As for today, printing huge parts is always a difficult task. While even commercial machines are only suitable for small volumes (if you do not count d-shapes concrete printer), it is easy to use any lasercutter (e.g. the chinese one for only 3000$) for cutting the layers seperately and then glue them together.

Don't Move! - Die Scan-Skulptur (making of) from Jens Standke on Vimeo.

Gartner's Hype Cycle Special Report is an annual maturity assessment of more than 1,800 technologies and trends.

Since 1995, Gartner has used hype cycles to characterize the "hype" and subsequent disappointment with the introduction of new technologies. Hype cycles show how and when technologies move beyond the hype, offer practical benefits and become widely accepted.

The 2010 Report consists of 75 individual reports, each of which gives a snapshot of a key area of IT or business. In the Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle 2010, 3D Printing is positioned as "Early Adopters Investigate" and close to "Mass Media Hype Begins". 3D Printing has not yet reached what Gartner refers to as Peak of inflated Expectations but we are getting close.

(Source: http://www.gartner.com/it/content/1395600/1395613/august_4_whats_hot_hype_2010_jfenn.pdf )

In the Emerging Technologies Priority Matrix Gartner rank technologies in "Time to Mainstream Adoption" and in "Benefit". Gartner ranks 3D printing as a Transformational technology which is the highest level given to any technology and higher than for example e-books, interactive TV, micropayment systems, Internet TV, flat panel TV's, 4G networks and wireless power. 3D Printing will affect many business and consumer products in ways we can yet just imagine.

(Source: http://www.gartner.com/it/content/1395600/1395613/august_4_whats_hot_hype_2010_jfenn.pdf )

According to Gartner, the time for 3D printing to reach mainstream adoption is 5-10 years. I would say this sounds just about right and I definitely look forward to see this transformation take place. If the adaption of 3D Printing is to follow the Gartner Hype Cycle we have interesting times ahead of us where we will pass through a peak of inflated expectations followed by a phase of disillusionment before passing through a level of enlightenment until finally reaching a plateau of productivity where 20-30 percent of the audience has adopted 3D Printing.

Which 3D printing technologies and companies will survive the disillusionment phase and reach all the way to the plateau of productivity?

I believe that many of the technologies on the market today can survive if they are able to find their individual niches and applications where customers value the unique characteristics of the technology. The advent of low-cost 3D printers will pave way for a whole range of new consumer products not feasible to manufacture at a reasonable price just a few years ago, while the high-end additive technologies need to find niches where their higher technical performance and quality justify higher product and investment costs.

To reach the 20-30 percent level of adoption, 3D printing must also compete with and beat many traditional ways to manufacture and market products. Cost, quality, conformance with standards and environmental concerns all need to meet or beat traditional ways of manufacturing products. However, with its ability to make things that was considered impossible just a few years ago, 3D printing is catering to designers, engineers and business developers who can think out-of-the-box.

Feel free to comment and leave your thoughts.

References:
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/hype-cycles/index.jsp
http://www.gartner.com/it/content/1395600/1395613/august_4_whats_hot_hype_2010_jfenn.pdf

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The cloudspeaker is a wonderful piece of art by Johanna Spath and Johannes Tsopanides .

cloudspeaker; how it works from johannes tsopanides on Vimeo.

RAPID 2010 featured a display of art developed and manufactured with the help of various 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing technologies. This was for the first time in the history of the show that a special art section was presented. The art section was set up by SculptCAD - http://www.sculptcad.com - and is presented by Nancy Hairston, CEO.

RAPID 2010 was North America's primary Additive Manufacturing event this year. The event took place at Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California. netfabb exhibited as usual and interest in our products was high. We shot some video footage during the show and I hope the below video is able to transmit the pulse on the show floor from the bustling three days in California. There is also some comments about netfabb from a variety of people within the 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing industry. For all of you who contributed we thank you for your participation.

Last year Cory Doctorow released "Makers", a novel set in a near future after a total economic collapse. The plot is about a couple of tech wizards, a journalist and a VC that capitalizes on the new "Maker" economy. 3D Printing is a big thing in the novel but telling how the events unfold will certainly spoil the fun for anyone who yet have to read the book. If you are in 3D printing and have not yet read the Makers, put this book on your list of potential reads. Maybe as a reflection of the 3D printing industry there is a free version that can be downloaded and read online, as well as a professional version printed and available in bookstores. The free version is available at http://craphound.com/makers/download/

Enjoy!

Powered by netfabb Cloud Solutions Shapeways launched the Mesh Medic in March this year and automated the fixing of 3D Printing files uploaded to their website. As per today Mesh Medic and netfabb Cloud Solutions is also able to handle full color. Previously when Mesh Medic fixed a mesh it would lose the color mapping, now Mesh Medic will repair holes, invert your inverted normals so they're normal and repair manifolds, all in full color.

http://shapeways.com/blog/archives/590-Mesh-Medic-in-Full-Color!.html

Short animation about 3D Printing made for the exhibition "Laboratori of manufacture" at the museum Disseny HUB Barcelona. Explains to the average person exactly what the future of manufacturing means with 3D printing (via Shapeways).

FULL PRINTED from nueve ojos on Vimeo.

using an iPad. This is a fantastic artistic concept of applying the concept of Additive Manufacturing to the photographic world:

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Everyone who has visited any recent 3D Printing and AM event must have noted the presence of all sorts of video game characters in many displays. From being just a fun showpiece among the "serious" industrial stuff the video game characters now represent real products and real business models that people make money from and devote their life and money into. FigurePrints, Karbon Kid, Maget, Offload Studios and are among ventures that focus on this market. World of Warcraft, Spore and Rockband are just a few of the games where players can print a physical object from their Avatars and thus deepening the relation between the player and the game.

According to Terry Wohlers on his blog Wohlers Talk the video game sales outnumber 3D CAD by a factor of 3000x in 2009. This is interesting. Many of these games actually involve the creating of digital 3D characters. The creation process is different to 3D CAD but for the user this is definitely some kind of 3D modeling and the end product is something that can be exported to print physical objects. In the past, 3D Printer manufacturers have looked at 3D CAD to compare 3D printer sales and market penetration. This might still be relevant for high end Additive Manufacturing systems but it is time to enter video games into the equation and with truly low cost 3D printers popping up this will create quite a bit of change…

Links
http://www.entertainmentengineering.com/v7.issue02/10
http://wohlersassociates.com/blog/2010/09/3d-data-for-additive-manufacturing/

Congratulations to the Fab@Home team at Cornell University who won the Editor's Choice Award at the recent Maker Faire 2010 in New York City, September 2010!

