shapeways

Shapeways Announces Programmable Models

3D printing service Shapeways has released “ShapeJS”, a programming environment that can generate 3D models using Javascript programs.    In other words, if you know how to use Javascript, one of the most popular tools for creating dynamic web pages, you’ll be able to produce 3D models simply by describing them with code, including complex… Continue reading Shapeways Announces Programmable Models

A Peek Inside Shapeways’ Eindhoven Workshop

Shapeways community manager Bart Veldhuizen offers a video tour of the 3D print service company’s Eindhoven site in The Netherlands.      Veldhuizen walks through and explains each stage of the Shapeways process, including verification of incoming 3D models, printing, cleaning, finishing, quality control and packing.    For some, Shapeways is like a black box,… Continue reading A Peek Inside Shapeways’ Eindhoven Workshop

An Interview with Shapeways Bart Veldhuizen

Andrew Mazotta of 3D Hacker posted a video interview with Shapeways’ Bart Veldhuizen, recorded at Shapeways’ European headquarters in Eindhoven.    In the interview Mazotta goes through the basics, starting by examining the history of Shapeways. Veldhuizen, European Community Manager for Shapeways, has been with the company for five years and has witnessed the tremendous… Continue reading An Interview with Shapeways Bart Veldhuizen

Shapeways Snaps Up $30M

Considering that Shapeways is located in New York City, it seems a little strange that they did not exhibit at the Inside 3D Printing expo last week. But they had a rather good excuse: they’ve raised another round of funding from their existing investors to the tune of USD$30M.    Shapeways Director of Marketing Carine… Continue reading Shapeways Snaps Up $30M

Wirelessly Tag Your 3D Prints

Shapeways announced a very cool feature offered by their 3D print service: NFC tagging. If you haven’t heard of it, NFC stands for “Near Field Communication“, a short-range wireless technology.   NFC is used in key fobs or other security devices. It simply receives a signal and responds with its own unique digital number. With… Continue reading Wirelessly Tag Your 3D Prints

Shapeways Meets Up

We’ve frequently seen notices from Shapeways (and other companies) announcing meetups. The problem is that these meetups are rarely happening in your city. Sure, if you are a Manhattanite or a Londoner, perhaps, but most people simply aren’t nearby.    Shapeways proposes to solve this dilemma by having a meetup – everywhere!    They’ve announced… Continue reading Shapeways Meets Up

Deep, Deep Inside Shapeways

During our recent visit to New York we journeyed to the peculiar neighborhood of Long Island City to visit one Duann Scott of Shapeways at their brand new “Factory of the Future”. Scott graciously showed us their operations in gritty detail. You’d never know Shapeways main plant is present in these streets and avenues of nameless… Continue reading Deep, Deep Inside Shapeways

Inside Shapeways

Forbes’ Andy Greenberg was able to get inside Shapeways’ New York City production facility to interview Duann Scott. In the video, Scott explains to the layman the process used by Shapeways, which is different from the typical plastic extrusion used by personal 3D printers: powder sintering.    Scott explains that Shapeways includes a wide variety… Continue reading Inside Shapeways

Virtual Jewelry Becomes Real Jewelry

You might not be aware of it, but there’s a pretty competitive fashion industry within the still-kicking virtual world of Second Life. For years fashion designers have created pretty amazing virtual clothing, jewelry and other artifacts, some not possible in real life. Such items have been sold to Second Life avatars for many years. But… Continue reading Virtual Jewelry Becomes Real Jewelry

Sandy Impacts 3D Printing

Massive hurricane Sandy slammed into the east coast of the USA this week and caused a tremendous amount of damage, but how did 3D printing fare during the event?    Aside from the numerous individual “we can’t make it to work” scenarios, there has been only limited affects. We’ve seen no announcements from 3D Systems, whose… Continue reading Sandy Impacts 3D Printing

Shapeways to Open NY Factory

Popular consumer-focused 3D print service is expanding! In New York, specifically Long Island, they’re spending USD$28M to set up a 25,000sf, 50-person facility that Shapeways calls, “The Factory of The Future”.    The facility is expected to hold some 30-50 advanced 3D printers as well as providing a physical space for maker community innovation. The… Continue reading Shapeways to Open NY Factory

