Category Archives: News
MakerBot Store in NYC Visit: 3D Printers, Digital Scanners, and More
MakerBot Store in NYC Drives 3D Printer Sales
This past week at the Inside 3D Printing conference, the On 3D Printing team was invited to a special event at the MakerBot Store in NYC, along with other industry press.
We asked MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis what’s the next big thing he’s working on? He answered immediately, “3D scanners.” MakerBot announced its Digitizer product at SXSW and has a booth where you can digitize your own head. We gave it a try and our 3D printed profile is on order. See the photo below of one of the visitors scanning his head in the booth.
MakerBot’s motivation to open the store is to give potential customers a chance to see 3D printing in action. Does it increase sales of printers? “Absolutely,” one of the MakerBot employees told us. There is a certain magic to seeing a 3D printed robot or digitized head. You can immediately imagine what you might 3D print yourself.
We met some great entrepreneurs at the event as well, including the founder of Square Helper who prints his products on MakerBot 3D printers.
Below is a photo gallery from our visit.
Inside 3D Printing Conference in New York – A Retrospective
Inside 3D Printing Conference
In a context that felt a bit like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, this week 3D printing went to New York for the first ever Inside 3D Printing Conference. Over two full days at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, a broad array of industry leaders, innovators, academics and analysts gave keynotes, led seminars, and showed off their latest products to over 3,000 conference attendees. For many in the crowd, this was a crash course on a technology that has been exploding in the public consciousness over the past two years, and for others it was a chance to network, hear from big names in the industry, and get a sense for where 3D printing will go next.
In a role that seemed fitting given his company’s leadership in the industry and status as the conference’s primary sponsor, 3D Systems CEO Avi Reichental opened the conference with the declaration, “Complexity is free” in a 3D printed world. Never before, he underlined, has a manufacturing process been indifferent to geometric complexity, and to him this is the single biggest reason 3D printing will continue to grow and expand into sectors ranging from education to medical devices to automotive and aerospace.
Much of the conference’s focus was on these different segmentations of 3D printing, and breakout seminars throughout the two days took a deeper dive in a variety of subjects. Some of the more memorable seminars explored integrating 3D printers into K-12 education, topology optimization – a complex but very impressive design tool that appears to be a perfect match for 3D printing, consumer desktop and cloud 3D printing, and bioprinting human tissue for medical applications. Longtime industry analyst Terry Wohlers and Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen also gave keynote addresses highlighting their vision for the industry’s future.
3D Printed iPhone Case from Sculpteo
Outside the seminar room the conference also had a distinctly hands-on element. A bustling exhibit hall hosted dozens of booths showing off a variety of consumer and enterprise 3D printers along with more curious technologies like 3D scanners and novel CAD input devices. 3D printing service companies were also eager to engage with potential customers, showing high quality parts available for remote ordering online.
While many sides of the industry were highlighted at the inaugural Inside 3D Printing Conference this week, the underlying theme was very clear: while 3D printing technology may have existed in research labs and niche applications since the 1980s and ‘90s, it is only now beginning to truly change our lives in meaningful ways. And from the number of times speakers said “Nascent,” “Just the first inning,” or “Only scratching the surface” to describe the state of the industry, it is clear that insiders see the eventual impact that 3D printing will make on the world to be profound, far-reaching, and on a larger scale than most casual observers can imagine today.
Authored by Brian H. Jaffe, founder of Mission St. Manufacturing and contributor to On 3D Printing.
GE 3D Printing Initiative Named Top 10 Breakthrough Technology by MIT Technology Review
GE 3D Printing Initiative Considered a Breakthrough
“General Electric is making a radical departure from the way it has traditionally manufactured things.” – MIT Technology Review
GE is embracing 3D printing. Starting with its aviation division, some complex parts will be created through additive manufacturing rather than conventional methods. This innovation could carry over into other divisions as well.
The MIT Technology Review referred to GE’s move as one of the top 10 breakthrough technologies this year, and provided more background on how GE got here.
