Yet another surprise source for 3D models has emerged: the game SimCity. SimCity, for those of you who have somehow never encountered it, is a simulation of a city. By tweaking various civic parameters, your city may thrive and grow – or die. It’s a great tool for learning some of the basics of city… Continue reading SimCity or RealCity?
Design
FOC Concept Store
Our friends at Freedom of Creation have long been experimenting with the idea of selling beautiful 3D printed objects, some of which we’ve featured in the past. Now they’ve gone one step beyond that by actually printing the store itself! Or at least part of it. They’ve produced a kind of wall unit composed… Continue reading FOC Concept Store
Printing An Earthquake
If you happen to come by some digital data of any kind, watch out – it might become a 3D print! Now we see artist Luke Jerram has produced a 3D print of an earthquake, taking the digital data from a seismometer, applying a bit of rotation and voila, a very cool 3D model. Called… Continue reading Printing An Earthquake
Crania Anatomica Filigre Results
KickStarter, the crowdsourced fundraising site continues to amaze us. As does this particular project, Crania Anatomica Filigre. As you can see, it’s an extremely cool 3D print of a stylized skull by Chicago-based designer Joshua Harker. Harker’s fundraising goal was to collect USD$500 and get his work seen and touched by more people. It… Continue reading Crania Anatomica Filigre Results
Modeen’s Meat and Bone Experiments
3D design dxperimenter extraordinaire Dr. Thomas Modeen continues his radical 3D printing design experiments in his “Meat and Bone” series. This technique is incredibly simple yet the results are startlingly beautiful. His approach retains the normally discarded support structures as part of the printed work. By thinking of the design in this way right… Continue reading Modeen’s Meat and Bone Experiments
Free 123D T-Shirts!
Autodesk is running a promotion to raise interest in their new web-based 3D modeling tool, 123D, which we’ve written about before. You don’t get a t-shirt for nothing, though. You have to make an image of your original 3D Jack-o-lantern design and share it within their online gallery. This could be easier than you… Continue reading Free 123D T-Shirts!
Keep Up The Support
Designer Dr. Thomas Modeen, whom we’ve written about recently, has come up with another unusual design: various species of bowls and bottles. The unique aspect of this design is that he’s incorporated support material into the final object. Normally this stuff is used only to support overhangs and is swiftly removed after the print completes.… Continue reading Keep Up The Support
Industrial Revolution 2.0 Held Over
What? You weren’t able to attend the London Design Festival this year and missed out seeing Murray Moss’s “Industrial Revolution 2.0” display? Well, now you can, because this exhibition has been held over at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Instead of ending now, it’s been extended until early November. Evidently the exhibition was extremely… Continue reading Industrial Revolution 2.0 Held Over
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?
3D US Electoral Map or 3D Excel Chart?
We’re always fascinated when someone takes some raw data and somehow converts it into a printable object. Recently Thingiverse user TheNewHobbyist created a great model using the United States Electoral College. For those unfamiliar with obscure US election rituals, it is simply a quantity of votes assigned to each state for purposes of presidential voting. … Continue reading 3D US Electoral Map or 3D Excel Chart?
Look Out For 3D Printed Hats
.MGX, the high-end retail arm of 3D printing service Materialise, announced they’re now collaborating with notable Belgian hat designer Elvis Pompilio. He’s produced hats for many famous personages, having opened his first boutique soon after starting the business in 1987. While we’re not personally likely to wear this style, we’re quite interested to see… Continue reading Look Out For 3D Printed Hats
The V&A Goes 3D
If you’re visiting London soon, we’d recommend you spend some time at the Victoria and Albert Museum, home of incredible deisgns of all kinds. Typically the works are historical, but at times contemporary works are displayed. That’s what’s happening now in a new exhibition called “The Power of Making” taking place at the V&A from… Continue reading The V&A Goes 3D
National Geographic Video: IKEA’s 3D Printers
Specifically, IKEA uses Objet’s Eden500V 3D printer. But do they print furniture? Not as far as we can see, but instead they’re using the printer to produce prototypes of utensils and other small objects in their familiar simplistic Scandinavian design style. National Geographic has posted a video of their process, in which Technician Johan… Continue reading National Geographic Video: IKEA’s 3D Printers
Video: Using Haptic Tech for 3D Design
Artist Farah Bandookwala describes her experience using a haptic input device to design wonderful 3D sculptures. Haptic technology is the ability to “touch” a model using physical feedback mechanisms. This changes the design process significantly from conventional 3D design methods to something perhaps more akin to traditional art approaches. She’s been using the Cloud9 software/hardware… Continue reading Video: Using Haptic Tech for 3D Design
The Iris van Herpen Exhibition
One of Netherland’s most talented Dutch fashion designers, Iris van Herpen, will display her work at centraal museum utrecht from 29 June to 9 October this year. The exhibition will include not only some of her amazing 3D printed fashions, but there will also be a 3D printer (a Dimension) on site demonstrating the process… Continue reading The Iris van Herpen Exhibition
3D Printed Bikini: Breakthrough or Barrier?
