In 2011 I was invited to create a piece for an exhibition called “Ctrl-Z” curated by 3d artist Eric Van Straaten. This was a group exhibition of artworks created by various 3d printing processes.
The model of the skull was generated from a friend’s dental tomography scan. The form of the object was created by creating an array of copies of the skull, where each successive copy of the skull is scaled, rotated, and moved. The skull starts at life size at the front and ends up rotated 180 degrees and two times larger than life at the back.
MakerBot and Autodesk, who are sharing a booth this weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area 2013, just announced a partnership deal involving the Replicator 2 and Autodesk’s 123D suite. Folks who purchase subscriptions to Autodesk’s 123D tools get a discount towards the purchase of a Rep2, and Autodesk has become an authorized reseller of the popular 3D printer. The “Autodesk edition” Replicator 2 also features custom face- and buildplates. Deets at Autodesk’s 123D site, below.
In honor of the launch of Star Trek Into Darkness, PCMag 3D printed a copy of the U.S.S. Enterprise on The Cube … like you do!
To boldly go where no 3D printer has gone before. Yes, that’s the pun that came to mind when we decided to make a 3D print of the U.S.S. Enterprise in honor of the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness. Much like with John Harrison, the villain in the movie, we weren’t sure what we were getting ourselves into….
Printing out the U.S.S. Enterprise proved to be an interesting challenge. Because the surface upon which objects are printed on the Cube is relatively small, we had to print out the ship in pieces that would have to be glued together at the end, rather than a single piece. And it was a little difficult to glue pieces together with the super-glue that we had bought. But in the end, we managed to make it happen.
But, really, you have to see it to believe it. Check out our time-lapse photography video of the Cube as it prints the U.S.S. Enterprise. And have a gander at our other time-lapse video where we print out a Weighted Companion Cube from Portal.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
We’re proud to announce that some 3D-printed pieces from the MakerBot Design Team have been chosen for a special collection at the MoMA Design Store called Destination: NYC — Made in the USA. For those who don’t know, MoMA is the Museum of Modern Art here in New York. The organization has been shining a light on local designers in cities around the world in its Destination: Design series.
Sometimes pieces in the series become top selling items at MoMA Design Stores. At MakerBot, we hope the innovative artists and designers who see our items will be inspired to use 3D printing in their own work. Here’s the set of items all together, including a customized MakerBot Mix Tape and MakerBot Watch designed just for MoMA, along with a bunch of pieces reflecting iconic places and objects in NYC.
Get your hands on these now! The whole Destination: NYC series, including pieces from other amazing local designers, is available from now through August only at MoMA Store locations in New York and Tokyo, as well as online at MoMAstore.org, MoMAonlinestore.co.kr, and MoMAstore.jp.
The Smithsonian has been using 3D printing and 3D scanning for some time now. What can you do to bring some of the Smithsonian’s 137 million objects to life? The Smithsonian decided to use laser arm scanners to preserve its collection.
Vince Rossi and Adam Metallo, two researchers work in the Smithsonian’s 3D Digitization Program Office, lead the project. They work with laser scanners to create high resolution, three-dimensional digital models of these objects.
“The main purpose of 3D scanning an exhibit like this is to have an archive of what an exhibit of this era might have looked,” Metallo says. “This is a documentation for folks in the future to know what a museum experience here was like.”
Vince Rossi and Adam Metallo are working full time to document, in very high three-dimensional detail, these priceless and important collections for future generation. They dream of digitizing all 137 million of the objects in the Smithsonian’s collections. At the moment only 2% of the objects are displayed in its museums. And these 3D digital models could be printed and sent to local museums, or viewed digitally on a computer screen anywhere in the world.
“There’s one specimen that’s on display two stories up in the air,” Metallo says. “Now, instead of a researcher having to get up on a scissor lift to look at it, we can just email him the digital model.”
Watch the video below how the team captured a digital copy of the Philadelphia gunboat, America’s oldest fighting craft.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
Check out this fascinating installation piece (original text in Spanish, so forgive my Google translation here). Say…I recognize that “golden age” desktop 3D printer!
BIOS collaboration Ex Machina with Jesus Gilder, Bautista and Billy Yair Dept. flowers. Mechatronics Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the UNAM and Fernando Lomeli Digital Lab Cultural Center Tlatelolco, UNAM.
