Cole Lehman loves dogs, and now 3D printing too.

Lehman’s team participated in Startup Weekend Ogden with a goal of creating a Kickstarter project in a weekend. They turned to 3D printing through a partnership with Utah-based 3D printing service bureau WhiteClouds.

“We decided on something simple that people would want for their pets, 3D dog ID tags,” said Lehman. “We started with two ideas. One was a set of 6 seasonal tags that could be switched out throughout the year and the other was a tag that had a half for the owner’s keychain.”

Lehman validated the idea using a social polling platform, Wedgies, and Twitter messages, ultimately deciding on the matching half. They received $360 in advanced backing for the project that has a goal of $5,000.

Watch the Twin Tags Kickstarter video below.

Go check out their Kickstarter campaign to learn more.

Their product is called the Structure Sensor, and the company pulled in $1.3 million from Kickstarter, wildly beating their goal of $100,000.

The Structure Sensor is the world’s first 3D sensor for mobile devices. It gives mobile devices a new sense – the ability to not just capture the world as two-dimensional images, but to actually understand it in three dimensions.

This enables a completely new set of mobile applications, including:

• 3D mapping of indoor spaces for instant measurements and virtual redecoration.
• Augmented reality (AR) games where virtual objects interact precisely with the geometry of the physical world, including occlusions.
• 3D object scanning for 3D content creation with no knowledge of CAD required.
• Body scanning for fitness tracking and virtual clothes fitting.
• Virtual reality games using 3D environments imported from the real world.

Occipital sells the Structure Sensor kits (retail or the hackable version) for $349. You can still pre-order for shipment in April 2014.

The 3D printing community is getting excited about it too

Many of the uses for Structure are related to augmented reality and entertainment, but it also can be used as an object 3D scanner. In the 3D printing world, 3D scanners have had a surge in popularity over the last 6 months, between the launch of the MakerBot Digitizer desktop 3D scanner, a handful of Kickstarter campaigns, and the 3D Systems Sense 3D scanner.

Structure is the newest entrant in the 3D scanning world, and some of the key folks in the industry are sharing their excitement.

“We can’t wait to play with one of these around the MakerBot office,” said Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot.

Josh Levine, VP of Engineering for Shapeways is also excited about the opportunities with the technology. “For me the challenge has been in creating 3D objects. This completely obliterates that challenge,” he said.

Learn more at structure.io.

In June, the Buccaneer 3D Printer closed an epic $1.4 million Kickstarter campaign. The Buccaneer takes an Apple-like approach to product design, and hopes to be the most elegant and easy to use 3D printer on the market.

Just this week, the breakthrough 3D printer was made available for pre-order, and Pirate3D, the company behind the device, has released technical specs for the Buccaneer.

The Buccaneer 3D printer bundle sells for $497. It includes the 3D printer and 1 cartridge of filament. You can order additional filament bundles, each with 5 colors, for $60. There is a delivery fee of $100 for each order.

Technical Specs

The Buccaneer is manufactured in Singapore and boasts high precision and quality control. The FDM-style 3D printer has a resolution of 85 microns per layer and a build area of 145 x 125 x 155 mm (or about 5″ x 6″).

The system has a patented unibody extruder for filament flow, meaning that you should not experience any jams with your filament.

The build platform is removable, making it easy to access your 3D printed objects. “Getting your hands on a freshly printed item is simpler than taking a cake out of the oven,” says Pirate3D.

The company also publishes SmartObjects software for editing 3D models and accessing their Treasure Island store.

Go to Pirate3D to learn more or order your own 3D printer.

How much does a desktop 3D printer cost? If you asked that question a year ago, the answer would be influenced by the price of a MakerBot Replicator, the leading home 3D printer that sells for $2,199.

Well, now the answer is $100, thanks to a Canadian entrepreneur named Rylan Grayston.

Mr. Grayston has literally reinvented the 3D printer and has launched a Kickstarter campaign for his product he calls “Peachy”, a $100 3D printer. With 23 days left in his campaign, he has raised nearly $500,000 CAD to fund the final development and distribution of his device.