The Fab@Home team is led by Hod Lipson, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the faculty of Computing & Information Science of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Prior to this appointment, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Brandeis University's Computer Science Department and a Lecturer at MIT's Mechanical Engineering Department. He received his PhD in 1998 from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

(Ref: http://blogs.cornell.edu/theessentials/2010/09/27/blue-ribbon-fabber/)

Do you find Twitter hard to follow?

Now there is a cool tool to help you get an overview of your favorite topics. Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. "Newspapers" can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag and you can browse lists created by others. You don't even need a twitter account yourself to use paper.li, just click on any of the links below to try it out.

"The netfabb Daily" "The 3dprinting Daily"

Start preparing for halloween and make things that glows in the dark. With the new Makerbot ABS material you can build things that glow in a neon green color when you turn the lights out. The material is whitish-green color and you "charge" it near a light source before you put it in the dark.

DIN, the German body of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), has submitted a proposal to ISO for a new standard on additive manufacturing - rapid technologies (rapid prototyping). The standard would cover the principal considerations that apply to the design, fabrication, and assessment of parts produced by additive fabrication. A number of additive manufacturing technologies are described in the proposal but it should be noted that some technologies such as for example Electron Beam Melting are not mentioned. Still not too late to get in there though, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) invites all interested stakeholders to submit comments on the proposal by November 5, 2010.

Further reading:

DIN proposal

News release from ANSI

While putting the last bits and pieces together for TCT Live 2010 in Coventry, UK, next week we figured it would be interesting to interview the people behind the show to get some valuable industry comments and what we can expect from the show. Duncan Wood has been In the TCT arena since 1997. He is now Publisher of The TCT Magazine and Managing Director of the Rapid News Events Group which includes TCT Live, MM Live UK and Interplas. This is what he has to say about TCT Live 2010:

Why should anyone visit TCT Live2010?
If you want to get the lowdown on 3DP and AM then there is no better event. All the major players will be there exhibiting and then add to that the extensive free conference and seminar program (http://www.tctmagazine.com/x/conference.html) and you really can't go wrong! It's rare to be able to get this level of intelligence and access to experts with no fees or charges, but we believe in driving technology adoption and no fee means one less barrier to entry for the engineer or designer.
Do you expect a lot of people?
Last year we had just over 3500 people through the doors over the two days, we are never happy to stand still and hope to push this on to 4000 for 2010. Pre Registration is strong and we look good to deliver on this.

Is there anything new compared with last year?
Always ;-) TCT is representative of an evolving sector and as such we must consistently strive to re-invigorate the event every year. We are particularly excited about the new Additive Manufacturing Tech Briefs Session. Here all major vendors have been invited to present their latest developments in short sharp presentations, which will give the buyer an instant snapshot of what is hot and imminent from each of them. It's a great way to start evaluating a purchase. We also have a display from the Bloodhound SCC team (www.bloodhoundssc.com) who are designing a car to make an attempt on the world land speed record. They are actually aiming for 1000mph! Mark Chapman who is the Chief Engineer will Keynote Day Two of the Additive Manufacturing Conference. Esteemed US commentator Todd Grimm also makes an appearance as Day One Keynote and is well worth listening to, he inspires people with his vision for 3DP and AM.

What do you see as the most significant trends in the 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing industry?
If I may steal a term from Cathy Lewis at 3D Systems, it is "Democratisation". The opening up of the 3DP and AM world to the masses. There is a long way to go but there are so many individuals in this industry who are committed to the cause that we are seeing some real traction now, the growing amount of mainstream media coverage is a great indicator of this.

What do you think about the next 2-3 years? Who knows?
;-) 3 years ago would we be talking about Hewlett Packard in the 3DP industry or 3D Systems acquiring BfB? These weren't even on the radar 12 months ago. I think we'll continue to see a proliferation of 3DP, more users and a broader base of people who "get" it. The idea of a 3D Printer in every home is romantic but impractical. I think we'll see more operations like Shapeways spring up where you can choose to have something printed but don't have to design it yourself which of course is the real barrier to the printer in every home argument. On the industrial side the materials and process development will continue to move at pace and we'll see more and more uses in areas previously thought to be beyond AM. It's exciting times but then I've been in this industry since 1997 and I can't remember a time when it wasn't. I guess that is why I am still here! As for TCT Live in the future, look out for some very exciting news about 2011, we have some major announcements to come over the next few days.

As exhibitor I must say that we really appreciate the moderately priced WiFi connections at the show floor, do you expect a lot of real-time social media interaction during the show?
I hope so! I was at IMTS recently which is a massive event and social media seemed to be starting to take off. I'm not sure the B2B market has fully grasped the potential yet. The marketeers have of course and the media too but it will only really take off when the end users, your clients and our readers and visitors start using these routes to access their information all the time. That said I get the feeling that maybe just round the corner, there has been plenty of chatter in the twittersphe#tctlivere this week about the event and we'll obviously use these routes to report in real time from Coventry. The official twitter feed is @tctlive and of course @thetctmagazine will be reporting on the action too. Hashtag is #tctlive. I trust @netfabb to be very active as well.

Technology is all around us and growing at an increasing rate. It affects all of us, no matter of age or income. A recent New York Times article even determined that the iPhone was the the Toddlers' favorite toy.

That would indicate that it is now more important than ever to be teaching the students of today about the technologies of tomorrow, but the Swedish Technology Delegation recently determined that student interest in science and technology is too low to meet future needs.

Can 3D Printing be a tool to change that?

If you ask me, the answer is "Absolutely!" - The new low cost 3D Printing systems available make investments in a 3D printer very realistic for most schools and the use of 3D printers in education is now beginning to spread with many examples of excellent results. 3D printing systems can be used for a number of studies and students can easily design things with free programs like Google SketchUp, and manufacture the designs in the class room with the aid of a 3D printer. The free netfabb Studio Basic software provide the basic editing capabilities needed to modify design files and prepare builds. The software is developed with the purpose of democratizing 3D printing and to make it available to the masses where schools and students is a primary user group.

There are a number of articles with success stories of using 3D printing in schools at different levels. Please continue reading below if you want to follow up on the subject.

3D Printers In Education
3D Printing Skyrockets Elementary Students Design Skills
Printing Power: Justin Urke (11) builds 3D printer
8th Graders Tap Into 3D Printing's Educational Power
North Somerset education authority given revolutionary 3D printer
MakerBot Teacher Giveaway!
The LEGO 3D Printer – Build Your Own MakerLegoBot
3D Printing the Missing Link to Engage, Advance Tomorrow's Engineers

As a follow up to the blog post "Making Me" a month ago I finally got down to edit the footage and compile a video of the build. Everything is real time and the build took about three hours to complete. The original face scan was made by Shapeshot at RAPID 2010. The raw scan data was converted to STL, cut to the desired limits and combined with a rectangular base plate using netfabb Studio Professional. The machine is a modified RapMan reprap machine and it is powered by an experimental version of a netfabb Engine.

