open source Archives

Government Contracting Venture Rips Off an Open Source 3D Printer Design

The Hangprinter project seems to have been ripped off by a U.S. government contractor.

Beyond Generative Design: Where 3D Modeling May Go

I caught a glimpse of a potential future for 3D modeling tools, and it’s breathtaking.

The Spaghetti Detective Becomes Obico

Readers may recall The Spaghetti Detective. Now it has been rebranded and expanded.

An Open Source Electron Beam Metal 3D Printer?

Believe it or not, there is an open source electron beam metal 3D printer project underway.

Design of the Week: Open Source 3D Printed PUMA Microscope

This week’s selection is the Open Source 3D Printed PUMA Microscope by Paul Tadrous.

What’s Super About SuperSlicer?

A fork of PrusaSlicer adds some extremely interesting features.

Could OVF Replace GCODE?

A newly invented protocol just might replace GCODE for certain types of 3D printing.

Affordable 5-Axis 3D Printer Upgrade Concept

Researchers at Imperial College London have devised a relatively inexpensive system to provide 5-axis 3D printing capability.

E3D-Online Adjusts IP Policy For Revo

E3D-Online clarified their position on use of their Revo hot end design.

New Open Source Belt 3D Printer Project: TigTag3D

A new belt 3D printer design is available from an open source project.

Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

The Blender Foundation announced that Apple has joined their development fund.

Ultimaker Releases Ultimaker Cura 4.10, With An Interesting Feature… For Some

Ultimaker released a new version of Ultimaker Cura, their highly popular 3D print management software.

Ford’s Integrated Tether System To Unleash 3D Printed Creativity

Ford introduced a new feature on their upcoming 2022 Maverick truck that could be of significant interest to 3D printer operators.

Meshlab 2021.05’s Enhancements

The latest version of Meshlab improves several processing features, and it remains one of the essential open source tools for 3D mesh modelers.

Medical 3D Printing Workshop Needs Assistance

Tashkeel3D, a 3D print startup producing medical components in Gaza has been destroyed.

OSHdata Shuts Down

This week, OSHdata announced its closure.

A New Meshlab, Again

I just noticed there was a new release of Meshlab, version v2020.12.

scAnt: An Open Source 3D Scanner For Ants

If you’ve ever wanted to 3D scan and print very tiny things, the scAnt 3D scanner is for you.

Blackbox: The High-Quality Open Source 3D Printer

There are plenty of open source designs for 3D printers, but most of them are for relatively straightforward desktop machines. That’s not the case with Blackbox.

Uppgradera: An Upgraded, 3D Printed IKEA Experience

Budapest-based designer Adam Miklosi has decided to “upgrade” existing IKEA products with his open-source collection of 3D printed accessories.

Book of the Week: Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects

This week’s selection is “Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects” by Joshua Pearce.

Creality’s CR-30 Launch Succeeds, But Fails To Reach Open Source Milestone

Creality’s second Kickstarter campaign ended earlier today and there’s good news and bad news.

The Reason Why Creality’s Belt 3D Printer Is Important

There’s a reason why Creality’s CR-30 belt 3D printer needs attention.

ParallelQSlim: Simplifying Complex 3D Scanned Meshes

A new open source tool could greatly aid the simplification of basic 3D scans.

Free Online Sculpting Tool: SculptGL

I’m trying out something called “SculptGL”, an online 3D sculpting tool.

3 New Open Source Tools To Aid In Battling COVID-19

During times of uncertainty, Michigan Tech’s Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab doles out three new open source tools in response to the ongoing pandemic. The MOST Lab With advancements in technologies like 3D printing, people can share their designs with people across the world from them in a way that allows them to replicate medical-grade… Continue reading 3 New Open Source Tools To Aid In Battling COVID-19

Another High-Temperature DIY 3D Printer Design

It’s been brought to our attention that there is another freely downloadable design for a high-temperature 3D printer.

Open Source High-Temperature RepRap 3D Printer Announced

Michigan Tech’s Open Sustainability Technology Lab, or “MOST”, announced an open source, high-temperature 3D printer.