It’s affordable, small, lightweight, and unique. It’s a 3D printer in a class all its own.

What Apple’s iTunes did for music, Wisconsin-based Radiant Fabrication is hoping to do for 3D printing. In 2001, Apple debuted it’s “Rip. Mix. Burn.” ad campaign which featured a young man asking famous musicians from a broad array of genres if they could perform for his mixed CD. With it’s new CD-RW hardware and iTunes software, Apple made it easy for anyone to rip a library of CDs, then select a variety of tracks and burn a new mix. Below is Apple’s 2001 ad.

Fast forward to 2013, when copy-and-paste of real-world objects is slowly becoming a reality thanks to technology like the MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner and Fuel3D Handheld 3D Scanner. But there is still a problem: getting a design from 3D scanner to 3D printer.

Introducing Lionhead All-In-One 3D Scanner and 3D Printer

Today, Radiant Fabrication announced Lionhead™, the first consumer-level 3D printer to incorporate printing and 3D scanning into a single device packaged with Radiant Li™, an intuitive and powerful 3D modeling software.

“We created the Lionhead and Li to streamline the 3D printing experience, allowing consumers to model, edit, print, and scan from one piece of software and hardware,” said Nathan Patterson, Radiant’s co-founder and president. “Together, it means that consumers spend less time and money learning complex software packages and maintaining their printer, and more time using and refining their ideas.”

The Lionhead is designed to be reliable, easy to use, and faster by automating common tasks and printing with multiple printheads simultaneously. The included Radiant Li editor uses controls similar to popular video games, like Minecraft, to make creating and modifying models simple and intuitive. For the first time, an integrated scanner and Li software simplifies recreating and modifying real world objects. Users can press the Scan button, place an object on the Lionhead printing platform, and close the doors. In a few minutes, a copy of the object will be ready in Li for any improvements to be made and one click of the Print button starts the printing process.

“While the market for 3D printing is estimated to triple by 2018, 3D printing adoption has been limited to engineers, designers, and hobbyists due to a steep learning curve,” a company spokesperson said. “Users have needed strong technical knowledge and skills to model objects using complex software such as Maya or SolidWorks and then print and maintain their 3D printers. Today, Radiant Fabrication is making 3D fabrication accessible by providing a complete and seamless 3D printing, scanning, and modeling workflow.”

If successful, the Lionhead’s simplified approach could broaden adoption of 3D technology, giving a large base of non-technical consumers a way to access the world of 3D printing, much in the way that Apple created an onramp for non-technical users to build digital libraries of music.

Here’s a photo gallery of the Lionhead Bunny, with front doors both open and closed.

Going to the Bank of Kickstarter

Like other companies before it, Radiant Fabrication is going to the bank of Kickstarter, i.e., crowdfunding, to raise money for bringing its initial systems to market.

The company will launch its Kickstarter campaign this month to introduce its printer/scanner to the SMB and consumer markets, gather user feedback, and raise funds to expedite delivery of enhanced full production systems. Upon reaching its Kickstarter goal, Radiant Fabrication will start shipping Lionhead Bunny (beta) systems in October 2013.

Follow @On3DPrinting on Twitter or Like Us on Facebook for the latest news on Radiant Fabrication’s Kickstarter campaign when it launches.

Radiant Fabrication will offer their four printhead Lionhead Bunny (beta) printer/scanners for $1,649.

3D Scanning and 3D Design

In the video below, company president Nathan Patterson demonstrates how 3D design works in their voxel-based software Radiant Li, available for Mac and Windows.

And in this next video, Patterson shows off the 3D scanner baked into Lionhead.

The product uses silhouette scanning, which takes photos at different angles and compares to a calibration photo to build the 3D model. Voxels are created at 0.5mm resolution. The scan literally takes less than 1 minute as shown in the video.

Learn more at www.radiantfabrication.com.