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 »
Search Results for: bre pettis
MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis is 3D Printing’s First Celebrity
Congratulations to MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis for being called “3D Printing’s First Celebrity” by Bloomberg BusinessWeek! We are sure that fame is not his key driver, but it’s great to see him getting recognition for being a pioneer in consumer 3D printers.
MakerBot has received more than $10 million in venture capital from a huge variety of sources and has put that money to good work so far. Pettis is just about the only 3D printing celebrity—holding his own, for example, during an appearance on The Colbert Report last June. Using a hand-held laser scanner, Pettis captured a three-dimensional image of Stephen Colbert’s head and then printed it on the spot. “We no longer have to rely on the Chinese for our plastic pieces of crap,” Colbert said. “Because what’s cheaper than a Chinese worker? A robot.” Pettis also presented Colbert with a chimera, fusing Colbert’s head to the body of an eagle, perched atop the dome of the Capitol Building.
Read the full editorial at Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Bre Pettis photo from bre pettis used under Creative Commons license.
MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner Goes On Sale for $1400, Video from Bre
MakerBot’s Desktop 3D Scanner Now Available for Sale
MakerBot, the New York-based desktop 3D printer startup that was recently acquired by Stratasys for $403 million, now officially has a new product line: desktop 3D scanners.
Their first product is called the MakerBot Digitizer, and is now available for sale. The price tag: $1400, plus an optional $150 for a MakerCare Service Plan. We covered the features of the 3D scanner last week, and here are more details.
“It’s a powerful and elegant tool for turning physical objects into digital designs,” said MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis.”You put something on the turntable, and it turns. Lasers shoot at it,” Pettis explained. “It’s a powerful tool that’s going to give you a whole new way of looking at things.”
Benefits of the MakerBot Digitizer
Professionals can create 3D models without having to start from scratch. Home users can explore the frontier of 3D scanning and then print them on a 3D printer or share on Thingiverse.
You can order the MakerBot Digitizer here.
Here’s a video from CEO Bre Pettis announcing the MakerBot Digitizer.
MakerCare Service Plan
In addition to purchasing the 3D scanner, MakerBot is offering a service option, called the MakerCare Service Plan for $150. MakerCare is designed to make your MakerBot Digitizer ownership experience as smooth as possible. The plan lasts a full year from the order ship date of your MakerBot Digitizer. If anything goes wrong with your MakerBot Digitizer during that time, you can contact the MakerBot Support team to identify the source of the trouble. The Support team will provide any replacement parts necessary, or arrange for you to ship your MakerBot Digitizer back to the company for repair.
MakerBot Presents Groundbreaking 3D Masterpieces at the 3D Print Show
MakerBot Presents Groundbreaking 3D Masterpieces from Artist Cosmo Wenman at 3D PrintShow London 2012
MakerBot unveiled the incredible work of California-based artist Cosmo Wenman at the 3D PrintShow London 2012, October 19-21. The work is displayed in the MakerBot booth at the show. The pieces include: Head of a Horse of Selene, Acropolis, Athens, 438-432 BC; Portraits of Alexander the Great: -300, 1440, 1945, Hellenistic Greek 2nd-1st century BC; and Antikythera Mechanism, Hellenistic Greek, 1st century BC.
Cosmo Wenman is a prolific contributor to MakerBot’s Thingiverse website that is home to approximately 25,000 digital designs for real, physical objects. On Thingiverse, Cosmo has charged users to follow his example and capture scans of actual people or notable things in the world (like an asteroid or the deepest spot in the Earth’s ocean). He is on a mission to digitize the world and to challenge notions of materialism; his personal website notes that the “next couple years are going to be a big, exciting mess.”
“Cosmo’s latest work is some of the most compelling I have ever seen done by a MakerBot 3D printer,” said Bre Pettis, MakerBot ceo and founder. “Cosmo’s work calls into question the limitations often attributed to our machines, and they show beyond a shadow of a doubt that MakerBot desktop 3D printers can create pieces of incredible size, form, and beauty.”
These pieces were scanned from originals in the British Museum. Cosmo modeled them to print on a MakerBot Replicator desktop 3D printer in MakerBot PLA Filament. He then treated them with various finishing processes to create remarkably authentic, museum-quality replicas.
The first generation MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printer was named “Best Emerging Tech” at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The MakerBot Replicator 2 was just announced in September. The company has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Wired, The Colbert Report, Fast Company, Engadget, Make: Magazine, Rolling Stone, Time, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, Financial Times, NPR, Vogue Italia and many others.
Via MarketWatch.
Cosmo Wenman photo courtesy of MakerBot blog.
3D Printing Week: Year in Review, 3D Systems, MakerBot, CES 2014
3D Printing Week
Here is a roundup of the top 3D printing news from last week.
We are at CES 2014 in Las Vegas this week, where the 3D Printing TechZone is a crowded affair. You can read our CES preview and watch exclusive video interviews with 3D printing executives, such as Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot.
Last week, 3D Systems announced the acquisition of Gentle Giant Studios, an experienced Hollywood design firm with retail connections to bolster 3D Systems’ capabilities for the toy market.
Be sure to read our 3D Printing Year in Review 2013! It includes the top stories by month for 2013 and five predictions for 2014.
3D Printing Year in Review 2013
Happy new year! 2013 was a great year for 3D printing.
Public stocks for 3D printing companies rose over 350%, beating the S&P 500 and Dow Jones by 10X or more.
