printing 3D figures lately. Fabjectory has been around for a while, but the blogosphere was lit up on Figureprints just a few days ago. Now I find another one: a German service called “Fabidoo”. No English on their site, but thanks to the miracle of… Continue reading More 3D Figurine Services
3D Printing… on PAPER!
This one is a total surprise to me. I thought I had heard of all techniques for 3D printing – until today, when I read Deelip Menezes’ blog, where he pointed out Ireland-based Mcor Technologies. They make a 3D printer that uses paper as media: The Mcor Matrix desk top modeler can produce ready… Continue reading 3D Printing… on PAPER!
Another Building-Sized Fab
Two posts on gigantor-sized fabs this week! The Information Sciences Institute’s Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis’s Contour Crafting Technology enables fabbing on a building-sized scale. Apparently the Doctor plans on releasing the USD$1.5M machine very soon, and we will soon see if this type of “personal” manufacturing will work. Be sure to check out the videos, especially… Continue reading Another Building-Sized Fab
Stratasys FDM 900mc
Stratasys is showing off their new FDM 900mc Additive Fabrication System at the Frankfurt EuroMold trade show. While WAY out of the financial range of hobbyists, this device uses different movement technology to ensure finer control over additive mechanisms, resulting in greater printed resolution. The big feature is a truly massive 3x2x3 foot build chamber,… Continue reading Stratasys FDM 900mc
RedEye Goes European
RedEye RPM is opening a new “European rapid prototyping and direct digital manufacturing center in Leuven, Belgium.” RedEye is a sub of Stratasys, which produces high-end 3D printing equipment. RedEye provides 3D printing services to engineering firms and manufacturers for low-volume runs, presumably using current Stratasys hardware – possibly including that new FDM 900mc device.… Continue reading RedEye Goes European
3D Trendwatching
Trendwatching.com has selected Desktop Fabbing (or as they call it, “Make It Yourself”, MIY) as one of their eight Important Consumer Trends to Watch in 2008. They mention the several 3D printing or fabbing services such as Ponoko and of course the omnipresent yet-to-be-seen-in-the-wild DesktopFactory USD$5000 desktop fab. Along with “MIY”, the seven other consumer… Continue reading 3D Trendwatching
Printing an Entire Building!
It’s not exactly desktop fabbing, but it is definitely interesting. French architectural firm R&Sie plans on building an “Ice Museum” by fabbing the entire building from pre-made wood media. Unlike typical 3D printers that create objects by gradually adding material, the technique to be used for the Ice Museum will be subtractive – sheets of… Continue reading Printing an Entire Building!
Make Your Own Watch!
Frederic Hakoune uses 3D printing technology to produce his own watch – and it works. Well, he didn’t print the clockwork mechanism itself, but the housing certainly looks good. Frederic posts pictures of the entire process, from design blueprints, the actual printing operation and of course assembly. Via Facebook
Jujups Launches
Jujups.com is a new 3D printing service that has launched before the holiday season – and just in time, since their main product is Christmas-themed picture frames. Sign in to their service and you can design the frame yourself, or let them provide a design automatically. The price: USD$29.95 Jujups uses a Z-Corp printer, capable… Continue reading Jujups Launches
Simon Wardley Speaks
Simon Wardley posts a 24 minute video of his talk from the September 2006 EuroOscon, in which he speculates about the affects of 3D printing technology on the future of manufacturing – including the revolutionary concept of a kind of “hardware compiler”. This simultaneously interesting and amusing presentation covers the historical view of how such… Continue reading Simon Wardley Speaks
World of Warcraft Figure Printing
First Fabjectory, now Figureprints.com. The former can print your Second Life avatar or Mii; the latter can print your WoW character in 3D. Well, they can after December 11th, if I read that sign correctly. We’re not sure what printer is being used by Figureprints, but they say: “Using 3D modeling techniques pioneered by special… Continue reading World of Warcraft Figure Printing
OGLE 3D Model Extractor Available
The folks at Eyebeam OpenLab have produced (and released as open source software) OGLE, a very interesting package that: allows for the capture and re-use of 3D geometry data from 3D graphics applications running on Microsoft Windows. It works by observing the data flowing between 3D applications and the system’s OpenGL library, and recording that… Continue reading OGLE 3D Model Extractor Available
3D Trainwreck?
Tom Easton blogs about how 3D printing could potentially be very disruptive to industry, specifically by disturbing traditional business models when vast amounts of items are printed at home instead of sold in stores (online or offline). Apparently he’s considering writing a book on the topic. I agree with this premise; we will likely see… Continue reading 3D Trainwreck?