The German TV channel BR featured a section about FabLab Munich this week. Almost 15 minutes of 3D printers and views of the future and even a small part on netfabb Studio for handling of 3D models. 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing is getting more and more into mainstream media which is a good sign that a general audience get to know the wonders of making things with layer-by-layer manufacturing.

View the show at http://on3.de/element/6893/mittwoch-24-november-2010-on3-suedwild-aus-eggenfelden#. The fablab part begins after about 40 minutes and netfabb is at 42 minutes and 30 seconds.

Euromold open at 9 am today and we were happy to welcome Terry Wohlers as our first visitor. Terry had a chance to be the first visitor to try out an amazing new feature in netfabb Studio Basic and netfabb Studio Professional that allows for 3D Stereographic view of STL file, a useful and cool way to view your parts.

Is this possibly the most beautiful chair ever 3D Printed?

Using a classical chair design as a basis, the transformation into an intricate pattern of structures was made by David Schäfer using the netfabb Selective Space Structures (3S) software. Total design time around 5 hours.

We had a great and busy Euromold 2010 in a snowy Frankfurt last week. The booth was packed from early morning until late, some days evening long after official closing time. Interacting with customers and prospects in the casual atmosphere of an Exibition like Euromold is a great way to exchange ideas and brainstorm about the future.

The positive response for netfabb Studio Professional continue to prove the need for an affordable solution for advanced mesh handling, file fixing and slicing. The Selective Space Structure tree was in our booth as always, and is certainly one of the largest pieces ever built with Additive Manufacturing. Selective Space Structures can radically widen the properties of a basic material, just like in nature. Nature has very few materials and it creates structures instead, Selective Space Structures is the tool to make it happen.

netfabb Cloud Solutions is the server based solution for automatic handling of 3D data. Used for example by Shapeways, it automatically analyses and corrects build files uploaded to the website. For businesses with a large flow of incoming data, the Cloud Solutions can significantly reduce the costs for manual checking and correction.

Once again, thank you for visiting our booth and help us make Euromold 2010 a big success!

A Proxy server is needed in several network environments for giving netfabb Studio access to the World Wide Web, in order to

• Check for new versions
• Get updates
• Authenticate trial version capabilities

Below is a quick tutorial for setting up a proxy server in netfabb Studio.

For changing the proxy settings, open the settings dialog..

… and you are able to set your specific proxy parameters in the upcoming dialog. The type and the address of the server depends on your local configuration and can be asked for at your IT department.

A very interesting approach to generate a 3D face model out of a simple image - and adding parameterized custom changes.

More information can be found at the authors' websites:

http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~blanz/

http://informatik.unibas.ch/personen/vetter_t.html

BBC News featured Hod Lipson demonstrating a bio-printer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC.

Full story at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12507034

Researchers in the U.S. have developed a method to produce small antennas using a 3D printing method on curved surfaces. The antenna consists of an ink made of silver nanoparticles, which is applied using a fine nozzle onto an hemisperical glasssubstrate. The antenna can be printed on various surfaces in any forms so it is possible to print for example a meander antenna on a sphere or a hollow sphere.

Printing with metallic inks is an attractive way manufacture three-dimensional electrically small antennas, explains Project Manager Jennifer A. Lewis from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of three-dimensional printed antennas on curved surfaces."

According to the researchers, antennas for different frequencies or for different sized devices can be made. This included flexible, implantable antennas, or wearable antennas. The researchers have presented their development in the German journal Advanced Materials. (wp)

Cover courtesy of Advanced Materials Vol. 23 No. 11, March 18, 2011. Cover design by T. Malkowski and R. Durdle (Beckman Institute ITG), University of Illinois.

References:

German article at http://www.golem.de/1103/82168.html

Advanced Materials Journal http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.v23.11/issuetoc

I had the chance to visit Makerbot at the Botcave on 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn just over a week ago. It was great to meet Bre Pettis and Adam Mayer and talk about 3D printing, software and netfabb. They are all great fans of our free netfabb Studio Basic software and we had a good discussions about netfabb software and were the 3D Printing industry is heading.

Makerbot is an amazing company. The company was founded in 2009 based on hardcore open-source principles. Makerbot have been named as one of the top 20 startups in New York City, and have been featured in numerous international publications including Wired, Make: Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the Economist and others.

Adam Mayer and Bre Pettis.

The Botcave at 87 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

Back in the office after attending the EOS International Users Meeting in Bad Wörishofen in Germany last week. The EOS Users Meeting featured record attendance and two days packed with interesting presentations running in parallel sessions. Technical presentations were mixed with views from the market and information about new development and new products from EOS. Plenty of opportunities for networking in the evenings and lunches made this an excellent information-sharing event. Many netfabb users run EOS machines which made this a very valuable event from a netfabb point of view. netfabb presented twice on lightweight structures for osseointegration using our Selective Space Structures (3S) Software.

The Users Meeting was concluded with a panel discussion about the future about Additive Manufacturing. Not surprisingly it was concluded that productivity and cost per part are the key factors to focus on in order to reach mainstream manufacturing using additive technologies. As part of EOS's objective to become more customer focused the management team launched the brave move to let the audience vote on their opinions about the performance of EOS, its customer handling and the ranking of EOS versus other systems suppliers. Good results for EOS that truly confirms that they are working in the right direction but nonetheless there are still things to do in some areas.

This is a brilliant short video from Oak Ridge National Laboratory of Additive Manufacturing in titanium using Electron Beam Melting in an Arcam A2 machine.

3D Printing Surfboards by the Mythbusters Team. Traditional hand shaping is out, 3D printing is in, who's going to print the first full size board?

Ref: MythBusters: How 3D Printers Work - At NASA, Kari Byron uses a 3D printer to create an exact small-scale replica of a surfboard for the testing of a Lethal Weapon 2 scene.

Original link: http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-how-3d-printers-work.html

Is this one of the coolest things ever 3D Printed?

Well, this ultra-high-tech stealthy unmanned combat air vehicle is not entirely 3D printed but the Phantom Ray is part of Boeings efforts to use Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing in manufacturing in order to reduce the amount of tools and to cut lead time from idea to thing to an absolute minimum.

The Boeing Phantom Ray made its first flight on April 27, 2011, at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The vehicle has a length of 10.9 m, wingspan of 15.2 m and a maximum speed of Mach 0.85. A video of the maiden flight is available in the links below.

