models

The Beautiful Objects of MakerShop

Need something to 3D print? Tired of endlessly scrolling through Thingiverse? If that’s the case, you might want to try MakerShop, an alternative source for freely downloadable 3D models.    Like most Thingiverse competitors, MakerShop has a far more limited selection of models. The site is organized into “Shops” by individual designers. One shop we… Continue reading The Beautiful Objects of MakerShop

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London’s Science Museum Goes Online with 3D Printing

The London Science Museum, whom we visited recently, is displaying a huge collection of 3D printed objects in their “3D Printing The Future” exhibit. That massive collection is apparently not sufficient for them, as they’ve launched a new Tumblr blog for folks to post pictures of their best 3D prints.    And what a set… Continue reading London’s Science Museum Goes Online with 3D Printing

The Stilnest Option

We had a chat with the nice folks from Stilnest, who operate an online 3D print store. Many such shops have recently emerged, so many that it’s getting difficult to distinguish them.    So what does Stilnest do?    They practice what we might call, “extreme curation”. Where other shops go for quantity, Stilnest focuses… Continue reading The Stilnest Option

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123D Offers More 3D Content

One of the best introductory 3D toolsets you can use is Autodesk’s 123D Suite, particularly the 123D Design tool. But when you’re designing something, it’s often very helpful to begin your design with an existing model that you can modify.    123D does this by providing a library of thousands of starter models you can… Continue reading 123D Offers More 3D Content

Let’sMakeStuff

Yet another 3D print making-sharing-selling site has launched, Let’sMakeStuff.    The site provides an ability for designers to sign up and submit 3D models for sale on the site, and for consumers to browse the site and select 3D models for purchase. The service also will 3D print items on request.    It’s a basic… Continue reading Let’sMakeStuff

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How to Easily Create 3D Models from 2D Images: Embossify

A new service provides an incredibly simple way to convert any 2D JPG image into a printable 3D model. Embossify accepts a JPG and quickly converts the file into a 3D mesh by using the contrasting colors as “height indicators”. You can see how it converted our logo into a simple 3D model above.   … Continue reading How to Easily Create 3D Models from 2D Images: Embossify

3DTin’s New Owners

One of the very few browser-based 3D modeling tools has changed hands. 3DTin has been acquired by Montreal-based 3D startup Lagoa.    Lagoa focuses on solving the problem of 3D requiring high-end computing power, which typically isn’t available on the increasingly frequent ultra-portable laptops. People love the portability, but 3D just doesn’t work so well… Continue reading 3DTin’s New Owners

Big Step to Reduce Materials in 3D Printing

One of the reasons 3D printing remains expensive is because so much material is required to create a structurally sound part. Soon, 3D prints might be getting cheaper due to a new technique that enhances a part’s structure while reducing material.   A paper written by researchers at the University of Science and Technology of… Continue reading Big Step to Reduce Materials in 3D Printing

Leopoly!

Leopoly is another web-based 3D sculpting tool that can create 3D printable objects.    What makes Leopoly unique? We think it is quite easy to use; almost anyone could rapidly create interesting 3D objects with no prior use of the tool. It’s basically self-explanatory: the controls are all within a command wheel composed of easy… Continue reading Leopoly!

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Need to 3D Print a Striped Hyena Skull?

To be truthful, we haven’t had the impulse to 3D print a Striped Hyena Skull. At least so far this week. But in case you do, we’ve found a repository that holds detailed 3D models of numerous biological items, mainly 3D scanned skulls.    Digimorph, part of the National Science Foundation Digital Libraries Initiative, is… Continue reading Need to 3D Print a Striped Hyena Skull?

3-Sweep Creates 3D Models from 2D Images

In an incredible video presented at SigGraph Asia 2013, researchers demonstrated an amazing new method of deriving full 3D models from only 2D images.    The 3-Sweep software appears easy to use: simply drag your mouse across an image to cue the software to create a 3D model. The specific motion of the mouse drags… Continue reading 3-Sweep Creates 3D Models from 2D Images

FabMe.it Launches

Another 3D model sharing site has launched, FabMe.it. The site operates in what is now becoming a standard business model: 3D designers upload their designs to the service for sale to the public. Presumably FabMe.it takes a portion of the sales, which for the models we inspected, seem to be priced around €0.99 (USD$1.30).   … Continue reading FabMe.it Launches

123D Design Gets Better

For those of you using Autodesk’s free 3D modeling utility, 123D Design, there is very good news: a new version has been released.    The new version includes some very key features that were lacking until now:    The ability to import existing STL files, critical for handling 3D scans captured elsewhere Text! You can… Continue reading 123D Design Gets Better

Cuboyo’s 3D Model Shop

With all the new printable 3D model shops opening online, you’d wonder how they can possibly distinguish one from another. We’ve been examining Cuboyo and found they offer a convenient online experience for 3D model shopping.   The site contains only printable 3D models, greatly simplifying the shopping experience from typical and numerous 3D model… Continue reading Cuboyo’s 3D Model Shop

How Many Things at Thingiverse? Lots!

3D printing is taking off, if one believes the signals seen this year. Another milestone was reached last week by popular repository Thingiverse, who declared they now have over 100,000 3D models available.    Thingiverse also released several interesting statistics. Apparently the number of models rose by 20,000 in just the past month. At this… Continue reading How Many Things at Thingiverse? Lots!