Wall Street Journal Covers Fab@Home
The Wall Street Journal Online has published a new video that introduces the concept of personal fabbing. They focus on the MIT Fab@Home project (which we covered earlier) and discuss the future implications of personal manufacturing. The video demonstrates some unusual techniques, such as embedding electronics during printing – resulting in a working flashlight (after… Continue reading Wall Street Journal Covers Fab@Home
Generator.X 2.0
Generator.X 2.0 is a “a workshop and exhibition about digital fabrication and generative systems” in which 15 designers will be selected to participate. Using modern digital fabrication techniques, including 3D printing and laser cutting, the artists will explore the possibilities of these new manufacturing mediums from an artistic and architectural point of view. Applications close… Continue reading Generator.X 2.0
The Economist on Fabbing
Personal Fabbing is slowly being picked up by the mainstream media, and this time it’s The Economist. The revered weekly magazine has an online article that provides the basics of personal fabbing, (which they call “Bespoke Manufacturing”) including the wisdom of Neil Gershenfeld of the Media Lab at MIT, the Ponoko fabbing service and of… Continue reading The Economist on Fabbing
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
Jamais Cascio, Director of Impacts Analysis at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN), describes his thoughts on the implications of future “nanofactories”, which to me sounds a lot like my vision of the eventual end-goal of 3D printing and fabbing. Among the topics covered by Jamais were design, distribution, “toner” or its 3d printing equivalent,… Continue reading Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
Personal Fabbing In Science Fiction
Cory Doctorow, notable science fiction writer and Boing Boing blogger, published a futuristic story last month in Forbes magazine. The story paints an interesting picture of how important personal manufacturing may become – and also how venture capitalists may fail. EscapePod also has an audio version of this story. Via Forbes, EscapePod and Craphound
Wired Writes Up 3D Printing
WIRED magazine has published an article describing how 3D Printers will (and are) being used for various interesting purposes. In the article a worker at Frog Design (famous for designing the iPod and other Apple enclosures) uses 3D equipment to produce a unique ring for his fiance. The article goes on to describe how they… Continue reading Wired Writes Up 3D Printing
Build Your Own Fab
I Make Things is publishing four videos of weekend projects that will lead you to building your own RepRap 3D printer. The first episode covers the electronics, and includes a short video explaining the basic components required and how to put them together. RepRap is an open source project for a 3D additive printer that… Continue reading Build Your Own Fab
Muur Labs 3D Printing Service
Yet another 3D printing service has appeared. Muur Lab offers: a new service to produce real-world models of buildings, medical models and 3D scanned objects It’s not clear precisely what technology Muur is using, but we might speculate based on this comment: Each layer is then ‘printed’ by spreading a sub millimeter thin layer… Continue reading Muur Labs 3D Printing Service
PolyJet Video
Further to this post, Objet has posted a video of their new composite-media technology, using the Connex 500 3D printer. The video shows how two reservoirs of different media can be used to produce objects not previously printable in a single pass. Watch the production of cellphone covers with differently colored keypads, a hairbrush and… Continue reading PolyJet Video
Low Cost 3D Print Service
Using three ThermoJet 3D printers, John Tangerås’ company, Tangerås Verksted & Støperi of Norway, will offer a 3D printing service beginning in January 2008. The print fee will be €25 plus €200 per litre of raw material consumed. Maximum size of the printed objects is 250mm X by 190mm Y by 200mm Z. Pictured is… Continue reading Low Cost 3D Print Service
Composite Materials used in 3D Printer
Objet announced their “Polyjet Matrix technology”, which apparently enables the use of multiple materials simultaneously in a 3D printer. This is a major step, since it will permit the printing of many different kinds of objects – especially those with parts that have different physical characteristics. Most 3D printers are “additive”, meaning they simply deposit… Continue reading Composite Materials used in 3D Printer
Real Objects from Virtual Designs
Most of us don’t have access to personal fabs yet, so in the interim you must use services. The good news is that there are several available. One interesting service is Fabjectory, which uses 3D Printing technology to produce real artifacts from virtual designs. That means you can send them your SketchUp designs and have… Continue reading Real Objects from Virtual Designs
DesktopFactory Wins Award
They won the award even before the product is released! Yes, DesktopFactory’s famous-but-not-yet seen inexpensive 3D printer has won Popular Science’s Best of What’s New Award for 2007 in the “Home Tech” category. Fabbaloo has covered the Desktop Factory 125ci 3D printer before, again, and will no doubt again when it finally hits the store… Continue reading DesktopFactory Wins Award
Metal Fabbing
Interesting speculation on how fabs could create metal objects in the future. Today fabs use simple powdered or liquid media that is easily melted (see CandyFab – it uses kitchen sugar!) This makes it easy, but produces objects that can be fragile or at least not particularly durable. The idea is that by depositing metallic… Continue reading Metal Fabbing
Design Studio uses Fabbing
Article describing how 3D printing is being used in modern design studios. The story of Janne Kyttänen, who owns the Freedom of Creation company in Helsinki, which produces award-winning interior accessories using 3D printing techniques. You must check out FOC’s portfolio of design products. Lights, accessories and even textiles are produced with several rapid manufacturing… Continue reading Design Studio uses Fabbing
Secrets of Desktop Factory
socalTech interviews Cathy Lewis, CEO of Desktop Factory. DesktopFactory is building a sub-$5000 3D printer suitable for many businesses and even home use. Their first printer is set to be released later this year. In the article Ms. Lewis sets Desktop Factory’s milestone: Our goal is to bring this down market, to where it’s… Continue reading Secrets of Desktop Factory
Evil CandyFab 4000
The CandyFab 4000 is definitely not a commercial product and is most appropriate for those of you already handy with tools. The CandyFab can be constructed for around $500 in readily available parts, and can use output from common 3D modeling software. The device is designed primarily for fun – it doesn’t have a very… Continue reading Evil CandyFab 4000
Garage Fabbing?