The artificial nature of the seed – seed corn corn plastic – therefore, poses a paradox of no easy solution for the design of the artificial and the natural copy. In the seed represent both the natural and the artificial, the original and the derivative, and she staged the tensions inherent in these distinctions. The seed sown our piece is not “really” a corn seed, but has its origin (material) in it.
The corn becomes mythical origin of several villages just at that moment it ceases to be completely natural, moving to also be a cultural entity, a device eminently defining human activities such as agriculture. Somewhere between the natural and the artificial, the domestic maize both the farmer and to the cornfield. But agriculture staging the polymer Milpa is also artificial in a second sense, mechanized agriculture. The piece itself is a mechanism biotechnology.
In its center, a robot tractor spirals, artificial seed sowing. The sterile seeds gradually fill the space spiral, turning the earth into grow-in economic and cultural artifact, but in a grow sterile plant that never result in any. So is staged the complex relationship between the natural and the artificial, the origin and originated.
Seeds that are printed are polylactic acid (PLA) thermoplastic biopolymer made from corn. Due to its biodegradability and biocompatibility barrier properties, it has found numerous applications biopolymer. While proponents argue that it is compostable, actually breaks down in less than 90 days, carbon dioxide and water, but in a controlled environment, as used by large waste processing plants. In a traditional landfill, there is no evidence to disintegrate faster or more completely than PET or any other form of plastic. Much of the corn used to produce PLA is genetically modified.
The piece seeks to highlight one of the dimensions of the phenomenon biotechnology: its economic dimension, making tangible the intangible aspect of biotechnology. The movement creation / culture is a spiral movement (and, therefore, without beginning, ie without origin) literally dictated by commercial behavior of commercial products of biotechnology – and, in strict sense, by perception market value of these. Instead the farmer driving the tractor, machinery moving it obeys the designs of the market. Without being your engine literally, the commercial aspects of biotechnology guide the tractor, but do not make a direct, but mediated through sound, which makes it tangible, but transitory. Using wireless communication technology, data exchange on the market communicate with the tractor in the field and affect processing and printer engine.
Traditionally, art, nature used to play the role of the original model, which the art piece, epitome of artificial entity, was the copy. Giorgio Vasari art expresses this view as follows: “The Art owes its origin to Nature herself … this beautiful creation, the world, gave us the model, while the divine intelligence was the original master, which created us as beings superior to other animals, more like God himself – if I dare say. “God himself is the first teacher and the first artist, his creature’s primal nature. In the polymer Milpa , by contrast, the nature that serves as a model for the work is not the natural naturans but domesticated nature in a symbiotic relationship with technology. The corn polymer Milpa like corn cornfields of all the country, not the corn “original”, not a corn state of “pure nature”. Is the current corn, field corn technologized, corn biotechnology.
Text: Ex Machina BIOS
Check out this post from Pete Prodoehl’s RasterWeb that explores some of the food safety concerns for 3D printing + food. This is an area that I have been exploring extensively — and will be sharing some great techniques in the Adafruit Learning System in the near future — so I was happy to see other people covering this.
As a secret preview, I’ll let you know now that I am finding that rolling up your sleeves and learning mold making techniques from those who work in design kitchens is the best place to start to eliminate some of the difficult-to-guarrantee questions about using your 3D printer for making food.
You loved Printing Violations, and you tolerated Printing Violations (Part II), so we’re back again with another episode of Printing Violations, this time looking more closely at the health issues surrounding 3D printed cookie cutters.
Licensing issues are one thing, but there is a safety concern with 3D printed cookie cutters. Here’s a look at some of the issues. (All assume you are using a home 3D printer like a MakerBot, RepRap, Printrbot, etc.)
Is ABS or PLA plastic filament food-safe?
The answers range from “probably not” to “maybe” in most cases. If you use natural filament it will be free of coloring agents, which is a step in the right direction, but unless you are specifically buying “food-safe filament” don’t expect it to be food-safe. (Keep in mind that “food-safe” is something that will be determined by local health departments, and will vary depending on where you live.)