Links & references:

Discovery News - Phantom Ray Drone Completes First Flight http://news.discovery.com/tech/phantom-ray-drone-completes-first-flight-110504.html

Fox News - Boeing's Next-Gen Drone 'Phantom Ray' Takes Maiden Flight http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/05/boeings-gen-drone-phantom-ray-takes-maiden-flight/

Gizmodo - Boeing Phantom Ray: The Future of Unmanned Terror in the Sky: http://gizmodo.com/#!5798126/boeing-phantom-ray-the-future-of-unmanned-terror-in-the-sky

MediaBlitzDIR - YouTube video from the rollout in St Louis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEqBvvvSgK0

MediaBlitzDIR - Boeing Phantom Ray 1st Flight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FBaryVzqys

Do you want to know what's cooking in the 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing Industry?

For years people have been reading the Wohlers Report to find the latest info about the state of the Additive Manufacturing (AM) and 3D Printing industry. Released yesterday, this year's 270-page report, considered by many to be the industry's "Bible," marks its 16th consecutive year of publication.

According to Wohlers Report 2011, the AM industry recovered strongly from the global economic recession. The last year have seen an explosive growth of low-cost "personal" systems that support the do-it-yourself "maker movement and there is a rapidly increasing use of these technologies for the production of end-use products.

Wohlers Associates report that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of revenues produced by all AM products and services in 2010 was 24.1%. In 2009, the industry declined by 9.7%. The CAGR for the industry's 23-year history is an impressive 26.2%.

Wohlers Associates expect the industry to continue its strong double-digit growth over the next several years and conservatively forecasts industry-wide growth to be $3.1 billion by 2016 and $5.2 billion by 2020.

More info at http://wohlersassociates.com/index.html

We just managed to set up the booth for RAPID 2011 in Minneapolis, USA. The exposition opens on Tuesday 11.30 so we feel well prepared.

I also had a chance to sit down and have a chat with Gary Mikola, SME Event Manager for RAPID 2011. Gary was enthusiastic about this year's event and he reported that attendance is up again confirming a three year growth trend. A total of 1470 attendants are preregistered so far. The majority of the visitors are from the USA but there are pre-registered visitors from a total of 28 countries making RAPID an international event.

RAPID 2011 begins with workshops on Monday May 23 and the Conference and Exhibition runs Tuesday through Thursday May 24-26. Some companies also combine RAPID with customer arrangements and sales meetings. EOS arranges their EOS North American Users Day tomorrow on Monday May 23.

Do make room in your calendar to visit RAPID 2011 if you have a chance and make netfabb your first stop. Our booth number is 1024 which is near the entrance on the right.

RAPID 2011 will be a bustling market place with a lot of news and gossip. To stay tuned please follow netfabb on twitter for the latest news directly from the show floor. We will tweet using hashtag #RAPID2011.

Show Hours

• Tuesday, May 24: 11:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with Networking Reception on the show floor betweem 4:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
• Wednesday, May 25: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
• Thursday, May 26: 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Event information at www.sme.org/rapid

Booth set up, software running, the RAPID 2011 Exposition open in half an hour.

I just got back from my 10^th RAPID, this year held in Minneapolis, USA. Organized by The Society of Manufacturing Engineers, RAPID is always a bustling show with both old and new faces. Once being the only exhibition in the USA showcasing additive manufacturing technologies, RAPID is now challenged by many different events competing for the marketing budgets of companies in 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing.

I had a lot of interesting discussions and meetings but one that really struck me was a discussion about the maker culture versus professional Additive Manufacturing. A few times I expressed a comment that somehow SME and the steering committee of RAPID need to better activate the makers community for RAPID. As an example I pointed out that the Maker Fair in San Francisco Bay are attracted some 100,000 visitors while RAPID despite record attendance only reached a few percent of that. Admittedly, the Maker Faire is a different kind of event but the comparison is not totally irrelevant. On a couple of occasions I was met with the perception that "Makers" are predominately for "Hobbyists" and represent no real business interest for professional Additive Manufacturing. Terry Wohlers expressed great fascination by the makers community and pointed out during his presentation the explosive growth of low-cost 3d printing systems. Andy Jefferey was very straight-forward in a tweet after the show saying "SME's Rapid show is in danger of becoming irrelevant in the wake of the maker revolution". He was instantly replied that "Makers are for hobbyists, Additive Mfg is for real product dev."

So how does the makers community fit into the arena of professional Additive Manufacturing?

Let's make a distinction between "makers" as representatives of the makers culture and "manufacturers" as representatives of professional additive manufacturing. I would argue that makers and manufacturers are both parts of the explosive interest in additive manufacturing and the beginning of a manufacturing revolution. Makers and manufacturers simply represent different ends of a sliding scale with high-end additive manufacturing such as metal additive manufacturing on one end and reprap and makerbot users on the other.

At netfabb we offer software tailored for additive manufacturing and 3d printing and we cater to both makers and manufacturers. Most of the makers and hobbyists we know personally are well-educated creative individuals and many of them have a purchasing power to privately invest thousands of dollars in their passion of making stuff with 3d printing. Their output spans a wide range of applications including art, jewelry, home appliances, robotics, consumer accessories, model aircraft, 3d printers etc. This is a fantastic melting pot of ideas. These makers are far from insignificant and once in a while their work turns into real business.

Some examples how the makers play an important role in professional manufacturing

• Many universities invest in both high-end additive manufacturing equipment as well as low-end Reprap 3d printers. Makers or manufacturers? – The universities train the next generation of manufacturing engineers and product designers with a mix of high and low end additive manufacturing. Their activities are crucial for the prosperity and growth of professional manufacturing.
  
• Shapeways combine high-end additive manufacturing for equipment and the makers community as customers. Shapeways cater to consumer, hobbyists and professionals alike, with the common factor of a need for 3D printed stuff. With tens of thousands of uploads per month Shapeways is hardly insignificant and connects people with ideas with professional manufacturing resources in an excellent way.
  
• Many small businesses invest in low-end 3d printing and use Makerbots and RepRap machines to support their daily business. This is identical to how the large companies 20 years ago dealt with the then fairly basic rapid prototyping machines but the technology is now available also within the constraints of running a small business.
  
• Professional Additive Manufacturing has been around for over 20 years but the hype of additive manufacturing and 3d printing in mainstream media happened after the low-end 3d printers and makers community came about. The last month, Brooklyn based start-up Makerbot has been featured in, amongst others, New York Times, Financial Times, CNN and Wired Magazine. Makerbot is shipping hundreds of machines every month thereby contributing significantly to the growth 3d printing.

The makers community represents the largest growth in number of users as well as machines that the additive manufacturing industry have ever seen. Stratasys was early in identifying the need for low-cost 3d printers with their Dimension machines and their partnership with HP. 3D Systems went even further with Bits-from-Bytes representing the makers at RAPID 2011. Bits-from-Bytes in itself is a fascinating story of how a makers oriented start-up ended up on the New York Stock Exchange in less than a year.

netfabb develops products for both makers and manufacturers as well as everyone in between. Our products range from free up to tens of thousands of dollars, so we clearly see that a wide range of users can be served - without excluding anybody for any reason. We are driven by a genuine interest in additive manufacturing and 3d printing combined with a fascination of what can be achieved with this revolutionizing technology in the hands of masses.

