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: 3d printer
3D Systems Acquires FreshFiber for 3D Printed Electronics Accessories
3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) has announced the acquisition of Amsterdam-based FreshFiber BV, a leading 3D printing consumer goods brand. The photo above showcases several custom iPhone case designs sold by FreshFiber, each depicting the landmarks of a different major city and manufactured using 3D printing.
From their press release:
3D Systems plans to integrate FreshFiber into its growing consumer business and leverage the FreshFiber brand and leadership position to expand its reach into individualized and personalized electronics accessories.
“This is an exciting development that will allow us to bring an expanded range of accessories and services to our customers,” said Christian Dijkhof of FreshFiber.
FreshFiber is the leading 3D printed consumer electronics accessories brand sold on-line and in retail stores today. Over the past two years, FreshFiber grew its product offering and presence globally through high-end retail stores like Apple, FNAC and Gravis.
“FreshFiber delivers extraordinary personalization and style through a wide range of co-creation APPS and choices that empower consumers to customize their accessories, including its flagship iPhone® cases,” said Cathy Lewis, Vice President Global Marketing for 3D Systems. “We plan to enhance FreshFiber’s portfolio through our technology and manufacturing infrastructure as well as our growing Cubify.com platform.”
This acquisition comes just weeks after the acquisitions of My Robot Nation and Paramount Industries, and Q1 results with record revenue.
This New House: 3D Printing and Constructing WikiHouse
Most 3D printed objects are tabletop size, but how about 3D printing a full-size house? That’s the idea behind WikiHouse.
Great story from Inhabitat:
We’ve seen a lot of cool 3D-printed objects in our day, but what about a whole house? That’s what UK design firm 00:/ took on when they constructed their 3D-printed WikiHouse at La Rinascente during the Milan Furniture Fair. WikiHouse is an open-source platform that allows designers from all over the world to design, download and share housing templates that are printed using a CNC milling machine or 3D printer. Hit the jump to see a quick video by Alice Masters, which shows the 00:/ team putting together the first ever zero-bolt prototype of WikiHouse on the shop floor of one of Milan’s most renowned department stores.
Via Inhabitat.
Stable Design: 3D Printing with Autodesk 123D and MakerBot [Video]
The video below shows an expert tutorial on how to create a flat surface foundation on the bottom of your design in Autodesk 123D before sending it to your MakerBot for 3D printing. This is important so that your model can stand up as it’s being printed and will continue to be stable once it leaves the printer and is used in the real world.
Inspiring High School Students to be Tomorrow’s Designers: 3D Printing [Video]
High School teacher Lesa Childers is inspiring her students to be tomorrow’s designers and engineers, thanks to technologies like 3D printing. In the video below, students from Notre Dame de Sion School of Kansas City showcase their project: a 3D printed fantasy castle with custom-designed furniture and decorations.
For this particular 3D printing project, Childers 3D printed a Castle she found on Thingiverse, and then assigned her students the task of 3D modeling small items of furniture they could then print on the Mosaic and then set into the castle. She gave various criteria as to the size, and watching out for material overhangs. She also create several video tutorials for getting up to speed on using SketchUp (first one here).
Castle photo from MakerBotShop on Thingiverse.
Via 3dprinter.net
3D Printing the Rosetta Stone for Kids Toys: Nerd Dad Triumph
Carnegie Mellon Professor Golan Levin has built the Rosetta Stone for kids toys. His Free Universal Construction Kit is a design for parts that enable interoperability between Legos, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs and several more popular toy brands. The catch? If you want these parts, you have to 3D print them yourself!
In what Forbes calls the “ultimate nerd dad triumph”, Levin and his former student Shawn Sims made sure these parts will fit:
Levin and Sims didn’t just make near replicas of the commercial toys, they used a measurement tool called an optical comparator to copy the toys’ dimensions to within 3 microns. And then they published those models on the Web. “Our lawyers were a bit concerned,” admits Levin, so much so that the pair initially planned to release the project anonymously.
Back in April, we highlighted the potential disruptive impact 3D printing could have on the toy industry.
With the price of toys so marked up, it’s within reason to think that kids will turn to generics or pirated designs to fill out their toy chest after parents tap out the budget at retail.
Look back at the music industry. The only way to buy music in the late 90s was to purchase the full album at retail. Then Napster and other P2P sharing software came along and allowed consumers to download individual mp3 songs, albeit pirated. When iTunes launched with individual song pricing and a more reliable service than the P2P networks, consumers flocked to the legal alternative. The retail music industry died but the digital music industry was born.
Perhaps in the next 5 years we’ll see the retail toy industry collapse and be replaced by a digital successor. The question is whether we will see a digital toy black market in the interim. In our view, that will be up to the toymakers and their willingness to disrupt their current model.
Has Levin truly liberated construction toys from working only with their own kind? Will this type of innovation improve or hurt sales and prices of popular toy brands?
See the full poster of toy compatibility at Slideshare.
The video below shows how the Free Universal Construction Kit works. Notice how the voiceover makes it feel like a proper 1980s advertisement.
Read the full story about Levin’s project at Forbes.