As fabbing equipment continues to fall, the ability to create becomes available to more and more people. While I envision a future where people have 3D printing equipment in their homes right beside their 2D (paper) printers, this forum discussion suggests a future in which fabbing equipment is dispersed to the public – but only… Continue reading Garage Fabbing?
Fabbing vs. Intellectual Property Rights
We all know what happened when technology was able to duplicate audio and video. What happens when personal fabs enable everyone to duplicate physical objects? This issue is predicted and analyzed on the reBang Weblog: At some point, p2p networks won’t have just mp3 files, they’ll have CAD files. When they do, the first thing… Continue reading Fabbing vs. Intellectual Property Rights
Fabbing Videos
Here is a great collection of fabbing videos from Objet featuring several of their 3D printers. If you’ve never seen fabbing, this is a good place to begin. Note that these particular models are suitable for industrial prototyping, and not consumer-level desktop units. Many of the videos demonstrate not only the actual object deposition, but… Continue reading Fabbing Videos
Stratasys Reports Record Third Quarter Results
Stratasys, the makers of the popular Dimension series of 3D printers, seems to be doing very well indeed. They shipped some 521 units in the 3rd quarter, improved over 383 for the previous quarter in 2006. From the release: We expect to maintain positive momentum in our high-end system business, with another new product… Continue reading Stratasys Reports Record Third Quarter Results
TechShop Workshop
Techshop is a California-based chain of public machine workshops. They provide access to equipment that otherwise would be impossible for home-based hobbyists. Among the specialized equipment they offer is a Dimension 3D Printer. Here’s their own overview: The TechShop workshop provides a wide variety of machinery and tools for the open and unlimited use of… Continue reading TechShop Workshop
PopMech on Fab at Home
Popular Mechanics magazine has discovered Fabbing and has published an interesting article and video mostly focused on the Fab@Home project. Fab at Home is a very worthy project, but as you watch the video it’s apparent that it’s primary target is techies. Nevertheless, the video suggests unusual uses of the fab: printing chocolate, batteries, circuits… Continue reading PopMech on Fab at Home
3D Sneeze in your Living Room
Marcel Wanders, a dutch designer, has created a very unusual vase. It’s based on a 3D scan of an “airborne snotty”. The picture tells the story. Via Marcel Wanders Studio
Health and Safety of Fabs
The UK government’s Health and Safety Executive has issued a brief report on “Rapid Manufacturing”, in which they predict there could be 100,000 rapid manufacturing devices in use by 2010. In the longer term, the development of equipment and materials enabling the fabrication of products in the home via desktop “fabbers”3 and ultimately perhaps, Molecular… Continue reading Health and Safety of Fabs
$4995 For a Desktop Fab?
DesktopFactory is now taking reservations for its new 125ci 3D Printer. That’s right – it’s not actually available now, but you can reserve one of the first 1000 devices for only USD$495. This device could be the first real desktop consumer-oriented fab. The highlights include: Inexpensive. Well, as compared to other fabs. We don’t… Continue reading $4995 For a Desktop Fab?
ThingLab Video Demonstration
This ThingLab video demonstrates Z Corporation’s Zprinter 450. While this particular device is probably more than the average consumer can deal with (especially cost-wise, do you have $25,000 to spare?), the video does provide a good visual overview of the fabbing process. As you can clearly see, there are a few messy steps that the… Continue reading ThingLab Video Demonstration
Gartner Predicts Widespread Fabbing
Jackie Fenn, Gartner’s Emerging Trends analyst, predicted widespread use of desktop manufacturing tools within several years. While the prices of personal fabbing equipment today are still out of reach of most consumers, it is expected that prices will continue to drop. With new equipment poised for release at USD$5000 per unit, this may be already… Continue reading Gartner Predicts Widespread Fabbing
Building Sized Fabbing
This video demonstrates a hypothetical building-sized fab, “printing” an entire building!
3D Printer Enhances Schoolroom Engineering
Instructor April Moon raves about how her new Dimension SST 3D printer dramatically improved the quality of her engineering class. This process is better than the breakaway process, which Moon said requires a great deal of scraping with picks and doesn’t allow for fine details. She also said the breakaway process can present safety issues… Continue reading 3D Printer Enhances Schoolroom Engineering
Building Puzzles with your Fab
George Miller, owner of Puzzle Palace, uses a Dimension BST 3D printer to develop the most amazing three-dimensional puzzles. The multicolored head pictured here can be disassembled and reassembled. Via Product Design & Development
Sweet Architecture Designs
Sweet Onion Creations has announced a service for architects and engineers where 3D model can be submitted for 3D production. The service seems to be geared for models of “Anything from a private home to entire city layouts”. SOC’s approach is to target the architectural niche, while other 3D printing services address more general needs.… Continue reading Sweet Architecture Designs