The makers community will create a huge market in itself but also become a seeding ground for professional additive manufacturing. The makers revolution is a crucial element for the rapid growth of the Additive Manufacturing industry as a whole for hardware, content as well as applications.

Japanese Scientists have developed a touch-simulation for holograms by using microwaves. Just imagine to preview and feel your object before pressing the "Print" button.

Source: http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_asia/2009-09-16/163021253061.html

Bre Pettis, co-founder of Makerbot Industries, featured in The Colbert Report. The top maker to get 3D Printing into mainstream media.

Thanks Bre!

Original link: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/388966/june-08-2011/bre-pettis

Currently on show at the Royal College of Art, you can find the MA Design Products student project Solar Sinter by Markus Kayser. Solar Sinter is a project running an environmentally friendly 3D Printer powered by the sun and fed by sand. The video show the testing in theSahara desert near Siwa, Egypt.

Markus Kayser - Solar Sinter Project from Markus Kayser on Vimeo.

The project is on show at the Royal College of Art graduate exhibition June 24 to July 3, 2011, at Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London.

This time a video in German. It does not contain very much exciting new information for the interested reader of 3D Printing Blogs. But it is astonishing that one of the major print and TV magazines are featuring 3D printing that offensive and in a broad scale - Covering applications of structured implants, cooling channels in tooling - and finally the Makerbot.

On several occasions, I have heard people saying, that all the talking about "Additive Manufacturing" is way too technical for the masses. And they are so right: 3D Printing is extremely descriptive and capable for driving the whole technology into mainstream.

This is a tutorial for repairing an STL file representing a jewellery ring. The part has typical errors which emerge when CAD files are converted into STL. So, it is a perfect example to demonstrate how you can use netfabb Studio Professional to easily overcome recurrent challenges during the preparation of files for 3D printing.

First, select the part and start the repair module. The part consists of many shells, which shall be unified and repaired. Many surfaces are inverted (marked in red).

In the Tabsheet (register Status) of the repair, you can see that the part consists of 238 Shells and has 142 holes. Many triangles have an invalid orientation.

Go to the tabsheet register "Shells", sort the shells by the number of triangles and select all shells which have only one triangle. Hit "Delete" on your keyboard to remove them.

Go to the register "Actions". Stitch triangles, then close trivial holes, then close all holes. The meshes of the shells are now watertight.

Click on "Fix flipped triangles". All shells now have a valid orientation. One shell is still inverted. Select that shell (mode: select shells) and then invert selected triangles.

You now have no holes and no inverted triangles, but still 165 shells. Remove Self-Intersections. This unifies all shells and deletes all interior surfaces. Two noise shells are left. Select them in the shell list and remove them (as above).

Now, you have one watertight and valid shell. Apply the repair.

It is always a great pleasure seeing kids get involved in 3D printing and technology and a couple of weeks ago the Laurel Highlands Council Boy Scouts of America organized a High Tech Camp near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States.

To get the Scouts interested in Math and Science, several companies donated the use of equipment for the camp. netfabb donated seats of netfabb Studio Professional so that the Boy Scouts could clean-up STL files that they download from the Internet. MakerBot Industries donated a "Thing-O-Matic" 3D Printer so that the Scouts could "print" 3-D items of their own design at the Camp. In addition Next Engine has loaned them a 3-D Scanner, and Delcam provided three licenses of their ArtCam Pro software to use as well.

The Advancement Camp was a TREMENDOUS SUCCESS! The Scouts really enjoyed using the netfabb software and working with the MakerBot 3D Printer.

The scouts and their leaders found that netfabb Studio was indispensable in fixing the STLs that were created by other applications. The Scout's were fascinated by the ease that they could create using the netfabb Studio primitives. They really had a great time designing in 3D. In addition to using netfabb to unleash the Scout's creative processes, the Scouts also used Google Sketchup and DelCam's ArtCam software.

Based on the success of the camp, the Laurel Highlands Council is going to do this again at a council wide camporee in September. They are also going to organize a Merit Badge Course using the netfabb / MakerBot / Fab Lab Concept to teach "Model Building and Design Merit Badge" (http://usscouts.org/usscouts/mb/mb075.asp) in November / December and again in the spring of 2012.

Keynote presentation at SIGGRAPH 2011 in Vancouver by Cory Doctorow talking about copyright rules in a digital age.

Cory Doctorow is the author of several books including Makers, a freely downloadable novel set in a near-future based on a Maker subculture and 3D Printing . Cory Doctorow is also co-editor of the blog Boing-Boing as well as contributor to well known publications such as The Guardian, New York Times and Wired.

A video demonstration of netfabb Mobile from RAPID 2011 in Minneapolis. Many thanks to Scott Volk at GPI Prototype for making an excellent demo. netfabb Mobile for Android can be downloaded at https://market.android.com/details?id=netfabb.mobile.

Take a look at this cool 3D printing technology!

Electron Beam Melting (EBM) is an Additive Manufacturing method for 3D Printing of parts in real titanium alloys. The material is super-strong and the parts can be used for high-demanding applications like race cars, space ships, aircrafts or human implants. The EBM process takes place in vacuum and NASA even look at it as a candidate for manufacturing in space!

Check out the video below to peak inside the EBM process when running.

A short talk on current research on self-assembling machines:

To follow-up their recent purchase of a second EBM machine, Dr Ryan Wicker and Frank Medina from The W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation at University of Texas El Paso was on a quick visit to Sweden and we met for a meal and a hike on a great day near the ocean on the Swedish West Coast.

The W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation (Keck Center), is a premier biomedical, engineering, and advanced manufacturing facility that relies on the development and creative use of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. The Center's additive manufacturing capabilities have grown from one machine in 2000 to 35 machines today.

Discussing Additive Manufacturing during a hike in the nature is actually not a bad idea. Following the billions of years with single-cell life on the planet, nature quickly got into layered manufacturing and structures when it decided to become multi-cell. Trees, plants, bone and sea-shells are all built up in layers and structures and provide amazing inspiration for creation of designs that take full advantage of Additive Manufacturing Technologies. I am sure there will soon be some Selective Space Structures designs printed in El Paso that are influenced by the beauty and functionality of nature.

The build-up day is also a great opportunity to casually meet friends in the market and get the latest gossip. Mcor Technologies featured an inspirational flower-power booth advertising free-D printing and they are launching a new business model tomorrow at 11 am.

ES Technologies will do the UK Launch of the M-Lab Cusing machine from Concept Laser at TCT Live. Priced at only €150,000 and with dental quality Cobalt-Chromium it looks like a very interesting product. Build size 50x50, 70x70 or 90x90 mm.