We were very excited to read about Shapeways latest creation: a 3D printed Bikini that you can actually purchase and wear! Up to now, most 3D printed fashions were wild, crazy and effectively impractical for common use. Typically you’d see 3D printed fashions in a museum or modern art event, but never in a place… Continue reading 3D Printed Bikini: Breakthrough or Barrier?
The Endless Chair
Another surprise item seen at London’s Design Museum was the “Endless Chair”. Why is it called “endless”? Because it’s made from recycled refrigerators, where plastic is ground up and extruded in 3D printing fashion into the correct chair shape. Another reason for the name is that the production equipment, in this case a leftover… Continue reading The Endless Chair
Melonia Shoes at The Design Museum
During our recent visit to London and The Design Museum, we came across a very cool 3D printed shoe design: The Melonia Shoe. Designed by fashion designer Naim Josefi and industrial designer Souzan Youssouf, the shoe is the product of software that is capable of adjusting the size of the shoes on demand. Their vision:… Continue reading Melonia Shoes at The Design Museum
Shoes by Andreia Chaves
We’re fascinated by the idea of 3D printed shoes for some reason. Perhaps it’s the notion of always having a shoe that fits perfectly. On the other hand, it might the limitless number of astonishing designs one can imagine are possible. One such design was recently made by Andreia Chaves and Freedom of Creation. … Continue reading Shoes by Andreia Chaves
Will Flexible Grids Lead to 3D Printed Cloth?
Experiments at LMNts Tech Studio are demonstrating the feasibility of printing flexible materials. Using their high-end commercial Objet 3D printer and 3D modeling software, they designed and printed a kind of miniature ball-and-socket joint. They linked many of these joints together in a mesh. A Flexible Mesh. But wait – isn’t fabric a… Continue reading Will Flexible Grids Lead to 3D Printed Cloth?
Tangles From Joshua
He may not be the first, and certainly won’t be the last, but Josh Harker is another artist leveraging 3D printing as a way to get his art to the world. He’s created an online store to market his works, which are created thru 3D print service Sculpteo. Admirers may purchase the works from his… Continue reading Tangles From Joshua
KIOSK By Unfold
There are many designers doing interesting things with 3D printing, but one of the more interesting groups is Antwerp-based Unfold Design Studio. For some years they’ve been designing interesting creations, some of which are for sale at their online store. Recently they’ve been working with 3D printer manufacturer Bits From Bytes on ceramic 3D… Continue reading KIOSK By Unfold
Natural 3D Printing
Ponoko posted of a wonderful story about Sydney-based lighting company SandFlora’s experience designing a beautiful lamp. The interesting part was the inspiration: nature. In fact, this line of lamp was inspired by the intricate Waratah flower, native to Australia. The lamp was of course 3D printed and looks amazing. Our interest, as was… Continue reading Natural 3D Printing
Wearable 3D Printed Plants
Some may wear a red rose in their lapel, but why not a green plant? The notion of wearing plants is a little strange, but Etsy maker Colleen Jordan has figured out how to do it – with some help from a 3D printer. The concept is simple: a miniature flower pot is suspended… Continue reading Wearable 3D Printed Plants
3D Print a Kindle!
Not exactly, but it’s surprisingly close to printing a Kindle. Maker Stergios Stergiou has designed a combination case and magnifier that blows up an iPhone 4 screen to 6 inches in size – approximately the same size as an actual Kindle. This makes it much easier to read eBooks, for example. The device, called… Continue reading 3D Print a Kindle!
