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 »

 

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3D Printing Will Empower Most Innovative Decade in History – Forbes

Vivek Wadhwa Singularity 3D Printing

Forbes contributor Vivek Wadhwa explains why he believes this will be the most innovative decade in history. Wadhwa is Vice President of Academics and Innovation at Singularity University. Here is his general view:

Why am I so optimistic? Because of the wide assortment of technologies that are advancing at exponential rates and converging. They are enabling small teams to do what was once only possible for governments and large corporations. These exponential technologies will help us solve many of humanity’s grand challenges, including energy, education, water, food, and health.

Among the technologies he cites as game changing this decade, 3D printing has a main feature:

In an emerging field called digital manufacturing, 3D printers enable the production of physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewelry, and even clothing. These printers use something like a toothpaste tube of plastic or other material held vertically in an X-Y plotter that squirts out thin layers of tiny dots of material that build up, layer by layer, to produce a 3D replica of the computer-generated design. The cheapest 3D printers, which print rudimentary objects, currently sell for between $500 and $1000. Soon, we will have printers for this price that can print toys and household goods. Within this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods. In the next decade, we can expect local manufacture of the majority of goods; 3D printing of buildings and electronics; and the rise of a creative class empowered by digital making.

Other technologies Wadhwa mentions include genome sequencing, nanotechnology, micro-electrical-mechanical systems, and artificial intelligence.

 

Read the full post at Forbes.

Vivek Wadhwa photo by BAIA used under Creative Commons license.

Making 3D Printing Accessible: Interview with Tinkercad Founder

Tinker Towne

Kai Backman, co-founder and CEO of Helsinki-based Tinkercad, was interviewed by Wired magazine last week. Tinkercad allows mainstream consumers to design 3D models in their web browser for free, competing with traditional professional software costing thousands of dollars. Below are some excerpts from the interview.

What inspired you to create Tinkercad?

Tinkercad was born from a very personal frustration. In 2009, I started researching the new emerging 3-D printing technology and eventually bought my first printer by the end of the year. The device was assembled with great fanfare and my children eagerly looked forward to printed toys while my wife expected jewelry or at least some useful household items. Much to their disappointment it turned out that actually designing anything for printing was extremely hard with the software available. I would spend the evening learning one CAD system after another, only to get very little traction and forgetting most of what I learned before the next session.

In mid-2010 it had become clear the problem was more and more acute for a lot of people, so I quit my job at Google, Mikko my co-founder quit his job, and we started the company. We are still on the same road, our vision is to make 3-D design in general, and the design of physical items in particular, accessible to hundreds of millions of people.

On the Tinkercad Comunity

We let users choose how they want to publish their things and a lot of them use a Creative Commons license. This means the tinkercad.com site has a rapidly growing repository of interesting 3-D designs and an equally rapidly growing base of users.

Asked what Kai’s favorite 3D design is in the community, he pointed us to an historic train station on the Harlem line called Brewster Station.

Brewster Station Tinkercad

Below is a video walkthrough of Tinkercad that showcases how it is feature rich despite the fact that it runs in a browser.

 

Read the full interview at Wired.

Tinker Towne photo by kafkan used under Creative Commons license.

Demonstrating the Versatility and Variety of 3D Printing [Video]

We know that 3D printing can be used to manufacture a variety of different goods, but until now we have not seen the range of items that can be born out of a single printer.

In the video below, Objet’s Sam Green showcases his collection of favorite 3D printed objects. These include:

  • Single material printing of complex finished assemblies
  • Multi-material 3D printing
  • Combinations of rigid materials for art pieces and product design
  • Combinations of rigid and rubber-like materials for household tools
  • ABS grade engineering plastic for performance

I personally like the intricately designed snake skeleton and gear designs. Since the objects are printed fully assembled, there are no seams or joins but still very complex moving parts.

From Sam Green:

In short, inkjet-based 3D printing is the only technology that can really simulate the true look, feeland function of complex assembled goods. And this is thanks to the wide variety of materials and the inkjet process itself – which can simultaneously jet different materials from the separate inkjet head nozzles. This enables you to combine materials to create different color shadesdifferent Shore A values and even simulate engineering plastic durability. It also allows you to selectively place different materials within a single model.

Via Objet