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 »
Video: Broad Horizons for 3D Printing – RepRap, MakerBot, and Beyond
The video below explores the evolution and future potential of 3D printing.
3D printing technology has come a long way, fast. And after two new product launches 3D printing has stepped firmly into the mainstream consumer market, in the process diverging from some of its early roots. In late September Makerbot released its latest printer, the ‘Replicator 2′, geared less towards the 3D printing enthusiast and more towards the mainstream consumer. They’ve even opened a retail store in Manhattan. And that same week Form Labs debuted their ‘Form 1′ 3D printer which boasts a minimum print resolution of 25 microns. The sleek machine was on display at this year’s Maker Faire.
“We were students at the media lab at MIT and we did a lot of work with personal fabrication tools there. And we’re all designers and engineers ourselves, but we were very frustrated that really, really truly professional high design tools like 3D printing were too expensive, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the independent professional designer. So we decided to start a company to make the ‘Form 1′ which is the first high-quality, yet affordable and well-designed 3D printer that you can buy,” Form Labs co-founder David Cranor explained at their booth at Maker Faire 2012.
On the other side of the Maker Faire at the ’3D Printer Village’ was a collection of some 30 homebrew 3D printers, products of the RepRap Project, a loose-knit community that pioneered much of 3D printing’s recent revolution. The project’s goal is to develop a 3D printer that can print itself.
John Abella has been hosting the ’3D printer village’ for three years now. His Frankenstein printer, originally a Makerbot ‘Cupcake’, is typical of the RepRap community. RepRap is open-source, which means any designs produced under the project are free to use. That makes finding replacement parts and upgrading parts especially easy.
“Because it’s open source, people were able to take the original designs, improve on them, get electronics made and then sell them really cheaply, twenty, thirty dollars. So you can keep these old machines going even though they’re not supported and original parts aren’t available anymore.”
And then there’s Jordan Miller who is taking advantage of RepRap’s open-source designs to build 3D printers that can be used to create functional vascular structures.
Miller’s method works by having the 3D printer print vasculature models in a sugar-like material which can then be used as a mold for living cells and eventually dissolved. In proof-of-concept experiments blood pumped through the vasculature was able to deliver nutrients and oxygen.
“Instead of starting with a commercial system, like a hundred thousand dollar machine and trying to make it print sugar, we’re trying to start with these open-source printers, this amazing community that we have here at Maker Faire and we’re trying to have this community help this community develop this kind of technology from the ground up. The open source community and science, they’re very compatible. Everything is science is open anyway, so it’s been a good merge of communities.”
As a potential side business, they’re also using the printer to make custom chocolates.
With the release of the closed-source ‘Replicator 2′ Makerbot, largely a product of the RepRap project, is to some degree, turning its back on RepRap and open-source. After all it’s hard to make a profit off of something if the designs are open source. While some may see it as a betrayal Jeff Keegan says he understands why Makerbot did what they did.
“I’m interested in having the essence of open-source not be hurt. So I don’t want to see someone testing to see if they can close something that’s open.”
He insists, however, that it won’t hamper the RepRap project’s goal of developing a self-replicating 3D printer.
“Open-source is here already. Other people doing things on the side may cause problems for themselves, but it doesn’t really affect me… I got bigger fish to fry, getting my thing to work better, designing new things for this, I’m happy about that.”
Printed Optics: Disney Research 3D Printing to Create Future of Toys
Collaborators from Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University are using 3D printing to create the future of interactive toys they call “Printed Optics.” Excerpts from a research paper are included below.
We present an approach to 3D printing custom optical elements for interactive devices labelled Printed Optics. Printed Optics enable sensing, display, and illumination elements to be directly embedded in the casing or mechanical structure of an interactive device. Using these elements, unique display surfaces, novel illumination techniques, custom optical sensors, and embedded optoelectronic components can be digitally fabricated for rapid, high fidelity, highly customized interactive devices. Printed Optics is part of our long term vision for interactive devices that are 3D printed in their entirety. In this paper we explore the possibilities for this vision afforded by fabrication of custom optical elements using today’s 3D printing technology.Printed Optics is a new approach to creating custom optical elements for interactive devices using 3D printing. Printed Optics enable sensing, display, and illumination elements to be directly embedded in the body of an interactive device. Using these elements, unique display surfaces, novel illumination techniques, custom optical sensors, and robust embedded components can be digitally fabricated for rapid, high fidelity, customized interactive devices.
3D printing allows digital geometry to be rapidly fabricated into physical form with micron accuracy. Usable optical elements can be designed and simulated in software, then 3D printed from transparent material with surprising ease and affordability.
But Disney’s vision is much grander. Watch the video below.
More at Disney Research.
Via WebProNews.
