Motorola Mobility, a Google company, is building a 3D printed modular phone, and has partnered with 3D Systems for commercial fulfillment. More »
The Captured Dimensions pop-up studio was located in the Smithsonian Castle and featured approximately 80 digital cameras all connected to 3D software. More »
Microsoft expanded their support for 3D printing by launching a Windows 8 app called 3D Builder. It includes a library of objects you can edit and 3D print. More »
3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced the availability of the Sense 3D scanner, the first 3D scanner designed for the consumer and optimized for 3D printing. More »
With rumors circling that 3D Systems will be purchased by IBM, the stock soars. We look at why IBM might be interested in the 3D printing giant. More »
Infographic: Go On, Print a Liver – The Evolution of Bio 3D Printing
We have covered the emergence of 3D printed organs and other scientific feats made possible by 3D printing.
This infographic, created by Printerinks, shows the journey from humble origins in 1984 to today’s scientific breakthroughs by companies such as Organovo.
Webpronews commented on the infographic:
As we learned back when researchers were creating working blood vessels with a 3D printer, the process is as simple as it is complex. It starts with the growth of cells. The 3D printer comes into play when they are used to create a layered structure that’s then layered with cells that attach to the structure and turn it into the organ.
With our current technology, it’s estimated that it would take 10 days to print a liver. As technology improves, it’s estimated that scientists could print a liver in three hours. That’s great news for the thousands of people who are waiting for a live transplant to save their life.
The creation of organs through 3D printing has another, less talked about function, as well. If we could test drugs on 3D printed human livers, it would save millions of dollars and years of time that it takes to develop and test new drugs on animals before it’s even considered for human testing.
As you can see, 3D printing is seriously the most important invention of the 20th century.
Go on, print a liver.
Via Webpronews.
Always Wanted Your Own Action Figure? 3D Print Your Face [Video]
Have you always wanted your own action figure that you — er, your kids — could play with?
ThatsMyFace.com lets you upload two photos and then uses 3D printing to create an action figure head with your face on it. These heads are designed to fit 12″ action figure bodies with HotToys neck types but can be adapted to fit other figurine bodies as well. Custom head sizes can be requested.
Watch the video below for a demo of various realistic faces.
How Leading Scientists Across Fields are Embracing 3D Printing
Nature, the international weekly journal of science, published a feature on how 3D printing is opening up new worlds to research. In a detailed article, Nature covers uses of 3D printing by leading scientists ranging from investigating complex molecules, designing custom lab tools, printing and sharing rare artifacts, and manufacturing cardiac tissue that beats like a heart.
We recommend you read the full feature. Below are some of the highlights:
Paleontology
At palaeontology and anthropology conferences, more and more people are carrying printouts of their favourite fossils or bones. “Anyone who thinks of themselves as an anthropologist needs the right computer graphics and a 3D printer. Otherwise it’s like being a geneticist without a sequencer,” says Zollikofer.
Read more coverage on paleontology.
Molecular biology
These days, 3D printing is being used to mock up far more complex systems, says Arthur Olson, who founded the molecular graphics lab at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, 30 years ago. These include molecular environments made up of thousands of interacting proteins, which would be onerous-to-impossible to make any other way. With 3D printers, Olson says, “anybody can make a custom model”. But not everybody does: many researchers lack easy access to a printer, aren’t aware of the option or can’t afford the printouts (which can cost $100 or more).
Organ reproduction
For example, Organovo, a company based in San Diego, California, has developed a printer to build 3D tissue structures that could be used to test pharmaceuticals. The most advanced model it has created so far is for fibrosis: an excess of hard fibrous tissue and scarring that arises from interactions between an organ’s internal cells and its outer layer. The company’s next step will be to test drugs on this system. “It might be the case that 3D printing isn’t the only way to do this, but it’s a good way,” says Keith Murphy, a chemical engineer and chief executive of Organovo.