Design of the Week: Mobius Sake Cup

This week’s selected design is Ovidiu Opresco’s Mobius Sake Cup.    How simple is a Sake cup? What could transform such a straightforward object into the unusual?    Ovidiu Opresco’s idea was to blend the concept of a an endless Mobius strip with the cup to create a very unusual piece. The cup is functional… Continue reading Design of the Week: Mobius Sake Cup

Shapeways Gets A New Engine

Did you visit Shapeways recently? It’s different – but not different visually. Instead the techs at Shapeways have replaced the software engines running behind their website to provide various improvements, specifically in the Order Placement and Order Fulfillment functions.    Some of the improvements include:    An ability to consolidate all your Shapeways coupons into… Continue reading Shapeways Gets A New Engine

3D Printed Voodoo

As the popularity of 3D printing increases, so does its attraction to designers of incredible things. One designer we’ve noticed is Rob Elford, whose Shapeways shop, Hoodoo Botanical, exemplifies how designers are working in the space. He’s been working on developing fashion accessories 3D printed in full color sandstone.    Successful designers tend to focus… Continue reading 3D Printed Voodoo

Shapeways Gets Bendy

Shapeways, the popular 3D print service constantly experiments with new materials and perhaps they have the widest variety of materials one can select from. We’ve noticed they’re now offering a material with a unique property: it’s flexible!    The new material, appropriately named “Elasto Plastic” will be tested by Shapeways users until July 20th. Shapeways… Continue reading Shapeways Gets Bendy

Hear and Feel Your Favorite Sounds

This is interesting – Shapeways has teamed up with online Sound sharing site SoundCloud to produce  “The Vibe” a very unique 3D model creator. From your SoundCloud account you can select your favorite sound, perhaps a song or yourself speaking. This sound’s waveform is automatically transformed into a visible representation of the wave as the… Continue reading Hear and Feel Your Favorite Sounds

Shapeways’ Peek Into Imagination: Finds Apple’s Siri

Popular 3D print service Shapeways often runs contests to stimulate creativity – and increase their print volume. This past week saw the conclusion of a rather interesting competition to answer the abstract question, “What Does Siri Look Like?” Siri, of course, is Apple’s voice-powered omnipotent assistant.    There were multiple entries to the contest, each… Continue reading Shapeways’ Peek Into Imagination: Finds Apple’s Siri

MineToys!

If it’s in 3D, it will be printed. That is the theme we see everywhere now. The latest venture in the theme is MineToys, a service that can 3D print your MineCraft characters.    Like those who went before printing World of Warcraft, Mii or Second Life avatars, we now have a service that can… Continue reading MineToys!

Shapeways NYC Base

Shapeways, one of the leading 3D print services, announced it’s opening up a New York City production facility. This plant would include a variety of 3D printers suitable for printing customer objects on demand. While they already can do this with a European production facility in Eindhoven and through a network of partner 3D print… Continue reading Shapeways NYC Base

Shapeways Smooths Out The Ceramics

3D print service Shapeways has re-announced their ceramic service. They’ve long been known for experimenting with different materials in their 3D printers and now offer what is probably the widest array of materials to choose from when using a 3D print service.    As is their habit, they typically offer a new material experimentally so… Continue reading Shapeways Smooths Out The Ceramics

Tinkercad Adds Shapeways

As we suspected, another 3D print service has added Tinkercad integration into their interface. Shapeways joins i.Materialise as an option for printing your 3D models developed in Tinkercad. Tinkercad is a web-based, very easy to use 3D solid modeling tool.    The addition of a Shapeways interface permits direct 3D printing capability, very similar to… Continue reading Tinkercad Adds Shapeways

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

Shapeways AbFab3D

A powerful new capability was announced by 3D print service Shapeways: AbFab3D. It’s a software architecture that permits the existence of “3D Creators”, which are programs that create printable 3D models based on some input parameters. In other words, on-the-fly customized models.    The catch is that you need a “3D Creator” for each type… Continue reading Shapeways AbFab3D

Shapeways Is Three. Is 3D Printing Old?