Then there’s the printer itself, and the environment it runs in. My printer lives in a basement where I do other crazy things like run a drill press, spray glue and paint, and generally make a mess. Would you want your cookie cutter manufactured in such an environment? What has the filament come into contact with before it goes into the machine, and what else has been introduced into the extruder as far as foreign materials? If you’ve ever read up on what it takes to make food in your home and sell it commercially, you’ll have some idea of the restrictions involved. (Wait, we aren’t selling food, right? We’ll get to that, be patient!)
Can 3D printed items be treated to be safe(er?)
If you’ve ever looked at a 3D printed object, you may notice the ridges. Since it’s built up layer upon layer, there are spaces into which food could get stuck. Of course you can try to clean your 3D printed cookie cutter, but don’t put it in the dishwasher! For PLA prints, the heat will either melt it, or deform it, or do some other nasty thing to it. ABS may be better, but you will still need to heat it enough to sterilize it, and hope you can get the crevices clean. It’s been suggested that acetone vapor finishing might be helpful. Helpful enough? Not sure.
Of course you could use your printer to make a mold and then make a food-safe cutter out of another material, but that’s not really a 3D printed cookie cutter. You could also try to coat your printed piece with a food-safe coating, but that’s a lot more work.
So why does all this matter? Because right now, there are people printing cookie cutters and selling them, and there are also people 3D printing cookie cutters, making cookies with them, and selling the cookies.
Missed the early adoption period for a Google Glass? Need to see how they frame your pretty mug without forking over the $$$? Sunny Gao, an entrepreneur from China, showed off his replica Google Glass during the the Global Hackathon this past weekend in Shanghai. He also uploaded the file for your 3D printing pleasure.
3D PRINT THE GOOGLE GLASS
Perhaps this is one of the best examples of personal manufacturing today: take the hottest new tech toy and create an exact replica right in your own home. While the full functionality of running Android with 16 GB of storage space and a WiFi/Bluetooth-connected 5-megapixel camera that records 720p videos isn’t necessarily there, it is a unique application that illustrates the disruptive power of 3D printing today…without the use of shoddy guns or dishwasher replacement parts.
Perhaps the best scenario for this free downloadable model is the ability to print it as a ‘toy’ for kids who will soon want to adopt using their parents’ Google Glass just like they did with their parents’ iPhones. On the FAQ page for Google Glass, Google mentions that the next tech toy isn’t for everyone: “Don’t let children under 13 use Google Glass as it could harm developing vision.” It should also be dully noted that the product itself does contain glass…near the eye….which could have a bad consequence if handled without care. Google Glass is expected to be released in 2014 publicly, however if you…or your kid…want to try on a pair before then, head on over to the link that Gao shared with the public for free (note: Google Translator recommended). The file is an .SKP Google SketchUp file.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
The Seattle International Film Festival has launched a new initiative called “SIFFcurious” with ads agency Wong, Doody, Crandall and Wiener (WDCW) that features a festival trailer that recreates scenes from cinema history with hand-painted 3D printed models.
Ad agency Wong, Doody, Crandall and Wiener (WDCW) created and executed the “SIFFcurious” campaign, this is the ninth year that WDCW has collaborated with SIFF. The campaign features a 1-minute trailer produced by Seattle production company World Famous. The trailer follows a young woman who peers into the the knotty hole of a mossy tree. Her curiosity takes her on a fantastic journey through scenes of some of the memorable movies screened at SIFF over the years: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Dr. Strangelove, The Exorcist, Alien, etc.
Each scene was beautifully recreated with 3D miniatures. Some of them are designed in the computer and then made into physical models using a Makerbot 3D printer. And some are sculpted and painted by hand, and others are made using silicone molds and resin.
“There was a bit of a learning curve on how to properly prepare models and, most important, how long it would take to make models on the Makerbot. The higher-quality models required more time and in order to save some time, we had to get creative and hand-sculpt some of the intricate models,” says Anea Klix, account executive at WDCW. “When we had multiples of a character (like the eggs in Alien or the side panels in 2001: A Space Odyssey), we would make silicone molds and cast resin copies. We had quite the assembly line, 3-D modeling, a 3D printer going nonstop for a month, sculpting and painting all at the same time.” In all there were 20 sets, some of the larger ones were 4 feet by 6 feet, which were shot over two days.”