Lars Ryberg at Arcam was in a good mood after their recent sale of a second EBM machine to University of Sheffield and I also got a chance to speak with Z-Corporation, 3D Systems, fCubic and many others.

The TCT show looks good this year and it has not even started!

TCT Live 2011 is going great with plenty of visitors and many good discussions. For those of you who are unable to attend, here is a brief video from the first day below. If you are here don't miss netfabb in booth F12.

Audi design project by Stephan Jubt Rasmussen featuring netfabb Selective Space Structures (3S).

More info at: http://stephanjubt.blogspot.com/

While this is not exactly related with 3D Printing, it is so awesome, that we have to share it with you. Together with free-form-manufacturing technologies, this technology could end up in a completely new era. But watch yourself:

(via http://ai2001.ifdef.jp/)

These days we are seeing more and more business targeting the consumer market with 3D printing technologies. Apart from Shapeways, one very prominent example is FigurePrints of former Microsoft Vice President Ed Fries.

Also relatively new seems to be Miniature Moments, a UK-based company that prints pictures as relief images on an Objet system. Together with a backlight, these have a unique and fancy look. The pricepoint of 30€/40$ is suitable for the mass market, and the design looks very professional and clean.

It will be interesting to see if they can compete against large services, which have started offering creators to do similar things, but with a broad media attention.

(via miniaturemoments.com and vimeo)

Great first day at Euromold 2011. Plenty of visitors and many interesting discussions. For those of you who have not yet visited us we are in Hall 11, booth E108. Welcome!

The 3D home printer market is booming. There are for sure the big brands in this market like Makerbot, BitsFromBytes and Ultimaker. But each week, a new venture is starting up, trying to achieve the breakthrough for personal manufacturing.

The very renowned main stream publication PC Magazine visited one of them, namely Buildatron Systems in Brooklyn. It came out a very nice imaged article, describing 3D printing for a very general audience. And it occurs, that netfabb Studio Basic and our Reprap Engine are mentioned extensively. Thank you PC Magazine!

via PCMag.com

We always look ahead for the next industrial revolution triggered through Additive Manufacturing. But this is not the single aspect, which will transform our future dramatically. Aldebaran Robotics for example started to venture with huge efforts into mainstream robotic applications:

Equipped with some million dollars from Intel, its ambitions are huge, and the possibilities seem to be endless:

We are looking forward to see a completely changed world in 2025. Will there be 3D printed personal assistents for everyone? Probably with individual sizes, look and feel? Or even self-replicating?

Flip Books are awesome. With 3D printing, they get into a new dimension, as Tobias Krawutschke impressively demonstrates:

via Shapeways, drehkino.de

Recently we have quoted a keynote speech of Cory Doctorow at SIGGRAPH, where he talked extensively about copyright and its implications in a digital age. Now, at the background of the recent skirmishes on copyright issues in the US (SOPA), he envisions a far wider skope of battle, that will deeply shape our future. Following his conclusion "Copyright is not important to almost anyone", he outlines scary consequences of upcoming technologies like 3D Printing - which finally will cause lawmakers to regulate the central driver of modern day life: Access to "General Purpose Computers". As you will find out, already today these are evil and dangerous, and more scary than any Hollywood Movie ever has imagined.

via craphound.com

We want to feature a wonderful 3D printing example on Thingiverse. Taylor Alexander used his Ultimaker to upgrade his small helicopter from Amazon with new blades. Usually low-cost printers are not expected to produce real functional parts, but due to their recent evolution, this assumption seems to be proven wrong. The build quality of the Ultimaker is more than sufficient for creating light-weight functional helicopter blades. And they work perfectly, as documented on youtube:

via Thingiverse (#16356)

Two weeks ago we showed you a maker video of how to combine the concept of flip books with 3D printing - with an awesome result. Of course large animation studios work with that technique as well. Sony Pictures for example used it in their latest animation movie: „The Pirates! Band of Misfits". In order to make the little plastic figures talk, over 8,000 mouths had to be built. By the use of a EnvisionTEC Perfactory Standard UV DLP printer, they managed to speed up the progress tremendously (click to read more!).

Pixar, on the other hand, has brought its figures to live in an impressive and huge format:

via FOX, Youtube

The new Swedish initiative Your 3D Print Sweden AB is providing wedding couples the opportunity to save the very special day with a personalized 3D print. Based on 9 digital photos that are converted to a 3D model the company can make 120 mm high (4") cake toppers of the wedding couple.

"The wedding industry is one of the largest consumer markets and we identified this niche as having high potential for 3D Printing" says Anders Sjöberg, co founder of Your 3D Print Sweden AB and Digital Mechanics.

Your 3D Print Sweden is meeting the market for the first time at a Swedish Wedding Exhibition in Stockholm January 28-29. We wish them the best of luck. May the company live happily ever after.

More info at www.your3dprint.se

The Pirate Bay is famous for it's central role in the copyright dilemma of our age. And most internet users have downloaded there at least once already, or know about the possibilities of P2P sharing software. So far, the main targets have been digital goods, like videos, software and music.

But that is beginning to change. TPB now offers a new category, called "Physibles": three-dimensional data from private users who make their ideas available to the world.

The Pirates give high credit to 3D printing: "We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare parts for your vehicles," they proclaim. "The benefit to society is huge. [...] We'll be able to print food for hungry people. We'll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal." And now The Pirate Bay sees itself as part of this "evolution" by providing a platform and making these files accessible. On the other hand, with Thingiverse there exists already a huge repository for open source designs on the web - as well as a number of commercial platforms.

Will there soon be pirated Gucci Shoes? Scanned and copied Designer Gadgets? Since "The Pirate Bay" is not known for looking too much over copyright and trademark issues, it will be interesting to see the further impact - which will certainly increase while 3D printers become available everywhere.

Or - even more probable: Will the availability of copyrighted shared 3D content be the final breakthrough for personal Additive Manufacturing? MP3 players at their beginning certainly would not have been that successful without the availability of copied music from the net for free. Or will the industry now first start provide an iTunes service, as Cubify is trying to start these days.

These developments will at least be very interesting to watch closely.

freewaregenius.com is a great website for those, who need to have an eye on their wallet. It talks about, evaluates and recommends free software. For example, you get to learn about racing games and translation programs, at no cost for you. It lately published a nice article about netfabb Studio Basic! We're glad that so many people from the most different topic areas discuss on us. Greets to freewaregenius! Read more.

via freewaregenius

When you first come across Lytro's new camera, you might not really notice it at once. We have to admit, it appears to be too small and looks too modest to include something remarkable. But it would be a hugh mistake to just walk (or click) by and forget about it.

