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Modla Brings New Dimension to Snapback Artwork with 3D Printed Range 3D Printing Processes

by Consumer

London-based 3D Printing studio, Modla, released an exclusive range of three snapbacks, each with its own 3D printed graphic. As part of its launch, Modla is offering the public the opportunity to submit their own designs, with the best entries chosen to be recreated in 3D and released as part of the range. Known for their artist collaborations and commissions for brands like Nike and Converse, Modla continues to push the creative boundaries of 3D printing with its new snapback range; lifting graphics and illustrations off of the fabric and into 3D. The range has been created as part of Modla’s ongoing exploration into the creative possibilities of 3D printing, combining digital design with art and fashion. There are three intricate designs, each intended to be a mini piece of art in itself; designed in digital 3D software, before being 3D printed, dyed and assembled by hand. The snapbacks are made to order – literally 3D printed and assembled one at a time. Modla is also opening up the opportunity for designers, artists or any member of the general public, to enter their own designs to be recreated in 3D. You don’t need to be a designer to enter – all they need is a simple sketch or image, from which to work. The designs will be sold through the Modla website and a percentage of profits shared with the entrant. More info with terms & conditions can be found at www.modla.co.uk Modla Founder, Jon Fidler, says “We’ve always seen 3D printing as a tool to create art. We’ve worked with fashion designers in the past, to develop highly intricate prototypes, but this makes the 3D print an actual part of the final piece of clothing. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen, so we’re excited to see how it goes down. If people like it, there’s plenty more from where this came from!”

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Open Camera Project Helps You 3D Print Your Own Affordable DSLR and GoPro Rigs AM Software

by Design

Jenny Chen of 3DHeals, on the Women in 3D Printing Blog, recently said that it is not the technology itself, as much as the people using it, that are driving innovation in 3D printing. That is absolutely true: the paradox is that while so many of us focus on the limits of desktop (and industrial) machines, the true limits are in our heads (and in materials). The Open Camera Project by YouTuber, blogger and 3D Printer Chat FB group administrator Anton Månsson shows exactly that we are just beginning to understand how we can fully exploit the capabilities of even a basic desktop 3D printer fed with PETG. “I’ve always loved filming and cameras,” Anton explains, “I love the idea of creating videos to educate and illustrate things going on. When combining this with a passion for gadgets i suddenly realized you have to cut corners to afford the “important” stuff. One of those things were to mount all the necessary parts around the camera. When moving from visual 3D-creation into more mechanical 3D-creation – he continues – I picked up on the fact that I have all these 3D printers at the Creative Tools office and wanted to create a 3D printable system that I could use instead of buying loads of expensive parts.” DSLR (and GoPro) camera accessories are extremely expensive. Even more so for rigs. And yet rigs are some of the products that can be 3D printed more efficiently. The biggest challenge – as is often the case -is designing them but through open source sharing, it may be enough for one person to begin and let everyone contribute to provide the community with several affordable designs. The most common systems use 15mm Diameter rods (aluminium or carbon fiber usually) that are offset by 60mm (center to center). The idea of a camera rig is to incorporate manually operated focus systems, as well as enabling one or more two persons to operate the camera easily. For low budget film and documentary use it’s common to use a shoulder rig that’s lets one operator rest the camera (and audio recording, light, batteries and more) on this shoulder and arms. This can be combined this with a “follow-focus system” (a knob that you twist to smoothly change focus, instead of turning the lens built-in focus ring). Given all the right tools, a camera operator is able to achieve a lot more with a smaller team (or even alone). “All of this gear is usually very expensive and my goal was to create a system that could be printed for under $100, to be open source, and to work with existing parts while being strong enough to handle a DSLR-camera.”, Anton says. The project is just beginning but it looks promising and there certainly are thousands of professionals out there – in the ever more competitive and low paying world of photography and videomaking – who can benefit a great deal from a significant cut to their accessories expenses list.