The spot required over 900 hours of modeling, creating and building before a single frame was captured. The theme of curiosity is about how curiosity can pay off in big ways, leading you to new and magical, incredible things.
“It’s based on the thought of a person letting their curiosity run wild and getting transported into a pint-size world of film, in the same way that SIFF hopes to inspire filmgoers to be more curious and adventurous in their cinematic experiences.” says Klix.
20 films from SIFF history are referenced, can you name all of them?
Here’s an excellent demo of printing on the Ultimaker desktop 3D printer for those who haven’t yet seen this one in action — with particular appeal to those who love the Legend of Zelda series (so, like everyone, right?). Instead of launching new models, the Ultimaker team have continued to make improvements and encourage community upgrades to their base machine that has been printing happily since 2011, a machine that continues to earn its place in the top rankings of available desktop printers for makers.
Hey guys, I’ve received a lot of requests to show a 3D print from setup to completion so this video runs a little longer then usual. I will show you in this video how to tape the build surface and level the bed and show you how to print the model using the Ultimaker controller so the printer operates 100% detached from the PC while printing. I also show you how to detach the completed object from the build surface using a custom tool you can make out of any putty knife. I also show you how to cleanup the model and remove the support material after the print is done.
The object I print in this video is the Zelda Hylian Shield which completely kicks ass. I found the model on Thingaverse.com under a Creative Common License. The model was created by ShopBox and the URL to download it from is here. The model is printed at a .15mm layer height with solid fill to produce an indestructible print. This is the second shield I have printed, the first one I chromed and posted pictures of on my Facebook page, make sure you head over there and take a look….
Always accompanying Link’s sword, a shield is a defensive item which has appeared in every game of The Legend of Zelda series to date. The shield is Link’s primary protective defense used to deflect objects, guard from attack, and in some instances, reflect light onto other objects. Appearing in every Zelda title to date, the shield is not only a trademark of the series but completes Link’s hero-like appearance, along with any sword he happens to wield at the time. From defending Link to being the favorite snack of Like Likes, the design and function of the shield greatly differs throughout the series.
The Hylian Shield is the traditional shield of the Knights of Hyrule and a shield commonly used by Link in the 3D Zelda games. Unlike Wooden Shields, the Hylian Shield will not burn upon contact with fire. Throughout the Zelda games, the Hylian Shield has changed little in terms of overall appearance, always bearing the symbol of the Triforce and, beneath it, the Hylian Crest. The first Hylian Shield was a legendary shield guarded by the Thunder Dragon Lanayru, who created a challenge to judge whether someone would be worthy of wielding the shield.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
Jeshua “3DTOPO” shared two versions of a demo for how to cast aluminum parts from 3D printed parts, a complete version (see below) and the highlights version (above). Well worth watching!
A while back we posted a blog about aluminum casting involving 3D printed PLA by Jeshua (3DTOPO). He has used this technique for several of his parts now and decided to post a longer tutorial on youtube plus a shorter video (see bellow) that shows the highlights.
Shape-It-Up: Hand Gesture Based Creative Expression of 3D Shapes Using Intelligent Generalized Cylinders
Abstract:
We present a novel interaction system, “Shape-It-Up”, for creative expression of 3D shapes through the naturalistic integration of human hand gestures with a modeling scheme dubbed intelligent generalized cylinders (IGC). To achieve this naturalistic integration, we propose a novel paradigm of shape-gesture-context interplay (SGCI) wherein the interpretation of gestures in the spatial context of a 3D shape directly deduces the designers’ intent and the subsequent modeling operations. Our key contributions towards SGCI are three-fold. Firstly, we introduce a novel representation (IGC) of generalized cylinders as a function of the spatial hand gestures (postures and motion) during the creation process. This representation allows for fast creation of shapes while retaining their aesthetic features like symmetry and smoothness. Secondly, we define the spatial contexts of IGCs as proximity functions of their representational components, namely cross-sections and skeleton with respect to the hands. Finally, we define a natural association of modification and manipulation of the IGCs by combining the hand gestures with the spatial context. Using SGCI, we implement intuitive hand-driven shape modifications through skeletal bending, sectional deformation and sectional scaling schemes. The implemented prototype involves human skeletal tracking and hand-posture classification using the depth data provided by a low-cost depth sensing camera (Microsoft Kinect). With Shape-It-Up, our goal is to make the designer an integral part of the shape modeling process during early design, in contrast to current CAD tools which segregate 3D sweep geometries into procedural 2D inputs in a non-intuitive and cumbersome process requiring extensive training. We conclusively demonstrate the modeling of a wide variety of 3D shapes within a few seconds….