Shapeways just celebrated its third birthday and while we’re happy to see they’re doing well and continuing to innovate, we asked ourselves if 3D printing is getting old?    Shapeways is three years old.  Fabbaloo has been posting since late 2007, some four years ago.  Objet is twelve years old. Z Corp is sixteen years… Continue reading Shapeways Is Three. Is 3D Printing Old?

Finally Shapeways Makes the USA

Makes “in” the USA, that is. 3D print service Shapeways announced they will now ship product from the USA – this means US-based users (and also nearby countries we suppose) will avoid the delays and shipping costs of Shapeways’ European distribution centre in the Netherlands.   Shapeways says they’re also “we are also increasing our… Continue reading Finally Shapeways Makes the USA

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?

Shapeways Glazes Over

We are continually amazed at the ingenuity of the Shapeways 3D print service; they seem to come up with new materials for their service almost every other week. Typically they experiment with them to see how well they are accepted and then decide whether and how to continue offering them. In the past they’ve pioneered… Continue reading Shapeways Glazes Over

Shapeways Pops!

Shapeways has introduced yet another way to produce 3D models you can print with their  3D printservice: Image Popper. How does it work? Very simply: you upload a 2D image and then “raise” it to the desired depth.    If this sounds too simple to produce useful models, you’d be wrong. In our experience, one… Continue reading Shapeways Pops!

Shapeways Introduces New Detail Material

Shapeways, one of the leading 3D print services, is trialing a new pair of print materials that are specially designed for high detail. They’re taking cues from a survey in which clients demanded more detail and smoother prints.   The new materials, dubbed eloquently in the typical Shapeways style, are “Frosted Detail” and “Frosted Ultra… Continue reading Shapeways Introduces New Detail Material

Who Needs 3D Printing Rules?

After reading Shapeways’ recent post discussing their new design rules for stainless steel prints, we thought we should weigh in. Shapeways has gone as far as developing a dedicated “Design Rule Repository. What’s in it? According to their post:    This is a subsection of the website dedicated to design rules. Going forward, the blog… Continue reading Who Needs 3D Printing Rules?

Shapeways Re-Silverizes

After an inexplicable absence, 3D Print service Shapeways has re-energized their silver printing capability. Originally introduced some time ago, their silver material disappeared for a short while but now is re-instated as an available material. According the Shapeways, the new silver has “a better price and the same amazing quality.”   The cost of a… Continue reading Shapeways Re-Silverizes

New Colors At Shapeways? Again?

Leading consumer 3D print service Shapeways has added Indigo and Dark Grey color options to their awkwardly named but highly descriptive “strong and flexible” plastic material. It seems not a month goes by without the inventive mandarins of Shapeways announcing new colors or material availability. Don’t get us wrong – we think this is the… Continue reading New Colors At Shapeways? Again?

Shapeways Finances Exposed

Some detective work by Joris Peels of i.Materialise has revealed interesting facts regarding 3D print service Shapeways. Recognized as one of the industry leaders in print service, we (and others) have wondered about the  success of their expanding business. Peels reports that in an interview with Netherlands website Sprout, Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen reveals some… Continue reading Shapeways Finances Exposed

Has 3D Printing Hit The Knee Of The Curve?

We’re pondering a couple of recent developments in the low-end 3D printing space that may indicate a change of state in the low-end 3D printing world.   First, Shapeways received a massive investment from top-ranked venture capital firms: USD$5M from Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures. We wrote, and still believe that this means Union… Continue reading Has 3D Printing Hit The Knee Of The Curve?

Shapeways Takes A Big Step

Since they emerged in 2008, 3D print service Shapeways has continually enhanced their capabilities very regularly. In fact, it’s rare week that we don’t mention Shapeways in one way or another. As such, they’ve grown from nothing to what is probably the most visible 3D print service in the world. Now they’re making a big… Continue reading Shapeways Takes A Big Step

Controversy Over Shapeways Gold Plating Formula?

