Tag Archives: fashion
Interview: Protos Eyewear Combines Fashion, Tech, and 3D Printing
Finding a pair of glasses that fit properly and look good is a painstaking process. Could 3D printing help with this? Protos Eyewear thinks so.
Protos is an eyewear company based in San Francisco that uses 3D printing to manufacture their frames. This intricate layering process results in bold and striking designs that are impossible to make through standard manufacturing methods. Protos eyewear is lightweight and durable, and the material provides a unique look and feel.
We interviewed Protos founder and CFO Richart Ruddie to learn more about the company.
On3dPrinting: How did you and your founders come up with this idea?
Ruddie (Protos): We have always had a passion for eyewear. It’s a product that is almost dominated by a company called Luxotica and we are able to enter the market with a unique niche that they have not caught on as of yet. They’re fun to design because they require such attention to detail in regards to proportions and ergonomics. If you change the silhouette by as little as 1 millimeter, it can totally change the character and the fit of the frame. 3D printing is just getting to a point where it is inexpensive enough to use as a viable manufacturing method, and the materials are finally starting to become strong enough to be consumer grade. These factors are what motivated us to start the company.
On3dPrinting: What is the consumer benefit of 3D printed sunglasses?
Ruddie (Protos): Eyewear with an unparalleled aesthetic (see below for the pixel pair in particular). Soon to be custom fit eyewear that we will be able to take anybody’s facial dimensions and make custom fitted glasses for them which we believe is the next big thing in the industry. We are beta-testing tailored fit glasses right now and would be proud to let a few of your readers and yourself to join the beta process.
On3dPrinting: Is there a business or cost advantage with 3D printing technology over traditional manufacturing?
Ruddie (Protos): You have no upfront tooling costs. So you could easily develop hundreds and hundreds of different models at no cost. You also can make the glasses to order and eliminate the need for backstock.
On3dPrinting: Who is your target customer?
Ruddie (Protos): Techies, fashionistas
On3dPrinting: We would imagine some customers would be concerned about fit. Do you offer any guarantees?
Ruddie (Protos): We do have a return policy in place:
On3dPrinting: You’ve been in business for over a year. Any data you can report about your growth?
Ruddie (Protos): We have been putting together everything over the last year or so. We had a great launch party in San Francisco which had 75 designers, fashionistas, techies, and other SF’ers and they all loved the glasses. We sold out that night and have been working on improving our line of products since than. We just recently launched to the public and sell sunglasses right on the website. As of right now growth is slow as we work on getting the word out and connecting with others that are interested in the products.
On3dPrinting: Where can someone design and buy a pair?
Ruddie (Protos): Contact us directly and we can discuss customized pairs on both a single level and mass production basis.
Top 3D Printing Headlines Last Week: NASA, Piracy, London, Idle Hands
A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from September 11 to September 16.
Friday, September 14
Unique 3D Printed Art Featured at the 3D Print Show in London
This October, the 3D Print Show will come to London. Among the exhibitors will be artists and designers who are pushing the boundaries of what is possible thanks to 3D printing technology. Here are some of our favorite previews.
Above: fashion takes the front seat during a planned live catwalk show featuring 3D printed wearables. Designer Niccolo Casas created this spicy accessory, part of the “Alchemy” collection.
Sophie Kahn‘s “Dominick” sculpture, featured at the 3D Print Show, derived from using a cinema-quality laser scanner and 3D imaging software to create a unique characterization of a human face in motion.
“The precisely engineered scanning technology I use was never designed to represent the body, which is always in flux,” Kahn notes on her Web site. “Confronted with motion, the software receives conflicting spatial coordinates, and generates a fragmented model. This model is then edited — virtually ‘sculpted’ — using 3D editing software.” Read more about the methods and materials she uses for the 3D printing process.
See a larger set of designs at CNET.
Shapeways Friday Finds: Cool Shades for the Summer
Fresh from Shapeways’ Friday Finds, here are some sunglasses and shades to try on.
Above: Marcello Specs by Vert Design, a modern hipster meets Elvis Costello.
Next: Cloud Eyewear by Colors of Birch, for the haut-couture aficionado.
Last: Aviator Glasses Ring to get your Top Gun on.
More Friday Finds.
Via Shapeways blog.
America Will Lead the Future of Manufacturing, China Will Follow
In a fantastic opinion piece by technology entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa, the case is made that America will be the center of manufacturing, not China. This won’t happen through increasing Chinese labor costs or monetary policy, but through American innovation in technology. Specific innovations cited include robotics, AI, 3D printing, and nanotechnology.
Below are Wadhwa’s thoughts on 3D printing:
A type of manufacturing called “additive manufacturing” is now making it possible to cost-effectively “print” products. In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humans using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material until you’re left with the shape desired. This is a cumbersome process that becomes more difficult and time-consuming with increasing complexity. In other words, the more complex the product you want to create, the more labor is required and the greater the effort.
In additive manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on three-dimensional models — adding materials rather than subtracting them. The ”3D printers” that produce these parts use powered metal, droplets of plastic, and other materials — much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. This allows the creation of objects without any sort of tools or fixtures. The process doesn’t produce any waste material, and there is no additional cost for complexity. Just as, thanks to laser printers, a page filled with graphics doesn’t cost much more than one with text (other than the cost of toner), with 3D printers we can print a sophisticated 3D structure for what it would cost to print something simple.
Three-D printers can already create physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewelry, and even clothing. The cheapest 3D printers, which print rudimentary objects, currently sell for between $500 and $1,000. Soon, we will have printers for this price that can print toys and household goods. By the end of this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods. It is entirely conceivable that, in the next decade, manufacturing will again become a local industry and it will be possible to 3D print electronics and use giant 3D printing scaffolds to print entire buildings. Why would we ship raw materials all the way to China and then ship completed products back to the United States when they can be manufactured more cheaply locally, on demand?
Read the full article at foreignpolicy.com.
American flag photo by Loving Earth used under Creative Commons license.
Vivek Wadhwa photo by BAIA used under Creative Commons license.