If 3-D printing is indeed going mainstream, it will be in large part because of people like Bre Pettis, co-founder of the Brooklyn, New York-based 3-D printer company MakerBot. The company produces affordable desktop 3-D printers, with a basic unit selling for around $2,000. At South by Southwest this year, Pettis unveiled the Digitizer, a new MakerBot scanner that can scan a physical object–say, a golf ball or a garden gnome–and record its precise physical dimensions so it can be re-created by a 3-D printer. And that, he says, is good news for entrepreneurs.
Check out this great project from Dutch artist Sander Veenhof and designer Joris van Tubergen which combines 3D printing and augmented reality, Ultimarker:
Both 3D printing and augmented reality are seen as the two most impactful and radical innovations of our time. Thanks to these techniques, we now to live in a true DIY world. Want something? Make it! Be it not ‘for real’, then virtual.
Although the techniques share a similar vision, they are opposites as well. Whereas augmented reality is instant and infinitely customizable, 3D printing takes time but the output is a ‘truly’ physical manifestation. But what is the result when both are combined?
APPLICATION DEADLINE: All applications must be received by 12PM (noon) on June 28, 2013. Applicants will be informed of their application status by August 16, 2013.
RESIDENCY SUMMARY: The 5-month residency will begin in mid to late September (negotiable start date) of 2013 and run through February of 2014. The resident will receive a $5,000 stipend to be paid out over the course of the residency in connection with the achievement of specific milestones.
OVERVIEW: Public Knowledge and Eyebeam are seeking applications from artists, engineers, designers, curators, and creative technologists interested in being the inaugural resident in our joint residency program. The purpose of the Public Knowledge/Eyebeam Artist Residency is to make policy issues more engaging. Selection will be based on the quality of the proposal, including demonstrable success in previous development of related work at this scale.
At the end of the residency, the resident would be expected to produce a new work at Eyebeam that integrates a physical element (including but not limited to open hardware, 3D printing, or other digital technologies) with an internet-based presence (presentation, documentation, and explanation using pertinent online technologies). The work should have a clear relationship to any of Public Knowledge’s many issue areas. This explanation or relevancy need not be literal. Public Knowledge is not necessarily looking for a work that will directly teach issues. Rather, the goal of the program is to create a new work that raises awareness of an issue with the wider public, and compels people to investigate the issue further.
ABOUT EYEBEAM: A belief in progress and openness are core values of Eyebeam. This has been demonstrated through 15 years of experimentation via the creative use and misuse of technology with the goal to innovate and develop better relationships between people and tools. Eyebeam believes that all creative work begins with a commitment to sustainability, equality, diversity, and concern for a better future. Across all research initiatives and focus areas, Eyebeam primarily supports projects that have real-world impact — Eyebeam maintains that cultural progress is possible and encourages work that is paradigm shifting within a large spectrum of genres. Eyebeam sees the concerns of Public Knowledge as central to a more open society.
ABOUT PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE: Founded in September 2001, Public Knowledge is a public interest advocacy organization in Washington, DC that seeks to ensure that copyright law and communications policy promote creativity, free speech, and democratic values.
Public Knowledge’s unique expertise lies in the intersection of federal media and telecommunications law, internet law, and copyright law—an intersection that is increasingly relevant as these issues overlap and converge. Public Knowledge has established itself as the premiere public interest organization working to ensure policy that provides the public broad access to an open internet and the wealth of knowledge and creativity it contains. Public Knowledge is also involved with issues surrounding emerging technology such as 3D printing and open source hardware.
Although it addresses a wide range of policy areas, Public Knowledge is focused on preventing gatekeepers, especially gatekeepers tied to incumbent business models and technology, from using law and policy to slow the pace of innovation. Public Knowledge values openness and competition, along with access to technology and communications platforms. Fundamentally, Public Knowledge believes that society is stronger when everyone has access to information and innovation, and when the public has access to new ideas no matter their origin.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
Printable catalog (PDF)
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