We consider it's worth taking a closer look. This 1.61 in x 1.61 in x 4.41 in small gadget does not capture just a single plane of light, but the entire light field, which means that one picture takes color, intensity and direction of all the light. Like this, if you want to take a snapshot, you don't lose time focusing since you don't need an auto-focus motor. And you can focus and re-focus the picture after you took it. The following two screenshots are actually made from only one photo. (Get a taste of it here.)

This means, of course, that those photos aren't supposed to be printed and sticked into one of those photoalbums from the olden days. But you can work with them digitally, which might get really interesting for us: The camera, as we said above, not only captures the color and intensity, but also the vector direction of the rays of light. So this actually works like a CT-scanner! Absorption profiles of the objects are being created from many directions and then the volume structure is rebuilt. You wouldn't have to buy an extra device but use your photo camera in order to get 3D models. This might save a lot of time and money for future 3D printing!

via Lytro, Inc. and Youtube

Are you tired of buying all things for your home at those impersonal furniture giants? Well, you don't have to be. Just take a look at the latest project of our customer Joachim Strerath. He's an early-retired and he was looking for a challenging new hobby. He chose to learn how to create things three-dimensionally and got himself his own 3D-printer and netfabb Studio Professional.

Browsing through Google, he found a sketchup file of the Statue of Liberty. "I had the idea to print it and to use the statue as an illuminated sculpture for my living room," he says. He hollowed the statue and cut it into pieces, so that they were suitable for his printer. "With netfabb, that was really easy to do."

When the job had finished, he bought an ordinary inspecion lamp - the ones you use for repairing cars. "I prepared the lamp, so only the electronics and the 8 watt neon tube were left and added a hand switch to the cable. Then I assembled all the loose parts - and finished was my very special, unique living room lamp!" he explains with a hint of pride.

We think this is a great new way of using our software and we're impressed by the creativity of our customers. If you are curious about Joachim or about other projects, visit our case study website!

Sarat Babu and Richard Becket at BREAD Ltd are showcasing a project carried out with netfabb Selective Space Structures at the Surface Design Show in London. Launched in 2004 Surface Design Show is a leading event for Architects and Interior Designers to find innovative surface solutions for the built environment..

Cilia is a double sided surface tile, constructed from over 50,000 0.5-0.8mm hairs laid onto a 1.5mm core printed as a single piece of Nylon using Selective Laser Sintering. Varying the thickness and length of each individual fibre, Cilia, reacts to air and light casting complex shadows while also being selectively soft to touch.

Produced using netfabb Selective Space Structures, Cilia pushes the limits of SLS technology and material / shape modelling.

For more information on the process of design check out BREAD's blog post.

There's a lot of stuff on the internet. Some of it we like, some of it we don't. Anyway, for a long time there hasn't been any chance to give credit to the services you cherish. Then Peter Sunde, co-founder of the torrent search engine The Pirate Bay, launched flattr two years ago and invented a simple way to pay a small obolus for content you enjoy and would like to reward.

Maybe you are already one of our netfabb Cloud users? The Cloud is a server based solution for the automatic processing of large volumes of 3D data. We're very proud that we can offer this service for free! But if you're happy with it, we would feel flattered by finding your appreciation via flattr!

via flattr, Youtube

As we're always looking for inspiring new 3D printing projects, we came across something really interesting on thingiverse.com today and we'd like to share it. You might have read our blog entry about 3D printed helicopter blades some weeks ago, but now we've found a whole printed heli! It's creator – Peter from Sweden – called it PL1Q Vampire. „Because it looks evil," he explaines - and he's absolutely right, don't you think? Take a look at it!

via thingiverse, youtube

The last two days, we had a nice visit from Martijn, Siert and Florian from Ultimaking Ltd., which brought us a new updated version of their awesome open source kit Ultimaker.

We used the time to improve a lot of details in our Engine for Ultimaker - which will increase the ease of use and the print quality significantly. Also the MacOS X Version - as beta version used to miss some features until now - has become ready for primetime.

Thanks to the three guys for taking the long way to us through ice and snow, and we are happy to release a new version 4.9 soon, with a bunch of unseen features.

Stay tuned and don't miss the newest update!

A fascinating type of Additive Manufacturing is used by Harvard's SEAS Robobee Project. In order to pursue their reasearch goals in swarm intelligence they had to master the difficulty of mass-producing small scale robotic insects in high numbers - and they came up with a fantastic solution that envisions a future direction in Additive Manufacturing:

Adding 18 layers of different materials, they combined the building of linkages, electronics and geometry into one automated pruduction scaffold. The final assembly is done by folding the construction like a children's popup-book:

These principles takes the concept of Additive Manufacturing to a completely new level. Fully functional micro-robots out of your 3D printer are not that impossible as it sounds. Just check out the explanatory video.

The question is, if this does not again turn out to be a scary Pandora's Box. Not to imagine, if anybody could easily build his own fleet of robotic insects for a reasonable price. As Cory Doctorow recently pointed out in a visionary speech, the scary social and political impacts of these technologies have not even been outlined by Hollywood Movies yet.

via Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

In this fantastic TED-Talk, the founder of MAKE Magazine describes the maker movement, and gives wonderful examples of what people can do on their own. Get inspired:

via TED - Ideas worth spreading

Most people are terrified when the dentist tells them, that they need a surgery on their jawbone. It's something you definitely want to pass by as quickly as possible with the least amount of discomfort. Dr. Bernd Kessler, dentist and implantologist from Zurich, Switzerland, found a way to provide that by means of 3D printing.

He creates 3D files of his patients' jawbones, edits them and sends them to his RapMan 3D printer. On the models of the jawbones he can plan the surgery for dental implants. That way, he doesn't have to make any cuts through the patients' gums, because he already knows the conditions and dimensions of the jawbones. „This method of implantology keeps the risk of infection to a minimum and allows the patients to heal more quickly," Dr. Kessler explains.

When he started preparing files for 3D printing, he needed a software that was professional enough to handle medical data, which demand very high standards. „With the netfabb Engine Basic for RepRap, I've finally found a suitable and affordable software," he says. „netfabb has made it a lot easier for me to deal with 3D-data every day."

What's more to say? Nothing, really, but you should still take a closer look at Dr. Kessler's work at our case studies.

Since the number of 3D printers increases gradually, chosing the right one for each different requirement gets harder and harder. ProtoParadigm tries to add clarity. On their blog they published an article about the six most popular printers, which they had tested: Mosaic, Thing-O-Matic, Ultimaker, Replicator, Printrbot and Printrbot+.