3D Printing Gun Debate Heats Up Again: Wiki Weapon and ATF
Can 3D printers be used to create guns? We first discussed a hobbyist who was 3D printing automatic weapon parts in July and again covered the topic of using 3D printing for dangerous goods in August.
Now, the New York Times’ Bits Blog is adding to the controversy with its own feature about “building a gun with the push of a button.”
Cody Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas, is in the process of building a completely functional printed gun. “We hope to have this fully tested and put the files online in the next couple of months,” said Mr. Wilson, who runs a Web site called Defense Distributed.
He calls the gun the Wiki Weapon. In a video explaining the project’s goals, he describes the Wiki Weapon as the world’s first “3-D printable personal defense system.”
Below is a video of Cody Wilson promoting his Wiki Weapon.
Will this really make an impact given that there are so many guns in circulation each year via loopholes or illegal transfer? Perhaps not.
“Forty percent of guns are sold through a loophole at gun shows, where people are already able to buy a firearm without having to go through a background check,” said Daniel Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “There’s already a permanent ‘gun show’ on the Internet.”
One interesting angle not raised before is the role of law enforcement and regulation in this overall debate.
Under most circumstances, it is not illegal to build your own gun, but it has been pretty difficult. Ginger Colbrun, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said people had made firearms out of pens, books and belt buckles. But those contraptions and conventional firearms require a certain amount of knowledge and skill.
Ms. Colbrun said the agency was keeping a close watch on 3-D printers. “A.T.F. always tries to stay ahead of the illegal activity and the novel firearms trafficking schemes, without impinging on individuals’ rights,” she said.
In the case of Wiki Weapon, the 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys stepped in before law enforcement needed to and seized the 3D printer back before Wilson could print his first gun, saying “It is the policy of Stratasys not to knowingly allow its printers to be used for illegal purposes.” (via Guardian)
Top 10 Countdown: Most Popular 3D Printing Stories in September 2012
Here are the top 10 most popular stories On 3D Printing brought you in September 2012.
10. Interview: Protos Eyewear Combines Fashion, Tech, and 3D Printing
9. The Variable Cross: Create Your Own 3D Printed Cross Pendant Necklace
8. Unique 3D Printed Art Featured at the 3D Print Show in London
7. 3D Printing Mobile Labs: A New Combat Strategy for the U.S. Military
6. 3D Printing iPhones in America: Disrupting Foxconn’s Assembly Line
5. 3D Printing Will Be As Disruptive As the PC, Thanks to Piracy
4. Could 3D Printing Save the Public Library System? Mixed Opinions
3. 3D Printing on the Horizon: Can You Spot the Trend?
2. Interview: Idle Print Looks to Monetize Spare Cycles in 3D Printing
1. 3D Printing a Futuristic Airplane Cabin: Innovation at Airbus
Thanks for reading in September!
Oops-Ed: TechCrunch Writer Says Consumers Don’t Need 3D Printers
In the early 1980s, Bill Gates was widely known to say “640K is more memory than anyone will ever need on a computer.” This famous quote seems laughable today as your standard home computer, tablet and phone are equipped with gigabytes of memory.
Well, today TechCrunch writer Jon Evans makes a similarly myopic claim about the 3D printer market, “There is no reason for any individual to have a 3D printer in their home.” We are sure Evans would love being compared to Gates, but let’s look more closely at his argument.
3D printing will be a serious threat to manufacturing as we know it. But not at home. That doesn’t make sense. Instead, we’ll have two kinds of communal 3D printer shops.
In high-infrastructure areas, there’ll be a clutch of online providers a la Stratasys (and I expect one of them to be Amazon.com): you’ll pick your 3D design from a huge online menu, send them size information and maybe a few photos from some kind of cunningly designed app, tweak the 3D preview until you’re happy, and they’ll print it out in some vast warehouse full of high-end high-speed 3D printers and ship it to you, possibly that same day.
In low-infrastructure areas, or if you’re a casual hobbyist, or if you have very specific requirements, you’ll head down the road to your nearest local printing facility. Depending on where you are, maybe this is tomorrow’s TechShop, maybe it’s a cluster of converted shipping containers on the outskirts of Uganda each with their own specialties and strengths. They’ll customize your order, render it in the cloud as needed, print it out, and tweak and iterate until it’s done. More expensive but more specific.
While we agree with Evans’ two predictions about online providers and tech shops, we do not agree with his assertion that there won’t be 3D printers in the home. Look at other markets: personal computers, inkjet or laser printers, photo printers, etc. In each of these cases, this technology started out expensive and niche, but eventually moved into the mainstream and enabled new industries to blossom.
Read Evans’ full post and the comments that ensue.
Bill Gates photo by MATEUS_27:24&25 used under Creative Commons license.
