News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Within the automotive industry, there are countless ways that 3D printing has been adopted, from 3D printed metal replacement parts, to full-colour prototypes, to custom detailing. Recently, Corona, California-based Design Infini highlighted another automotive application for additive manufacturing: wheel design.
Dutch designer Matthijs Kok is no stranger to 3D printing. With experience working as a product designer and 3D modeler for 3D Systems and as the creative director at innovative design agency Freshfiber (a position he still holds), the young designer knows better than most how additive manufacturing can revolutionize design.
Dubai-based AM company Immensa Technology Labs has become the first UAE company to submit a patent related to additive manufacturing. Founded in 2016, the company was also the UAE’s first privately owned company to specialize in AM technologies.
Aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin reported that it has doubled its venture capital fund to $200 million. The sizeable increase in funding will be used by the company to invest in startups and early-stage companies pursuing innovation in autonomy, advanced manufacturing, sensor technologies, artificial intelligence and cyber.
German auto manufacturer Audi has announced that its Pre-Series Center and Plastics 3D Printing Center in Ingolstadt, Germany have adopted Stratasys’ J750 full-colour, multi-material 3D printer for producing faithful prototypes and accelerating the design verification process.
John Briscella is a former Autodesk Pier 9 resident designer (like Anouk Wipprecht and other 3D printing celebs) who has been experimenting with some advanced generative design capabilities for a growing range of consumer products. He has since launched Aminimal, his and his design partner’s Lana Blum’s online shop for parametrically designed 3D printed jewelry, and his own design studio for generatively designed 3D printed furniture. This generatively designed shoe, built using nTopology software, is one of John Briscella’s latest concepts and shows the direction that his design style is taking for a growing range of consumer products.
Chanua Health, a healthcare innovation company working out of Liverpool’s technical innovation center Sensor City, recently turned to 3D printing technologies to help educate young students about the importance of mental health. Working with support from Sensor City, Chanua Health 3D printed an interactive brain model that teaches students about different parts of the brain and about mental health in a stigma-less way.
ParaMatters, one of the newest players in design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) software, might also be one of the most exciting. Founded by Michael Bogomolny, the two-year-old company promises to revolutionize design-to-manufacturing processes with its advanced design and topology optimization software.
In a proof-of-concept study, researchers from ETH Zurich and Caltech in Pasadena, CA have demonstrated a new propulsion system for motorless swimming robots. Unlike traditional aquatic mechanisms which rely on propellants or engines to move in water, the swimming robots—made entirely from 3D printed parts—use fluctuations in water temperature to propel themselves.
3D pen pioneer 3Doodler has announced the release of its latest products: the Create+ Pen and the 2018 Create Product Line. Starting at $80, the new 3D pen—the latest version of 3Doodler’s legacy Kickstarter product—integrates a range of improvements that promise to make 3D drawing easier than ever before.