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Harvard researchers “EMB3D Print” the first autonomous, entirely soft robot 3D Printing Processes

by Business

Powered by a chemical reaction controlled by microfluidics, 3D printed ‘octobot’ is a soft robot which has no electronics. A team of Harvard University researchers with expertise in 3D printing, mechanical engineering, and microfluidics has demonstrated the first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft robot. This small, 3D-printed robot — nicknamed the octobot — could pave the way for a new generation of completely soft, autonomous machines. Soft robotics could revolutionize how humans interact with machines. But researchers have struggled to build entirely compliant robots. Electric power and control systems — such as batteries and circuit boards — are rigid and until now soft-bodied robots have been either tethered to an off-board system or rigged with hard components. The study’s authors include Robert Wood, the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jennifer A. Lewis, the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) led the research. Lewis and Wood are also core faculty members of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Professor Lewis is also one of the leading researchers in the fields of bioprinting and 3D printing by pneumatic extrusion (she is a foiunder of Voxel8).

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Source3 Brings 3D Printing to South Park 3D Printing Processes

by Consumer

For the first time South Park super fans, technophiles and collectible geeks will be able to purchase some of their favorite South Park characters, previously unavailable in physical form, thanks to Source3. Source3, a startup founded by former Google and music industry executives specializing in digital content management, has launched a collector-inspired line of South Park characters presented in full-color 3D prints, featuring year-round introductions of new and old characters. South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have hand-signed a limited number of Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman figurines which select fans who purchase the full set on Shapeways will have an opportunity to win (see the store links for official rules). The product lineup also includes fan favorites like Candidate Garrison, Terrance and Phillip, Tweek and Clyde Frog. The Source3 team is thrilled to celebrate the 20th season of South Park in partnership with Viacom, South Park Studios, Brandgenuity, WhiteClouds, Amazon, and Shapeways. The goal of Source3 is to help large content distribution websites, such as popular 3D printing marketplaces like Shapeways, but also consumer product giants like Amazon, to meet the real needs of designers. “We started developing the platform and launching a private beta testing phase first of all for us to develop a better product,” says Source3’s Director of Marketing Tom Simon, whom I finally caught up with, in spite of the 10-hour time zone difference between us. “We also did it for us to be able to go back to potential distribution partners and say to them ‘look, I know your API doesn’t do this today but designers are asking for it, se we can help you develop that part of the API in order to meet the designers future requirements.” What Source3 promises is to let designers everywhere simply upload a 3D model file and a texture to be rendered for online visualisation. While that is happening, the designer accesses a screen that lets him or her set the title, insert all metadata information, select categories and add tag words. Once this phase is complete, all the designer has to do is select the marketplaces and e-tailers that s/he wants his or her product to be featured in and Source3 will do all the work. Personally, I know quite a few people that could already take advantage of this service, instead of manually uploading to Shapeways, i-materialise, 3DaGoGo, ToyFabb, Pinshape, Cults, Threeding, Shapetizer… “Once a month, a revenue report comes from each of these marketplaces. We look at it and distribute the money earned to the designers based on how well their products sold. Give us your Pay{al account and we’ll deposit the money, and if you want to see a detailed report, we can provide the number of products sold, where the buyers are located, etc.,” Tom explains. “So, we’re slowly opening up this ecosystem of distribution marketplaces… The next step is to get beyond that and get closer to the more traditional marketplaces, like Amazon, or Etsy, as what we’re doing on the backend as well is forming relationships with 3D printing partners like White Clouds. If we set up for example your ability to distribute at Etsy, once the product is purchased it would send a a request to White Clouds to get it manufactured on demand.” The bottom line is that Source3 is being created to enable designers to just focus on designing and not worry about distribution. The real “unicorn” that Source3 is chasing is a “derivative rights model”, working with top brands to create consumer products out of their IPs and distributing through all the 3D printing marketplaces that have been integrated into the network. As in the recent Capcom and Zverse collaboration for the Street Fighter videogame cover art, or the following one with CDbaby. In order to achieve this, Source3 combined the experiences of two different “souls”. Some of the founders come from a digital rights management company called RightsFlow, which was created to manage royalties and licenses for digitally distributed music content. They were there when Sean Parker presented the Napster project to Universal Music in 2001 and the company was later acquired by YouTube. Another part of Source3 comes from Geomagic, which was acquired by 3D Systems and saw what happened with the home 3D printing hype. With physical objects, everything is much more complex but there are services like 3D Hubs which, as Tom puts it, “are already very functional processes.” Others, like Autodesk Spark (which is one of Source3’s investors) are working to create the ecosystem for global digital manufacturing. This might not mean that giants of the toy or consumer product industry will see it as a threat but some of the smaller companies might. The digital manufacturing revolution is happening, preparing to manage it can only be beneficial for everyone. If I were a designer of 3D printable products, I would definitely give the beta a shot. Despite posing certain potential threats to brands and intellectual property, 3D printing also offers a wealth of benefits, including customization for the customer and zero inventory costs for the manufacturer, making 3D printing a potential win-win means of manufacturing. Kudos to Viacom and South Park Studios for embracing 3D technology via licensing and setting an example in the industry for other brands determining the best way to react to this promising, disruptive technology.