Exclusive: Naomi Wu On The Creality 3DPrintMill Belt 3D Printer

Supermaker Naomi Wu answered our questions about the upcoming Creality CR-30 belt 3D printer.

Microsoft Officially Joins Blender Foundation

Microsoft has officially joined the Blender Foundation Development Fund, a group that supports the open source 3D modeling tool Blender.

3MF Consortium’s New Executive Director: “The Focus Is On Adoption Now”

The 3MF Consortium is looking ahead to more adoption in 3D printing, now operating as a Linux Foundation member and with a new executive director.

Are Open Source 3D Printers Truly Possible?

Is it really possible to produce a truly open source 3D printer at scale and be successful in the market?

Patenting Pandemic Designs?

3D printing has really stepped up to the plate in pandemic response — but what happens with those designs post-pandemic?

Disturbing Reports Emerging From LulzBot Resellers

A series of disturbing reports have emerged this week from resellers of LulzBot’s 3D printers that could alienate the open source community.

Design of the Week: DIY 3D Scanner

This week’s selection is the OpenScan DIY 3D Scanner.

The VentCore Open Source Ventilator Project

A new design for an open source ventilator that can be partially 3D printed has surfaced, but there are many cautions required before building it.

Where To Offer 3D Printing Help During The COVID-19 Crisis

A number of initiatives have emerged that may need your help in providing critical medical equipment required by hospitals to deal with the crisis.

Ultimaker Releases Ultimaker Cura 4.5

Ultimaker has released a new version of Ultimaker Cura 4.5, and as usual there are a couple of very interesting new features.

The Glia Project: Open Access 3D Printed Medical Equipment

The Glia Project is leveraging 3D printing to bring desperately-needed medical equipment to poor areas of the globe through an online service.

Book of the Week: Build Your Own Mini Metal Maker

Did you ever want to try 3D printing in metal but did not have a million dollar budget to do so? If so, this book explains step-by-step how to build an inexpensive 3D printer that can actually 3D print metal objects.

The LumiBEE Open Source 3D Printer

There is a new option for those wishing to build their own 3D printer: Lumi Industries released open source plans for a resin 3D printer, the LumiBEE.

Thoughts on LulzBot’s Near-Demise

With the near-demise of LulzBot 3D printers, I am now wondering about the future of open source 3D printer companies. Can they ever succeed again?

Book of the Week: Building Open Source Hardware

This week’s selection is “Building Open Source Hardware” by Alicia Gibb.

Possible Patent Infringement By Non-Planar Slic3r Development?

Non-planar 3D printing is a massive improvement, but it seems that it could be patented by a company, possibly leaving it difficult for the open source community.

OpenAdditive Looks To Meet More Needs In Metal 3D Printing

OpenAdditive is a young business focused on “the market segments left behind” with other metal additive manufacturing solutions.

Prusa Rebrands and Improves Software Systems

Prusa Research introduced PrusaSlicer to replace their previous management software.

Wikifactory Launches

A new online service has launched to provide collaboration services for product development: Wikifactory.

Open Source Aids: Text to Braille Converter

Lumi Industries’ Text to Braille Converter is a heartening use of open source software.

Previewing The New Cura

Ultimaker snuck out a beta version of Cura 4.0.

Reducing Pain Doesn’t Have to be a Pain

Assistive devices are typically small aids that make a big difference — and often at a big cost.

How Do You Open Source 3D Printer Filament?

It seems there is another open source filament available for 3D printing, but how exactly is this done?

Controversy at Creality Demonstrates a Problem in 3D Printing

Printed Solid has broken ties with 3D printer manufacturer Creality due to ongoing open source infringements. Why did this happen?

3D Printed Tourniquets: A Signal of Future 3D Print Use?

An incredible story with a 3D printing angle took place last week.

Good News: Prusa Abandons Original MK3 MultiMaterial Design

Josef Prusa provided an update on his company’s progress on building, improving and shipping their new MK3 3D printers, but also announced a big change.

3D Printing: Should You Go Open Source?

Although it’s possible that patents have existed since the time of the Ancient Greeks, the Venetian Patent Statute is more widely recognized as the first official patent system.