Hands On With The FinishingTouch Smoothing Station

If you’re 3D printing with plastic filament, you’ll be familiar with the layered effect, where progressive extrusions accumulate into an object. The object has the correct shape, but has unsightly ridges. What to do?    You can eliminate ridges with the Acetone technique, but it’s relatively dangerous, as acetone is flammable and generally not very… Continue reading Hands On With The FinishingTouch Smoothing Station

Let Yeggi Find Your 3D Models

Unless you’re a capable 3D designer, you’ll have to find pre-made 3D models to send to your 3D printer. This can be problematic for a couple of reasons: searching for non-textual items is always difficult; there are an increasing number of 3D model repositories to search.    The latter is partially solved by the strangely… Continue reading Let Yeggi Find Your 3D Models

3D Hacker’s Many Services

We were contacted by Andrew Mazzotta, who, with Adam Pirie, have created “3D Hacker”, a multipurpose website serving the needs of the 3D printing community.    The website acts much like a “3D Printing Kijiji”, where members can add listings in several categories, such as: parts, kits, printers, software, tools, tutorials, jobs, events, clubs and… Continue reading 3D Hacker’s Many Services

FabFabbers Opens

Yet another 3D model sharing site has opened: FabFabbers. Like many such repositories, FabFabbers permits members to upload models, showcase them in listings for download by visitors. But what differentiates this repository from the rest?    There are two features we found particularly interesting: uploaded models can actually be stored on GitHub, which is a… Continue reading FabFabbers Opens

Forme Offers Fantastic Scanned 3D Models

Another new source for 3D models has launched: Forme, focused on high-resolution scans of a wide variety of object categories.    This model repository offers something quite different from the numerous other 3D model repositories that have popped up lately. Forme offers 3D scans, not modeled objects. They’re not provided in STL form, but instead… Continue reading Forme Offers Fantastic Scanned 3D Models

Flexiscale Makes Your Railway Models

Flexiscale is a UK-based company specializing in making model railway kits that you can spend enjoyable time assembling. While the practice of model building has been a hobby for many decades, Flexiscale is now approaching the development of kits with modern technology.    They use advanced 3D scanning technology to fully capture 3D scans of… Continue reading Flexiscale Makes Your Railway Models

You Should Check Out ShouldBee

The explosion of 3D model repositories and services continues. Today we’re checking out ShouldBee, a USA-based service that develops 3D models from which you can purchase full color 3D prints.    We found ShouldBee’s process a little different from the typical “we have a pile of models, pick one” approach used by other model repositories.… Continue reading You Should Check Out ShouldBee

Azavy Launches

Last Saturday saw the silent launch of a new service dedicated to helping you find inexpensive ways to 3D print. Four-person startup Azavy is a kind of network between Consumers, Designers and Makers.    Designers will be able to sell their designs on Azavy to Consumers, who can shop among a variety of themes and… Continue reading Azavy Launches

grain’s Unusual Approach

We’re checking out a new online repository for printable 3D models: grain. There are many such repositories sprouting up recently, so what makes grain different?    grain’s current inventory of models is a little thin, but that’s totally understandable given that it launched only recently. But there’s another twist we haven’t seen before: they don’t… Continue reading grain’s Unusual Approach

3D Industri.es Launches 3DPartSource

New UK startup company 3D Industri.es has launched its first product: 3D Partsource. It’s a repository specifically designed for 3D models of industrial components.    Anyone who searches for 3D models knows the problem these guys are trying to solve immediately: it’s pretty much impossible to find appropriate 3D models using conventional text-based searches. You… Continue reading 3D Industri.es Launches 3DPartSource

3D Bioprinting Software?

According to a press release from bioprinting startup Organovo, they’ve partnered with CAD software giant Autodesk to produce tools specifically designed for creating bioprints.    Why this makes sense to us:  Autodesk is one of, if not the, leader in 3D design software across the industry. If anyone was to tackle this problem, it would… Continue reading 3D Bioprinting Software?

Art and Sound at Euromold 2012

At trade shows vendors wish to thrill visitors by showing example prints from their machinery. Often the most impressive prints are artwork. That being so, Euromold is riddled with 3D printed artwork everywhere you look, at least in Hall 11, the home of 3D printing technologies during this year’s event. We thought you’d like to… Continue reading Art and Sound at Euromold 2012

TeamPlatform’s API Released

You might recall TeamPlatform, the new service that enables secure sharing of 3D models? They’ve released a software API that enables much wider use of their service.    But first let’s back up a bit: TeamPlatform is a web service specifically designed around handling 3D model development. You can create a secure, private “workspace” in… Continue reading TeamPlatform’s API Released

There’s Only One One Just One

Some say that 3D printing is not useful for manufacturing due to the per unit cost of printing versus traditional mass manufacturing. That’s true, and so 3D printing is often used for prototypes and low-quantity production. Or even one-off personalized items.    But now a venture attempts to push that concept to the limit. One… Continue reading There’s Only One One Just One

MediaGoblin Shares 3D Models

MediaGoblin, the open source project that enables easy sharing of media, has added the ability to share 3D models.     Not familiar with MediaGoblin? Here’s their own explanation:    MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing platform that anyone can run. You can think of it as a decentralized alternative to Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud,… Continue reading MediaGoblin Shares 3D Models

123D Catch In Your Pocket

Autodesk has released an iOS version of its staggeringly easy-to-use 3D model generator, 123D Catch.    The tool isn’t a 3D scanner, exactly, but the results are similar. You collect a series of images of a 3D subject from many angles, then submit them to 123D Catch for processing. Autodesk’s magic algorithms in the sky… Continue reading 123D Catch In Your Pocket