Last fall, GE purchased a pair of companies with know-how in automated precision manufacturing of metals and then folded the technology into the operations of GE Aviation. That group doesn’t have much time to demonstrate that its new technology can work at scale. CFM International, GE’s joint venture with France’s Snecma, will use the 3D printed nozzles in its LEAP jet engine, due to go into planes in late 2015 or early 2016 (CFM says it already has commitments of $22 billion). Each engine will use 10 to 20 nozzles; GE needs to make 25,000 of the nozzles annually within three years.
3D printing is a cost advantage
It is widely believed the 3D printing is more expensive than conventional methods of manufacturing, but GE has found a way to make 3D printing a cost advantage, as the MIT Technology Review explains.
GE chose the additive process for manufacturing the nozzles because it uses less material than conventional techniques. That reduces GE’s production costs and, because it makes the parts lighter, yields significant fuel savings for airlines.
Image from GE Global Research.
Inside 3D Printing Conference: Day 2 Top Stories
Inside 3D Printing Conference: Day 2
Day 2 of the Inside 3D Printing Conference was exciting and informative. Below are the top stories from the day. (If you haven’t read it yet, here is our recap of Day 1.)
Topology Optimization in Additive Manufacturing: 3D Printing Conference (Part 5)
Topology optimization, a process inspired by bone structure research done over a century ago, is explained by solidThinking designers.
Shapeways Funding: $30 Million from Andreessen Horowitz, Chris Dixon to Join Board
New Shapeways funding! Shapeways announced a new round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Partner Chris Dixon will join the Shapeways board.
Sculpteo Cloud 3D Printing, iPhone Cases, and More – 3D Printing Conference (Part 6)
Sculpteo is a 3D printing marketplace that is innovating on 3D printing services. We spoke with them at the Inside 3D Printing conference in NYC.
3D Printing in K-12 Education: Virginia Leads the Way – 3D Printing Conference (Part 7)
The Commonwealth Engineering and Design Academy in Virginia looks to integrate 3D printing to revolutionize K-12 education.
Shapeways CEO: Become a Creator of the Products You Care About – 3D Printing Conference (Part 8)
Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen delivers an update on his company at the Inside 3D Printing Conference, fresh off of a new round of funding.
Shapeways CEO: Become a Creator of the Products You Care About – 3D Printing Conference (Part 8)
Shapeways CEO Gives an Update on His Company
Peter Weijmarshausen, the CEO and co-founder of Shapeways, a leading consumer facing 3D printing service company, started his keynote address today at the Inside 3D Printing Conference in New York with the question, “What do you really want?” He went on to explain that the problem with mass manufacturing is forcing individual consumers to buy products that are identical to what other people buy, even though everyone has unique preferences. To illustrate this point he showed a picture of a custom car. “This is a labor of love, and extremely costly,” he said, pointing to the picture. 3D printing, on the other hand, makes customization easy. And that makes it a very valuable service.
Shapeways Growth
So far it appears that Mr. Weijmarshausen is correct, as Shapeways is growing fast, and planning to grow even faster in the future. Last year the company hosted Mayor Michael Bloomberg to open a new factory on Long Island, and just today it announced an additional $30 million in venture capital funding. However, Mr. Weijmarshausen prefers touting slightly different metrics. Today Shapeways has over 10,000 designers and over 300,000 community members that submit and purchase 60,000 new designs every month.
Yet it is not just the ability to upload and purchase designs that excites the people at Shapeways. As shown in a brief demo of the ‘sake set creator’ app, the real vision is for consumers to be able to customize template designs in user-friendly applications. Today it might be something as simple as a coffee cup or a lampshade, but Shapeways believes this is just the beginning.
The Future of 3D Printing
When asked what he hopes for the future of 3D printing, Mr. Weijmarshausen paused for a moment and then said new materials and larger scaling of the industry at large. 3D printing, as he pointed out, is still a very small industry. The faster it grows, the more people will become aware of it, and in his opinion this will be good for not just Shapeways but also for consumers everywhere.
Authored by Brian H. Jaffe, founder of Mission St. Manufacturing and contributor to On 3D Printing.
