3D printing/manufacturing company Materialise has a new 2009 series of products for .MGX : the E-volution Collection. Twelve new designs in accessories, furniture, and lighting were commissioned to seven different designers: Arik Levy, Bathsheba Grossman, Gernot Oberfell and Jan Wertel, Hani Rashid, Jiri Evenhuis, and Luc Merx.

NW: The Shaman pendant designed by Arik Levy was constructed of epoxy with stereolithography (SL) and coated in nickel. A version in black epoxy is available at Unica.

N: Mathematician and sculptor Bathsheba Grossman modeled her Gyroid lamp on a ‘minimal surface‘ structure that is infinitely connected and found in certain copolymers such as ABS plastic, a material often used in 3D printing. You can purchase one of these complex cubes at Generate.

NE & E: Stereolithography and selective laser sintering were used to make the Ubu and Roi vases, designed by Hani Rashid to evoke the motion of whirlpools. The Ubu is on sale at Moss.

SE: Peter Jansen is the mind behind the Tulip lamp. He also designed the floral inspired Julia lamp shown below, also available at Moss.

S: Luc Merx’s Stucco is a multifunctional modular, wall mounted system printed with epoxy. The structure intends to “transform the white emptiness of surrounding walls into a maximised density of form, colour, and material.”

SW: Another design by Bathsheba Grossman, the base form of the Wye table replicates the negative space of the gyroid.

W: A detail of Gernot Oberfell and Jan Wertel’s Fractal table. See the design in all of its arborescent glory in this post by Duann and this one from Roy.

Also while in Manchester last week I had the pleasure of attending a forum discussion on Fablabs, the MIT instigated open workshop platform. The morning was hosted by the well kept secret that is the Manufacturing Institute, the UK’s national charity for promoting and educating about manufacturing - also a player in bringing about the UK’s first fablab, to be sited in East Manchester.

The MI brought together Dr. Neil Gershenfeld of MIT’s Centre for Bits and Atoms, representatives of the MI and of industrial sponsors, the regeneration director for New East Manchester, as well as, via video conference, 3 different Fablabs across Europe and Dr. Adrian Bowyer of the Reprap project (and the University of Bath). It was a very interesting morning, mostly to hear Gershenfeld and Bowyer speak, and to see just how many and how varied the existing Fablabs are.

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Technion, Israel Institute of Technology’s Biorobotics and Biomechanics Lab is working with 3D printers from Objet to create robots that move like living creatures. A recent video features the lab’s founder Dr. Alon Wolf speaking about his work in the field, the benefits of rapid manufacturing to the lab’s research, and a robotic snake made from 3D printed parts.

The robots developed by the BRML are intended for defense department search and rescue missions and medical applications such as minimally invasive surgery. 3D printer developer and manufacturer Objet was previously mentioned in connection with the animated film Coraline. They offer seven different printers and will be present at this year’s rapid manufacturing trade show RAPID2009 May 12–14 in Schaumburg, IL. (I’ll be doing some posts on site at RAPID as long as they let me in on a press pass.)

3D printing service Shapeways has announced a few updates at their blog worth mentioning.

•Until 31 March, you can order a Ringpoem printed in either bronze or stainless steel.

•There’s a post that addresses the 3D Printing Debate, comparing the technology to sewing machines in what they call The Singer Problem.

•Photoshaper is a new service that creates a 3D printed relief of a photograph.

Ten days ago digital production blog Replicator outlined five reasons ‘Why 3D Printers Won’t Go Mainstream‘. The expense and complexity of plastics as well as the difficulty in designing 3D objects are some of the reasons detailed. A few days later, the Solid Smack blog posted ‘Why 3D Printers Will Go Mainstream’ including smaller hardware and the convenience in their reasoning as well as some tongue-in-cheek hypotheses: “It will be marketed as gift item on talk radio during the holidays.”

So what do you think? Will 3D printers be as ubiquitous in home and offices as inkjet printers? And what about other forms of rapid manufacturing? Will people want CNC machines and laser cutters?

And at the root of this is the question, will ‘creating’ become more mainstream? I doubt there are any designers that would turn down any affordable manufacturing machine. But to what extent will the general public want to be the designers?

MakerBot Industries creates open source robot kits that transform your digital designs into physical objects automatically.

The kits are modular, modifiable, and built to be hacked. their goal is to make it cheap and easy for anyone to fabricate digitally designed 3D objects. MakerBot Operators can make their own and their friends designs become physically real. It turns out that making a MakerBot isn’t very hard and with a little bit of soldering experience, anyone can make thier own MakerBot.

