Here are the top 10 most popular stories On 3D Printing brought you in July 2013.

10. Poppy Kickstarter Closes in on $150,000 to Turn Your iPhone into a 3D Camera

9. NASA Tests 3D Printed Rocket Engine Injector

8. Shapeways Introduces Gold Plated Brass to 3D Printing

7. Inside 3D Printing Chicago Conference – A Full Retrospective

6. Study Shows 3D Printing Emits Ultrafine Particles; What This Actually Means

5. Student Creates LEGObot 3D Printer Made Entirely of LEGOs

4. MIT’s OpenFab Could Revolutionize 3D Printing Design Process

3. 3D Printing Iron: ExOne Announces New Metals for 3D Printing

2. IndieGoGo Campaign The Touch-Up Promises to Smooth 3D Printing

1. Arcology Now! Launches Competition for Large-Scale 3D Printed Habitats

Thanks for reading in July!

3D Printing News

A roundup of the top 3D printing news from July 15 to July 21:

Monday, July 15

• Poppy Kickstarter Closes in on $150,000 to Turn Your iPhone into a 3D Camera

Tuesday, July 16

• NASA Tests 3D Printed Rocket Engine Injector

Thursday, July 18

• IndieGoGo Campaign The Touch-Up Promises to Smooth 3D Printing

 Saturday, July 20

• Student Creates LEGObot 3D Printer Made Entirely of LEGOs

Poppy Soon to Hit $150,000 Crowdfunding Milestone

A few weeks ago, we covered the Kickstarter campaign launch of Poppy, an innovative device that lets you capture, view and share images in 3D, using only your iPhone.

With an initial target of $40,000 in crowdfunding on Kickstarter, Poppy raced past that goal on day 1 and is now closing in on $150,000 with 11 days left in the campaign.

As is common with Kickstarter campaigns, Poppy has a set of stretch goals that only kick in if the funding campaign outperforms its target. The first stretch goal was $100,000 and the reward was the inclusion of a simple tripod screw mount for every Poppy. It was easily achieved.

The second stretch goal is $150,000, and the reward will be the release of a white Poppy, available to those who pledged $59 or more.

3D Printing Inspiration

We chatted with the Poppy founders about how 3D printing played a role in Poppy’s development. It enabled them to iterate fast and create a working prototoype that they could use in customer development.

Poppy founder Joe Heitzeberg explained, “3D printing helped us make Poppy stylish and easy to use by allowing us to iterate the design and get actual usage feedback from real users before committing to the more costly work of tooling for injection molds.”

As we reported previously, if you pledge $1,200 or more on Kickstarter, you can receive one of the original 3D printed functional prototypes.

Below is a video showing how Poppy works.

3D Printing News

A roundup of the top 3D printing news from June 24 to June 30:

Wednesday, June 26

• Watershed Moment: Windows 8.1 Offers Native Support for 3D Printing
• Poppy Launches Kickstarter to Turn Your iPhone into a 3D Camera

Thursday, June 27

• NASA and Made in Space Launch 3D Printing Space Experiment
• Tesco Hints at 3D Printing Coming to Retail

Friday, June 28

• Only 3 Days Left to Enter CGTrader’s 3D Printing Competition
• Inside 3D Printing Early Bird Prices End This Week

Saturday, June 29

• Buccaneer 3D Printer Closes Epic Kickstarter Campaign Raising $1.4 Million
• Buttercup the Duck Gets 3D Printed Prosthetic Foot and a Facebook Page

Poppy Lets Your iPhone Go 3D

Remember the View-Master? The retro toy that would let you immerse yourself in images of the Eiffel Tower or an African safari. Well there is a new device in town that brings back the nostalgia of the View-Master while embracing our high-tech and social iPhone world.

It’s called Poppy and it’s on Kickstarter

Poppy is the name of the innovative device that lets you capture, share and view images in 3D using only your iPhone. It was created by two serial entrepreneurs Ethan Lowry and Joe Heitzeberg who are also founders of the blog Hack Things. Ethan and Joe describe Poppy this way:

Poppy has no electronics or batteries to babysit, but since it uses iPhone as its brain it’s quite a capable device. You put your iPhone in, and a system of mirrors captures two side-by-side images onto you iPhone’s single camera. Like the Viewmaster you might have played with as a kid, when you look in, lenses bring the two images together into a single 3D image. With retina quality video, the effect is immersive and really quite beautiful. It’s like stepping into another world.

Poppy went live with a Kickstarter campaign today, and as of writing this article, the campaign has raised over $25,000 of it’s $40,000 goal. [Update 6/28 - they've now raised $80K!]

Watch the video below and back the campaign if you like it. (Disclosure: a member of our staff has backed the campaign)

3D Printed Poppy?

Although Poppy is not a 3D printed product, the design and development leveraged 3D printing for rapid prototyping. Below are some sketches of the early designs, some of which were 3D printed for field testing.

We asked the founders why they used 3D printing in product development. Joe Heitzeberg shared his insights with us:

3D printing helped us make Poppy stylish and easy to use by allowing us to iterate the design and get actual usage feedback from real users before committing to the more costly work of tooling for injection molds.

The Poppy team shared some exclusive photos of their 3D printed prototypes with us. Here’s a photo of Zach Hoeken Smith, co-founder of MakerBot, holding a 3D printed prototype of Poppy in China.

And below is a close-up photo of the prototype, held by founder Ethan Lowry. You can see the cross-stitch resolution lines common with 3D printed surfaces.

3D Printed Poppy Kickstarter Perk

If you’re passionate about 3D printing and excited about Poppy, there is a 3D printing Kickstarter perk. Pledge $1,200 or more to receive one of the original 3D printed functional prototypes.