Ultimaker Files First Patent: Good News or Bad?

Long time open source supporter Ultimaker reported that it had filed for its very first patent.

An Open Source High Resolution Resin 3D Printer

The RooBee One is a relatively easy to build completely open source high resolution resin-based 3D printer.

Action Required: Get Free Promotion For Your Open Source 3D Project

We announced in September a new program to provide absolutely FREE support for community projects related to 3D. You should apply now! The program is our way to give back to the open source community that has greatly supported the recent development of 3D printing technology that’s sweeping the world today. Our program involves selecting… Continue reading Action Required: Get Free Promotion For Your Open Source 3D Project

Action Required: Get Free Promotion For Your Open Source 3D Project

We announced last month a new program to provide absolutely FREE support for community projects related to 3D. You should apply now!

3D Print Community: The RMADS Rapid Manufacturing Advice System

This month’s community support selection is the RMADS project undertaken by researchers at Newcastle University.

Fabbaloo to Provide Free Support to 3D Print Initiatives

One of the main reasons this blog exists is to promote and grow 3D printing technology. Today we’re announcing a new program to help make that happen.

The Commercial Dangers of Open Source 3D Printers

While an open source business approach is desired by many, there are certain existential threats that may result.

The 3D Printing Patent Backlash Begins

It was inevitable, but the personal 3D printing community is not reacting well to the announcement by Stratasys that it was suing Afinia for patent infringement. It seems that the feeling is that other new 3D printer manufacturers might also become legal targets as patented technology could be found in their equipment. The image… Continue reading The 3D Printing Patent Backlash Begins

Open Hardware: Defined?

The results of a March 17th workshop on open hardware have been released. The event, termed “A workshop on legal tools for open source hardware”, started discussing ideas for open hardware licenses beyond the software-heritage open licenses commonly reused today. These software licenses (such as Creative Commons, GPL, etc.) do not necessarily account for the… Continue reading Open Hardware: Defined?

The Social Engineering-Knowledge Database

Bryan Bishop provides a great overview of the Social Engineering-Knowledge Database (SKDB) project in an article at HPlus Magazine. The premise of the project is to create a standard environment for the development of complex 3D models by leveraging models and instructions that already exist. This is very similar to the open source software industry,… Continue reading The Social Engineering-Knowledge Database

Replacing .STL

We wrote on the problems with the prehistoric .STL format the other week, and bumped into a potential replacement: GTS. It’s an open source project: GTS stands for the GNU Triangulated Surface Library. It is an Open Source Free Software Library intended to provide a set of useful functions to deal with 3D surfaces meshed… Continue reading Replacing .STL

Contraptor!

Tips flowed in this week regarding “Contraptor”, the webchild of Vitaly Mankevich and Riley Porter. According to their About: Contraptor is a DIY open source construction set for experimental personal fabrication, desktop manufacturing, prototyping and bootstrapping. Various Cartesian robots can be quickly assembled from Contraptor and used as a platform for projects such as XY… Continue reading Contraptor!

MakerBeam Makes Beams!

And a lot more, it turns out. The MakerBeam project intends on providing a massive library of open source hardware connectors, all reusable and designed to interoperate. Their first big venture is Mini-T, which is a precisely downscaled model of larger T-slot building systems. It consists of extruded aluminum beams, 1 cm on a side,… Continue reading MakerBeam Makes Beams!

Open Manufacturing

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

OpenMoko, Open Case

Popular Mechanics and The Globe and Mail report on the possibility of using 3D print technology to custom build cases for the OpenMoko Linux touchscreen. The device is not yet available, but OpenMoko has set precedents by releasing all of their software source code – and now the designs for the case too! The article… Continue reading OpenMoko, Open Case

The Fabaroni

Ok, we’ve heard of expensive media for 3D printers, paper, sugar and other wacky stuff going in “raw” and coming out as usable 3D objects. Today it’s pasta dough! The Fabaroni home-made 3D printer is capable of printing 3D objects with a moving head, much like other inexpensive 3D printers. In fact, it “loosely follows… Continue reading The Fabaroni

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