(3D printing stocks in 2013; click to enlarge)
There were acquisitions, both large and small. 3D scanning technology came to market in a big way. And we saw great new materials used in 3D printing, from bioprinting to metals to sugar.
To celebrate 2013, On 3D Printing has put together a Year in Review, highlighting the biggest stories in the 3D printing ecosystem.
3D Printing Year in Review 2013
January 2013 – 3D printing was a big hit at CES in Las Vegas. MakerBot announced the Replicator 2X, recently merged Stratasys and Objet were showcasing the Mojo 3D printer, and 3D Systems won best in tech for the Cubify 3D printer.
February 2013 – President Obama mentioned 3D printing in his State of the Union address, calling the technology revolutionary. The President said, “A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.”
April 2013 - In a groundbreaking first in the medical field, a team from the University of Hasselt created a method for using 3D printing to fabricate a functioning titanium jaw implant that rescued their patient from a massive infection.
Also in April, thousands of 3D printing professionals and enthusiasts gathered for the Inside 3D Printing conference in New York City, where a keynote speaker said that 3D printing was in its “Apple 1 moment.” Read our full recap.
May 2013 - 3D printed guns were a big topic of discussion earlier in the year when libertarian activist Cody Wilson published his plans for the Liberator, the world’s first 3D printed gun. A few days later, the US government forced those plans to be taken down. The mainstream media jumped on the 3D printed gun story, which elevated the profile of 3D printing in general. Cody Wilson has moved on to focus on opportunities in Bitcoin, and it seems that most people have moved on from worrying about 3D printed guns.
June 2013 – Desktop 3D printer pioneer MarketBot was acquired by 3D printing giant Stratasys for $403 million, marking the first major acquisition of a consumer 3D printing company. For Stratasys, this was a major competitive play against 3D Systems who had launched the Cube desktop 3D printer. MakerBot had been founded in 2009 by Bre Pettis and had sold fewer than 25,000 3D printers by the time of the acquisition.
Also in June, a new desktop 3D printer, the Buccaneer, raised $1.4 million on Kickstarter.
July 2013 – MIT researchers developed an architecture pipeline, called OpenFab, that aims to dramatically reduce the learning curve and barriers involved in designing for 3D printing.
Also in July, NASA tested a 3D printed rocket engine injector for its space shuttle.
August 2013 – MakerBot announced the availability of their desktop 3D scanner, the MakerBot Digitizer, for $1,400. It has a turntable and uses laser technology to create a digital design from a real-world object in minutes.
Also in August, the UPS Store announced a nation-wide plan to deploy 3D printers in their stores.
September 2013 – Organovo CEO Keith Murphy presented at the Inside 3D Printing conference, showcasing his company’s achievements and roadmap, and presenting the case for a multi-billion big pharma opportunity. Organovo specializes in bioprinting, which involves 3D printing with human cells as ink. This allows Organovo to create human living tissue that can be used to test drug therapies at a very early stage of development, even before FDA trials begin.
October 2013 – German 3D printing firm voxeljet went public, soaring on first day of trading. voxeljet printer systems and services are aimed squarely at commercial applications in the automotive, architecture, aerospace, medical/orthopedic, engineering, and defense industries. The company sold its first 3D printer in 2002 and has installed 52 printers worldwide as of June 30, 2013, with 53% of sales outside of Germany and major customers including Ford, 3M, Daimler AG, BMW, and Hyundai.
November 2013 – 3D Systems launched Sense, a $399 consumer 3D scanner. Sense has flexible scan size and can capture everything from a picture-perfect cupcake to a full-body selfie, processing data in seconds for an instantly 3D printable file. 2013 turned out to be a formative year for 3D scanning, with many new products coming to market. Notable mentions include the MakerBot Digitizer desktop 3D scanner, the Fuel3D handheld 3D scanner, the Structure Sensor iPad add-on.
Also in November, 3D Systems announced that it was partnering with Google to create the new 3D printed smartphone.
December 2013 – Kentucky students successfully launched a 3D printed satellite into orbit. The collaborative team of students from the University of Kentucky and Morehead State University, along with Kentucky Space, launched the KySat-2 into orbit as part of the NASA ElaNa IV mission out of Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Also in December, a new 3D printer, called Robox, raised $300,000 on Kickstarter. The Robox uses precision nozzles to make perfect 3D prints with no bumps. It should debut in 2014 for $1,400.
5 Predictions for 2014
It’s amazing to see the innovation we saw in 3D printing in 2013. But 2014 is sure to be even bigger. Here are a few things to look out for:
- Fun new materials – Pretty much any material can be constituted for 3D printing, from metals to food to rubber to concrete. Look for these to become more available and affordable.
- All-in-one devices – We predict the emergence of desktop devices that operate both as 3D scanners and 3D printers. There are already some on the market, such as the Lionhead from Radiant Fabrication.
- Consumer price drops – Expect prices to come down significantly for consumer devices as competition increases and new innovations come to market. We saw the a 3D printer as low as $100 (the Peachy).
- 3D printing in Space – NASA plans to put the first 3D printer in Space in August 2014, allowing astronauts to 3D print replacement parts or small cube-shaped satellites.
- More M&A activity and the big guys enter – We also think 2014 will be the year of big entrants and big acquisitions. Will IBM buy 3D Systems? Will HP launch their own line of 3D printers? Any of these could happen.
Thanks for reading in 2013! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay in touch with the latest news and follow us on Twitter @On3DPrinting.