The Painted Terminator
The Herald of Anguish is a “non-profit project aiming to make a 3D-animated clip of an intense fight between a squad of Blood Angels Terminators and hordes of genestealers onboard a Space Hulk” composed of four 3D graphics friends who enjoy that genre and wanted to pay tribute to the storyline. Click on the image… Continue reading The Painted Terminator
3D Printed Couture Shoes
Designer Marloes ten Bhömer is well-known for her unorthodox shoe designs, and now she’s apply 3D printing technology to her craft. Pictured above is her latest creation, the Rapidprototypedshoe, showing at the Design Museum Holon in Israel until January 8th. The shoe was designed in Rhino and printed on an Objet Connex500. We believe… Continue reading 3D Printed Couture Shoes
Things Growing Out Of Your Head
Inspired by our previous post detailing MeshMixer, a fabulous 3D modelling tool that easily allows arbitrary 3D models to be pasted together, tipster Ken has found further examples of making things grow out of your head. And these have been printed! (Click for larger images) What causes people to want things protruding from their… Continue reading Things Growing Out Of Your Head
Additive Memories
Laura West is a sculpture artist based in California. You may have heard of her successful work collaborating with the folks at the University of Washington on formulating a way to 3D print molds for metalcasting. But in addition to the lab work, Laura is also an amazing artist, who is currently running an… Continue reading Additive Memories
Printing A Beautiful Figurine
There are quite a number of people who collect and design figurines, those small humanoid representations. Actually, this has been going on for a very long time, perhaps thousands of years now, but these days we’re likely in the Golden Age of figurines, historically speaking. We read the adventure of how one figurine designer,… Continue reading Printing A Beautiful Figurine
MCOR’s Talents
Here’s a new challenge specific to a particular 3D Printer: the Freedom of Creations (FOC) Talents design brief Quarter 4 2010 requests “end product application and design for Paper Rapid Prototyping (PRP)“. In other words, “what’s a commercially interesting object to print on the MCOR Matrix 300 paper 3D printer?” FOC has been running… Continue reading MCOR’s Talents
The Marble Challenge
Talk about difficult things to print: Scott Elliot of My SD300 3D Printer has been working on designs for marbles. Sure, one could easily print a sphere and call it a marble, but that’s just too easy. Scott is designing a two-piece snap-together model with embedded colors and a twisty design. As you might… Continue reading The Marble Challenge
Capture That Onion!
Last year artist David Bowen produced a fantastic kinetic artwork entitled “growth modeling device” in which a live onion plant is 3D scanned once every 24 hours, and then that scan is 3D printed. Amazingly, the 3D prints are then shuffled along a conveyor belt so you can see (and touch) the various stages of… Continue reading Capture That Onion!
FOC’s Jointed Jewels
Freedom of Creation, one of the most dynamic artistic users of 3D printing technology have recently collaborated with Alissia Melka-Teichroew to produce “Jointed Jewels”. These artistic jewellery items were made using selective laser sintering, one of the few technologies capable of producing a ball joint in a single operation. While each jewelry item appears… Continue reading FOC’s Jointed Jewels
FOC’s Punch Bag
Watch this video showing the process of creating Janne Kyttanen’s highly fashionable 3D printed Punch Bag. This unusual fashion item was printed on an EOS 3D Printer and after cleaning, is complete, flexible and ready to be used. Interesting aspect: the print run also produces a heart-shaped gift box for the bag. Via… Continue reading FOC’s Punch Bag
3D Printed Chairs
Freedom of Creation has produced another set of amazing furniture, this time by Dutch designer Bram Geenen. The design of the Gaudi stool (pictured) and a matching chair was done mathematically, where the curves and internal structure were determined by the distribution of various forces. From design, the furniture was produced by laser sintering. These… Continue reading 3D Printed Chairs
Fractal Tree Table
If the size of your 3D printer’s build chamber is too small, the answer is obvious: break your object into a series of smaller parts, print and assemble them. That or buying a bigger printer. But let’s turn this around: what if you don’t know how big your object is, and you just print… Continue reading Fractal Tree Table
Images From DHUB
There’s a fascinating exhibition taking place at the Disseny Hub in Barcelona, also known as “DHUB”. From the exhibition’s description: FABRICATION LABORATORY consists of not one but a series of activities (exhibitions, real-time fabrication laboratories, workshops, lectures, etc.) that offer a comprehensive overview of 3D digital manufacturing technologies. Flickr user LaN_Luis has published… Continue reading Images From DHUB
Printing Sound
Contrasting opinions are a main feature of today’s communications. We read opposing viewpoints on and endless series topics, words versus words. But what if you could actually *see* the words colliding? That’s the question Canadian artist Eva Schindling set out to discover when she produced her work, “Liquid Sound Collisions”. The artist took two… Continue reading Printing Sound
Printing the Disney Concert Hall – And Other Buildings
While watching a video of Sweet Onion Creations making a printout of the beautiful Disney Theater in Los Angeles, it became clear that one could find ready-made 3D models of many famous buildings. Sweet Onion Creations recommends using Google Earth to find such buildings, as it’s integrated with Google’s 3D Warehouse. We suspect there… Continue reading Printing the Disney Concert Hall – And Other Buildings
Up Against the Wall and Spread Your Legs!
