Theo Jansen is an artist who makes wild animated, wind-powered robots that seem to have a life of their own. Once you set them up on a beach and let them go, they undulate, slide, and coil across the sand like some sort of steampunk gazelle. 3D printing service Shapeways is now offering two Jansen designs for sale, including a propellor-powered motor for getting your beest to move. You can purchased the pre-printed beests for about $100 and the propeller add-on for $40. They are about six inches long. Jansen will update the designs as he perfects his larger beests and upload them as they change. You can pick up your own beest here but sadly I can’t find a 3D file so you can print your own at home. → Read More
3D printing service Shapeways is useful for everything from unprecedented puzzle construction to werewolf hunting. But this time they’ve really outdone themselves.
You might remember the Strandbeests, a set of sculptures/machines that “walk” under their own power due to clever design by their creator, Theo Jansen. The originals were large and hand-made from light wood so they could move easily — but Jansen collaborated with Shapeways to put together a version that they can just print. → Read More
So, you’re a big Rubik’s cube buff. Can solve any cube in five minutes, think people who can’t are fools? Well, sounds like you need a new challenge. How about this 17x17x17 puzzle cube by puzzle designer Oskar van Deventer, and printed using Shapeways? Should keep you busy for a few years. Too bad it costs two thousand dollars, whaaat! → Read More
Are you getting a bum quote from your local silversmith for the creation of a silver knuckle duster? Me too. They just don’t understand the importance of protecting ourselves from the lycanthropic scourge. Now, however, you can get together with a 3D modeler friend and make some sweet silver accessories for those terrifying full-moon melees. → Read More
For a long time, CafePress was the major player in customized product creation on the Internet. Slowly other sites sprang up, like Zazzle, Skreened, StickerGiant, Lulu, and many more. Many of these options are novelty one-offs, though, and you’re paying for the customization, not the craftsmanship, of the product. But the success of these somewhat kitschy sites have revealed a real hunger in consumers for customized, personalized products, and a new wave of entrepreneur is capitalizing on this trend to bring customization to chocolate, men’s dress shirts, and a whole lot more.
I’ve been exchanging emails with a number of these entrepreneurs about their products, asking them all the same questions: how and why? All of them are building something that someone wants: not a one of these folks is trying to create a market where no demand exists. Many of them are also trying hard to democratize the entire purchasing process, and working to undo the homogenization of mass-produced products. → Read More
I think by now we’re all fairly familiar with Shapeways and their 3D printing system. Incidentally, you can now select glass for some 3D models at Shapeways, which is pretty cool. But the additive printing process employed by Shapeways and similar outfits (fabrication, rapid prototyping, etc) has some inherent limitations in the designs that can be printed. Researches at the University of Illinois have announced some advances in this field using folding techniques similar to origami → Read More
Shapeways are at it again, with an assortment of custom fabricated gifts available for Christmas. They ran a little contest recently, and the top three entrants are available for purchase now, including the cute “Punk Angel”, a snowflake ornament with custom message, and a snowflake candle holder. Each of these is under $30, so they’re sure to please without breaking the bank! → Read More
I know, there’s not a lot of room in the world for the stylus any more. Resistive touchscreens are on the way out, right? True, but tell that to the 766,500 Nintendo DSes sold last month. So there’s a bit of a market. Personally, I find the DS’s stock stylus a bit short — so a little extra length would be good, and I wouldn’t mind having my initials in gangster letters on it either. → Read More
You remember the object fabrication service Shapeways, right? You could take a 3D model from your Blender, Maya, or 3DSM project and turn it into a cool real-life object super easily. Now you can do the same thing with photos, even though that doesn’t make too much sense at first. No, you don’t get a copy of whatever object you took a picture of. You get a sort of weird version of the photo that kind of looks like your kid got trapped in carbonite. It’s actually kind of cool. → Read More
Do you hear me, fabulous! I found Shapeways, the online marketplace for 3D objects and models, rocking a booth full of little things their community had designed. This service is really cool, and if you’re a crafty type or decent in Maya or Blender, you should check it out. There are a couple options for materials, and the sort of amber-colored hard plastic, as you see with the face-bowl, looks beautiful when polished (plus it’s super strong). Unfortunately they don’t polish it for you, but you got two good hands, why don’t you use ‘em? → Read More
So first there was the online creation of pretty simple items like business cards and T-shirts – businesses which cut out the old middle-man way of doings things. Soon there will be a way to create and “print” objects in 3D on a mass scale, and the first of these is starting to arrive. Netherlands-based Shapeways is launching a private beta of a community for consumers wanting to create real objects. Eventually you’ll be able to share and co-create online as well. Imagine you wanted to create a 3D dummy of a new type of Web tablet. You just upload the design from some CAD software onto the site. Shapeways checks whether the object can be made and provides a real-time cost estimate. Within 10 working days, a tangible 3D product is produced and shipped globally. At the moment they only print to four kinds of plastics but other materials, like metal, are planned. To reproduce something that already exists you’d need a 3D scanner, which costs thousands. So Shapeways is actually aimed at people with 3D CAD software used by small businesses and will eventually offer its own online CAD tools. The site uses 3D industry standard file formats (STL, Collada, X3D) and the average cost of objects is $50 – $150. At the moment it looks like they are limited to desktop-sized pieces, but perhaps we’ll one day see Star-Trek-style printing of bigger objects. Shapeways is a spin-out startup from an incubator programme at Philips Electronics, in Eindhoven. The CEO is Peter Weijmarshausen, formerly of 3Dsoftware package Blender, and he has a team of 10 people. They plan to be out of private beta in a couple of months. Update: Notionally they compete with US-based Ponoko, which allows people to mass customise and make bracelets, brooches, earrings etc and items like wooden coasters. But Shapeways looks capabale of more complex modelling. TechCrunch readers can sign up for 500 beta invites here using the Beta Code: “TechCrunch100″. (Photo Credit: “Petunia” 3D object designed by Dolf J. Veenvliet, Shapeways Community Member) CrunchBase Information Shapeways Ponoko Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
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