Read more coverage on organ printing.
Custom lab tools
In the meantime, basic plastic 3D printers are starting to allow researchers to knock out customized tools. Leroy Cronin, a chemist at the University of Glasgow, UK, grabbed headlines this year with his invention of ‘reactionware’ — printed plastic vessels for small-scale chemistry (M. D. Symes et al. Nature Chem. 4,349–354; 2012). Cronin replaced the ‘inks’ in a $2,000 commercially available printer with silicone-based shower sealant, a catalyst and reactants, so that entire reaction set-ups could be printed out. The point, he says, is to make customizable chemistry widely accessible. His paper showed how reactionware might be harnessed to produce new chemicals or to make tiny amounts of specific pharmaceuticals on demand. For now, other chemists see the idea as a clever gimmick, and are waiting to see what applications will follow.
Read more coverage on custom lab equipment.
TechCrunch TV Takes a Tour of MakerBot with Bre Pettis
TechCrunch writer John Biggs takes a tour of Brooklyn-based MakerBot with founder and CEO Bre Pettis.
It’s been months in the making, but here it is: the first episode of TechCrunch Makers, featuring Bre Pettis of Makerbot. We visited Bre’s downtown Brooklyn factory where he and the rest of team design, build, and ship hundreds of Makerbots a week.
Our goal for this series is to highlight hardware entrepreneurs – folks who are building something cool and making the world a cooler place while doing it. Look for upcoming episodes on distilling in the city, reanimated farms, and Arduino.
Our favorite part of the video is when John Biggs realizes that MakerBot machines are actually assembled onsite, as opposed to some factory in China. In a tongue-and-cheek reference to people buying eggs and not knowing a chicken is involved, Bre responds ”these are my glorious chickens.”
Via TechCrunch.
3D Scanning and Printing Dinosaurs, Open-Sourcing Scientific Data
In the past, scaling and reproducing fossils was cost prohibitive and was in the domain of artists. Now 3D printers and 3D scanners are affordable, which means that paleontologists can now recreate dinosaurs.
In the video below, Professor Kenneth Lacovara says ”the best thing you could do in science is to falsify your hypothesis.” 3D digital technology allows scientists to “open-source” their empirical data, including original discoveries like fossils. Now, instead of asking colleagues to fly across the globe to help validate new findings, a scientist can just send a digital file and the finding can be 3D printed at the other end.
Scanning fossils has further application with the use of the 3D printer, of course. Holding the 1/10 scale leg bone of a dinosaur in the palm of his hand, Lacovara explained that uses in the classroom present attractive prospects, where examination of real specimens is hardly practical. The scans can also fill in the blanks of broken or incomplete bones by replicating data from a similar part. Of course, printing all of the specimens is still fairly expensive, so for now, they’re only printing fossils from which they hope to learn some new piece of information. The process is simple: Dr. Lacovara, and his students set a bone on a table, or, if size is less of a factor, on a small rotating pedestal. The scanner used in his lab is a $3,000 NextEngine scanner, which uses simple proprietary software to scan around 1 million points on a three-dimensional object in a few minutes. It is plugged into a Windows computer. The scanning produces an STL file, commonly used in CAD. The STL file is sent to another computer, and this time, it’s the one that is attached to the Dimension Elite 3D Printer which is housed in the Engineering Department, where the actual “printing” of the bone takes place. The complete process can take just a few hours. The printer uses fused deposit modeling, a 3D imaging and printing process developed in the 1980s and commercialized in the 1990s. It takes the STL file and essentially slices it into layers, automatically generating a disposable, breakaway support structure if needed. The printing material, a polymer plastic, is laid down in those corresponding layers, eventually completing the finished object. The result is a highly faithful and exact scale model of the object as originally scanned at a given scale. While the process is still somewhat expensive, it leads to the possibility — previously unthinkable — of endless duplication, and endless faithful reproductions.
Read the full article at The Verge.