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Simone Fontana (AKA FNTSMN) Unboxes U2Go, Announces INSOMNIA Participation AM Software

by Technologies

3D Printing Media Network partner, professional 3D designer and and well know 3D printing Youtuber Simone Fontana just released a new video on his FNTSMN YouTube Channel. In the video – which you can see below – just ahead of talking the little Ultimaker out of his stylish portable box, Simone also announced that he will be participating – with his 3D Design studio 3DNA – to INSOMNIA58, the UK’s largest gaming festival. Simone, who has made a name for himself for his skills and intuitions in creating realistic 3D printed props from some of the biggest gaming IP’s around, including games from Bethesda and Blizzard, is participating to the event together with CoolerMaster UK. He will be at the PC accessories manufacturer’s stand designing and 3D printing live with his Ultimaker 2+ and the newly arrived Ultimaker 2Go. Sounds like a great way to combine two of 3D’s best applications: the virtual gaming world and the physical desktop additive manufacturing world. Simone was among the very first to see the value that 3D printing can being to videogames and videogame publishers, let’s hope the gaming giants will soon see it as well. Without further ado, check out the little Ultimaker at work in FNTSMN’s latest video

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Last Chance to Get the Rubicon 3D Scanner at an Unbeatable Price on EBay 3D Scanning Sevices

by Business

The low-cost, desktop 3D scanning segment is extremely varied, with DIY systems starting at a few hundred dollars and high end systems running into the thousands. Until supplies last (only a couple remaining at the time of writing), you are able to take advantage of a unique offer on eBay to get the reliable Rubicon 3D Scanner system at the unbeatable price of €299, thanks to an end-of-stock promotion from Rubicon 3D. Unlike most of its competitors, that use simple web-cam modules running in video mode, the Rubicon 3D Scanner uses an FPGA chip to control the Aptina MT9P006, 5 megapixel image sensor, which enables it to snap an image only when needed. In fact, while the main priority of a camera is to keep a steady frame-rate by sacrificing the image quality, the Rubicon 3D Scanner, through the use of a prolonged exposure, is capable of achieving a much higher quality image. The system designed by Rubitech is known to be at the same time capable of professional level perfromances and extremely easy to use: 3D scanning object becomes easy and fast and for everyone, making it a user favorite for fablabs, makers, workgroups, schools and universities all over Europe. The latest going out of stock promotion on eBay makes it the most affordable in its category currently on the market, representing a great opportunity to take a walk on the other side… of 3D printing.

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3D printed turboprop engine by GE to power next-generation Cessna Denali plane 3D Printing Processes

by Aerospace

Named Cessna Denali, the Textron plane will have the largest cabin in its class—seating up to eight people—and an engine powerful and efficient enough to reach Chicago from Los Angeles or Miami from New York. Textron and GE Aviation, which developed the engine, brought the plane’s cabin and engine mock-ups to the EAA AirVentures airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where the announcement took place on Monday.