They scrutinized the machines closely for build envelope, layer resolution, linear speed, and also for preferred plastic and price. If you're thinking about purchasing one of those printers, this article will definitely help you on that.

via ProtoParadigm

Today, we'd like to invite you to our Technology update 2012 on 30^th March in Lupburg, Germany. It will give you the chance to get some in-depth look into our company: In addition to netfabb workshops, there will be live presentations of our mother comany FIT - Fruth Innovative Technologien - which will offer you an overview of rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing techniques. You're also very welcome to the get-together party after the official events, where you can meet industry colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere. We look forward to seeing you in March!

Find further information about the Technology update 2012 and about signing up here.

ReconstructMe is a free 3D reconstruction tool for creating 3D models with a Kinect sensor for Xbox 360. ReconstructMe is being developed and maintained by enthusiastic software engineers at PROFACTOR GmbH and was released to the public only a few days ago.

Derek Quenneville is a 3D printing evangelist who posts weekly on the Ponoko blog. In his great March 1 Ponoko blog post he shares some detailed scans of a small head model that was originally part of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition package together with a Diablo action figure.

We are delighted to see that the scans were post-processed in netfabb Studio.

Full story at http://blog.ponoko.com/2012/03/01/more-3d-scanning-fun-with-reconstructme/

Follow Derek Quenneville on Twitter @techknight.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about additively created and mass produced flying insects. In this context, you can always ask, what crazy things you could do with a swarm of quadrocopters. The University of Pennsylvania gives a wonderful example: Music. Listen yourself:

via Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania

MJSA Expo New York, is a trade show for jewelry-making tools, supplies, and services, which takes place March 11-13 at the Hilton New York. It's chock-full of the latest bench tools, laser welders, casting machines, alloys, CAD/CAM systems, gemstones and beads, component parts, stamping equipment — whatever you need to make exceptional jewelry. netfabb participates at the event through our New York reseller CADBLU in booth 900.

Demonstrations of netfabb Studio Professional are available all day Sunday March 11. Please contact netfabb at info@netfabb.com to schedule an appointment.

(Image courtesy of MJSA)

CADBLU is a recent addition to the list of netfabb resellers in the USA. CADBLU is both a service bureau and a reseller of software solutions and additive manufacturing systems. CADBLU focus on the Jewelry and Dental markets. They specialize in CAD design and output of fine detailed output and have spent extensive hours in development of support and build styles specific to small detailed jewelry and other fine detailed parts.

CADBLU are based in New York City and their headquarters are at 37 West 28th Street in midtown Manhattan. They also have facilities in Glendale, CA and Hastings, MN.

Today, the Ultimaker and netfabb will be topic on one of the major German TV networks. netfabb airs on Pro7 Galileo this evening: 5th March 2012, 7pm CET.

Read more at http://www.prosieben.de/tv/galileo/zusatzinfos/themen-5-maerz-2012-1.3095686/tab-3d-drucker/

via Pro7, image courtesy of Galileo.

As announced, netfabb for Ultimaker was a topic on the major German TV network ProSieben. And the exposition was really wonderful and understandable for everyone. And we of course love the long-lasting occurance of netfabb Studio for Mac. Thanks to Andreas Kahler from FabLab Munich for the excellent presentation.

You can watch the full stream here: http://www.prosieben.de/tv/galileo/videos/clip/279462-3d-drucker-1.3097687/

via Galileo

New app from Shapeways allow you to create 3D printed objects from the shape of your own sound profile. 3D print at the speed shape of sound. Capture a voice, moment or music in seconds or upload audio you've already created and create your unique 3D printed object.

More info at http://www.shapeways.com/creator/thevibe

A short update to our recent blog post about small robots performing the James Bond Theme. Vijay Kumar gave a very enlightening talk about what exciting quadrocopter control technologies they are working on.

via TED - Ideas worth spreading and University of Pennsylvania

Additive Manufacturing with Electron Beam Melting (EBM) and netfabb Selective Space Structures featured by CNN Money with examples from robotics, aerospace and prosthetics.

Full story at: http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2012/03/15/t-ts-additive-manufacturing.cnnmoney/

As part of the FIT Group, netfabb participated in the FIT Technology Day at FIT headquarters in Parsberg in Germany. The Technology Day was arranged with parallell conference and training sessions and ended with a big party. Some 500 people attended and the event was a great success. The picture below shows all my awesome colleagues within the FIT companies. You all did a great job!

Customers, prospects and families were invited to the event and all employees had a chance to interact with our customers and prospects. netfabb had its own area during the event and hundreds of visitors stopped by for a demo and a chat with our developers.

I just participated in what must be one of the best conferences I have ever been to, the 2012 Annual Additive Manufacturing Users Group Conference (AMUG) held in Costa Mesa April 22-26, 2012. After a bold decision by the organizers to change the name from 3D Systems Users Group to the Additive Manufacturing Users Group and include all technologies in the conference the attendance almost doubled compared with previous year. The general atmosphere and willingness to share information was outstanding. Four days of in-depth technical presentations were complemented with two evenings of networking and two evenings of a Technology Expo featuring 56 exhibitors.

Next years event will be held in Jacksonville, Florida, from April 14 – 18, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville. Expect record attendance and a high level on presentations.

More info about AMUG at: http://www.additivemanufacturingusersgroup.com/index.htm

Have you ever wondered about who created the file you're printing - or about who designed the three-dimensional part you've just reproduced on your machine?

When it comes to 3D printing, "the copyright discussions of the last years seem to be only an entertaining short story," say the guys from Breitband, a program of the German radio station Deutschlandradio Kultur. "With a 3D printer in your living room, the so called 'intellectual property' turns into real, tangible property." Today, you can share movies, music and software, but in the future, that might also be figures, cups or even cars and their models. Is it possible, that lawyers won't just proceed against music piracy, but also against users, who share and download the models of the latest branded shoe?

If you know some German, you should listen to the very interesting discussion with Rüdiger Stihl and Nick Pinkston about intellectual property on Breitband's website.

If you ran out of ideas what you should print next, here's something cool we've just found: The shareware 3D Object Converter can import 3D model data from external sources and convert them into standard 3D file formats. The software supports an incredible number of 615 different file formats! So if you're into gaming for example, you can drag your favorite character from the game, import it into netfabb and let it become real on your 3D printer!

via 3d Object Converter

3D printers are no longer just a toy for a small group of DIY'ers; You can assemble one, print with it and get excellent results on the same day. But the market grows, so it's really hard to find out which machine is the best. And how can you copy and print real things?

The renowned German magazine for computer and technology c´t has published 16 pages about these questions. They present 3D scanning techniques that you can imitate with only a common digital camera or also with a Kinect camera. In a second article, they evaluate seven "magic boxes": the 3D printers 3D touch, RapMan 3.2, Replicator, Ultimaker, Protos, Felix 1.0 D and UP! netfabb is part of this in the chapter about preparing files from scanning to printing and also as engine for the Ultimaker printer. Thanks c´t magazine for mentioning us!

via c´t