The CupCake CNC is their flagship robot because it’s inexpensive and can make things about the same size as a rubics cube, but in the MakerBot store you can buy all of the parts modularly to make other kinds of robots of your own design. This machine is what the RepRap community calls a ‘RepStrap’ machine, meaning it can be used to print out a ‘real’ RepRap machine. With this machine you can print out additional 3D printers to build you stuff.

Nice work Bre and friends Zach Hoeken Smith and Adam Mayer …. you guys rock.

Greg J. Smith has written an article for Rhizome.org entitled Means of Production: Fabbing and Digital Art concerning “digital fabrication (aka fabbing) at a variety of scales which include the curatorial questions raised by these new hybrid industrial design/sculpture objects as well as the implications on the practice of individual artists.”

Greg introduces some terminology and goes on to describe how digital fabrication is reaching wider audiences through projects like RepRap. He discusses a recent exhibition in Berlin of 3D printed objects and poses questions that challenge us to think about the effects of digital fabrication on contemporary art:

“If this new creative class blurs the line between artist and industrial designer as well as code and artifact it only follows that the manner in which we exhibit and consider this work will require rethinking as well.”

Read the full article at Rhizome.

Rapid manufacturing company Arcam uses Free Form Fabrication (FFF®) to create 3D parts from metal powder. The company calls their process Electron Beam Melting (EBM®) technology.

above: lattice skull plate

The EBM technique is especially useful in constructing medical implants and parts for aerospace.  Talk of customized design—in the need for artificial bones, custom is the only way to go.

A unique feature is the possibility to build parts with designed porosity and scaffolds, which enables the building of implants with a solid core and a porous surface, to facilitate bone ingrowth. …

Using CT scan data, it is possible to build custom designed implants that perfectly match the shape of the patient’s bones. This method can be used to custom design orthopaedic devices, as well as bone plates for severe bone fractures and lost bone from cancer resections.

above: impeller

Click here for more about Arcam and a cool little video tour of their production headquarters in Sweden.

mSHAPE is a parametric design project which hopes to empower people to affect the shape of a predetermined design object.

Designed by Swiss firm Gramazio & Kohler and produced by Superform, mTABLE is the first mSHAPE product. It allows to modify an existing table design using a (Nokia Series 60) mobile phone. The mTABLE is designed by sculpting a surface, choosing dimensions, materials and colours. These paramaters are directly transmitted to the computer controlled production facility for the manufacturing of the mass customized mTABLE.

A lot of the ‘co-designs’ in the gallery seem to be primarily about cutting elliptical perforations into the table top. unfortunately I do not have access to a Nokia handset to test the application myself so if any Ponokosters try it out please feel free to send me some pics..

found via Trendhunter

Could Ponoko have a 3D Printing beta twin?

Shapeways has been mentioned on the Ponoko blog a few times before, from the recent interview with Frank Pillar to Duann’s report on the company back in August. But I thought I would take a closer look at the Netherlands based start-up since they recently announced a competition to have one winning design 3D printed in Titanium. (Details at the end.)

Have you ever wanted to turn your 3D designs into reality? Enter Shapeways! Just upload your design, we print it and ship it to you - it’s easy. Within ten working days you’ll hold your own design in your hands.

But that’s not all - we’re offering you everything you need to meet fellow Shapeways users, share your work and find inspiration.

We’re using a technique called ‘3D Printing’ which has proven itself as a high-quality production technique, but up to now has always been very expensive. By creating a large community we are able to produce much cheaper, meaning better prices for you.

That’s from the Shapeways about section. Sounds familiar… The drawback is– you’ve got to know how to work a 3D software. There’s a forum, tutorials and support pages to help you out. But if, like me, you like to keep your distance from Maya and SolidWorks, there’s Creator. While you can’t make your own design like you could with Ponoko’s Photomake, the Creator program from Shapeways does let you customize pre-existing designs.

There are currently three designs you can customize with Creator: ring poem, light poem and fruit confessions. I wasn’t able to play with Creator myself because registration with the site is activated manually… and I didn’t have the patience to wait. But my guess is that you type in your own message, and the program turns the letters in your message into the napkin ring, the light or inscribes it on the outer ridge of the fruit bowl.

For those of you that are blessed with 3D software skills, you can make a whole lot more than poems. Check out some of the designs that have been executed with the Shapeways service. By the way, you can also sell your 3D printed designs through the Shapeways gallery.

Pretty incredible.

And from now until 15 January, Shapeways is holding a contest to have one winning design 3D metal printed in Titanium. Titanium! Visit their blog for more info on the contest and frequent updates on the service.