A while back the Shapeways 3D Print service toyed with Gold Plating on stainless steel printed models. Evidently this trial was successful, as they have now announced a new, permanently available material: Gold Plated Stainless Steel.    This sounds great, as we previously postulated that a ton (well, maybe not an *actual* ton, but lots… Continue reading Controversy Over Shapeways Gold Plating Formula?

High Glossing Shapeways

Another development from always-inventive Shapeways 3D print service this week: you can now print in High Gloss Glass material.    The material is indeed glass, made by depositing crushed glass powder with a binding medium. The resulting (and at that moment very fragile) object is then fired in an oven to remove the binder and… Continue reading High Glossing Shapeways

From Solidworks to Shapeways

Popular 3D print service Shapeways has announced the availability of a new add-in for SolidWorks, the well-known commercial 3D modelling system. The add-in was developed by Design Solutions in a joint project with Shapeways, but is currently considered a “beta”, so expect frequent updates. Both 32 and 64 bit versions are available for download. If… Continue reading From Solidworks to Shapeways

Shapeways Summer Colors

Who thought 3D printing would have seasons? Turns out that Shapeways does – they’ve just announced a special set of what they call “Summer Colors”, available for inclusion in your Shapeways 3D prints until September.    The set of colors was chosen by popular vote, and include:    Summer Blue Summer Green Summer Magenta  … Continue reading Shapeways Summer Colors

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

WYSIWYG 3D Printing

Shapeways has taken a step to ease the design process by using Blender to render images of 3D models. This addition to their service permits users to have a reasonably close peek at what their printed object might look like after emerging from Shapeways fleet of 3D printers. The problem up till now has been… Continue reading WYSIWYG 3D Printing

The Doctor is In at Shapeways

That’s him in the image, Doctor Shapeways! Well, not exactly. Always an innovator, Shapeways has released another terrific feature for those submitting 3D models to their printing service: MeshMedic.   MeshMedic automatically corrects very common mistakes made in 3D models that render the model unprintable. While the model might look tremendously beautiful on your 24… Continue reading The Doctor is In at Shapeways

Alumide Examples

Joris of Shapeways posted a video showing off several sample 3D prints using Shapeway’s new Alumide material. The semi-metallic material, while less strong than other build materials offered, seems to convey quite a different character to the printed objects. They no longer look and feel like “plain old plastic”.    The video includes several truly… Continue reading Alumide Examples

Full Color 3D Printing

Yes, that’s right – Shapeways now offers full color 3D printing. They’ve scored a ZCorp 650 3D printer, which provides the color capability. The “Full Color Sandstone” material is able to handle color texture maps.    It’s obviously more work to prepare color models. You must create a texture map in your 3D modelling software… Continue reading Full Color 3D Printing

Shapeways Expands Materials

As they’ve done many times in the past, the Shapeways 3D printing service has expanded the materials available for builds. This time they’ve announced some very interesting options for makers: “Grey Robust” is a rigid material similar to their previous “Cream Robust”. But let’s face it: “Cream” just doesn’t sound very robust, does it? Accordingly,… Continue reading Shapeways Expands Materials

Virtual Becomes Real – Again

Shapeways provides an excellent post describing how to print a 3D version of your favorite Spore character. Spore? (It’s a 3D massively multiplayer online game in which you can design your own “creature”) What could be better than holding your virtual creation in your own hands? While this is a great service to Spore players,… Continue reading Virtual Becomes Real – Again

Prepping for 3D Printing

Shapeways published an excellent article describing several tips for preparing your Blender file for 3D printing, specifically for using the Shapeways printing service. The article explains how to fix non-manifold vertices, handling overlapping objects and output scaling, and are good tips even if you aren’t using Shapeways. Via Shapeways

The Metal Process – Revealed!

We found a great video from Shapeways that takes you through the entire process of producing a metal object. From initial printing in stainless steel powder (with organic binder), through curing and bronze infusion that leads to the final item, you’ll see it all. Missing: the finishing stage. Get out the brushes and start polishing!… Continue reading The Metal Process – Revealed!