Designer Tom Matten submitted a rather unusual design to 3D model repository Thingiverse the other week: a bong. According to the description: Maker Bong puts the smoker back in charge. Maker Bong gives the individual the ability to create what ever type of bong they desire, weather it be a steamroller, Hookah, or normal… Continue reading Up Against the Wall and Spread Your Legs!
3D Printed Gloves
Fabbing superstar Janne Kyttanen of Freedom of Creation has been commissioned to produce unique white 3D printed gloves, as shown here. The gloves were commissioned by the Design Hub Barcelona, are will be on display from 15 June 2010 to 28 February 2011 in at the Fabrication Laboratory exhibition. According to DHUB: The objects… Continue reading 3D Printed Gloves
Enter The Shapeways Student Contest
Shapeways 3D print service announced a brand new contest, this one for students only. Named the “2010 Shapeways Full Color 3D Print Student Contest”, it would appear this is an annual affair. It’s called a “Color” contest because the idea is to print your model with Shapeways new color material, “Full Color Sandstone”. One major… Continue reading Enter The Shapeways Student Contest
SMArchitecture
We ran across a very interesting operation: SMArchitecture, a “Kuwait and London based architectural & design R&D practice”. Their blog, written by Dr. Thomas Modeen describes their design experiments, which are often highly unusual and seem to have evolved from fabrication techniques. Some examples: The ‘Comet’ vase, which consists of a bundle of hollow,… Continue reading SMArchitecture
TurboSquid
Model makers and consumers might head over to TurboSquid to find and market 3D models. Fabbaloo readers are both makers and consumers, so we felt it was time to point out the benefits of TurboSquid’s amazing service. What is TurboSquid? It’s perhaps the largest commercial online marketplace for 3D models today. Operating like eBay,… Continue reading TurboSquid
Impossible Shoes
Shoes were a hit at the recent Freedom of Creation Future of Fashion exhibition in Amsterdam. Designer student Pauline Van Dongen created several unique shoe designs – and produced them with 3D printing for the exhibition. With Core77’s recent experiments in 3D printed footwear, we’re beginning to wonder if this could be a growth… Continue reading Impossible Shoes
Kick Start Those Earrings
Fluid Forms new golden earrings initiative is a unique approach to personal manufacturing. The idea is to produce individualized earrings based on a geographical location of your choice. The design is actually a street map of that location based on data obtained from open street maps. Which location should you choose? Perhaps it’s a… Continue reading Kick Start Those Earrings
Chairs You Can Sit On
Some may say that 3D printed items are not robust, but not this time. Design firm Freedom of Creation’s Janne Kyttanen has made an amazing set of swivel chairs exclusively for a yacht and residence. FOC used Selective Laser Sintering to produce the unique chairs, which are based on a previous tray design. The chair… Continue reading Chairs You Can Sit On
The .MGX Collection
Earlier this week we encountered iMaterialise’s .MGX collection at the Parallellepipeda Exhibition, and we wanted to learn more. iMaterialise, as we’ve written before, is one of the notable and larger 3D print services today. Like most 3D print services, they allow you to upload your own 3D design (and even help you do it successfully)… Continue reading The .MGX Collection
The Parallellipipeda Exhibition
The Singularity Hub reports on an exhibition taking place at the M Museum in Leuven, Belgium, where the Parallellipipeda Project attempts to leverage the Parallelepiped geometric shape. Amazing sculptures, plates, light fixtures and even furniture are being shown until 25 April. They’ve even included a 3D scanning booth, courtesy of EyeTronics, in which you… Continue reading The Parallellipipeda Exhibition
3D Printed Art
There’s always a stream of magnificent artwork emerging from 3D printers. Here’s a round up of some interesting pieces we’ve seen recently: A 3D printed ring in stainless steel by noformdesign Ancient Critters by smallstuffstudio Human skull demonstrating multicolour capability by ZCorp Valentine… Continue reading 3D Printed Art
The Apple Tree and The Apple Picker
We’re amazed at the results of an experimental 3D scan undertaken as part of Creaform’s Annual 3D Scanning Contest: The Apple Tree and The Apple Picker. The scan attempted a rather difficult subject, that being a live human in the act of picking apples from a real tree. As you can see in the image… Continue reading The Apple Tree and The Apple Picker
Making an Artist’s Living by 3D Printing
There’s a wonderful article by 3D printing artist Bathsheba Grossman over at Say Something, where she describes her journey from student to world-renowned 3D artist. And the best part: She’s now making a living from selling 3D printed art. But it isn’t easy. She spent ten years after completing school to build up the… Continue reading Making an Artist’s Living by 3D Printing