Shapeways prints a chair in 3D

Shapeways - the Amazon of 3D Printing - surprises us again. They have brought a service to market that is capable of printing objects the size of a chair:

http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/624-Supersize-Your-3D-Prints.html

Shapeways raises $5M and opens HQ in New York

Shapeways recently raised $5 million from Union Square Ventures in New York and Index Ventures in London. This means that Shapeways is now an independent company with Philips, Union Square and Index Ventures as shareholders. The investment enables the company to grow the team, add more features even swifter and open new Headquarters in New York.

http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/595-Shapeways-raises-5M-and-opens-HQ-in-New-York.html

NYT covers 3D Printing - speaks about a manufacturing revolution

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/technology/14print.html

"A 3-D printer, which has nothing to do with paper printers, creates an object by stacking one layer of material — typically plastic or metal — on top of another, much the same way a pastry chef makes baklava with sheets of phyllo dough. ... These days it is giving rise to a string of never-before-possible businesses that are selling iPhone cases, lamps, doorknobs, jewelry, handbags, perfume bottles, clothing and architectural models. And while some wonder how successfully the technology will make the transition from manufacturing applications to producing consumer goods, its use is exploding."

3D Printing a World of Design

http://futurismic.com/2009/08/26/3d-printing-a-world-of-design/ "It’s 2017. I go in to the hairdresser to get dolled up for a night out. I bring a sample of the pale blue color of the dress I’m going to print for tonight and one of the taupe shoes I’ve already made this morning. The hairdresser uses a hand-held machine to scan my samples and my scalp, and then she sends a patented design for a hair band only available through her salon to the 3D printer in the back. Twenty minutes later, just as she’s finishing with her blow dryer, one of her assistants brings the hair band, which fits and looks perfect. After my night out, the hair band, shoes, and dress all go into the recycler to be sorted into raw material for my wardrobe the next night out. It’s 2019 ..."

Plastic, Sugar, Metal and now Paper .... what next?

250,000 Metal Droplets Per Second

Demo of ProMetal 3D Printing from Ex One

3D Printing in Metal! Surely that is not possible?

3D printing can create functional metal parts printed directly from CAD. [snip] The ProMetal three dimensional printing process is an accurate, flexible, and reliable tool that can create extremely intricate metal tools, workpieces and molds. In many cases, ProMetal is capable of producing components that would be impossible to produce by any other means. ExOne holds patents on 3D Printing in Metal [snip] As I write this, I'm making things mostly by direct-metal printing: there's a machine that takes a CAD file specifying a 3D object, and builds the object, physically, as metal. If this sounds like science fiction to you, well it might. I don't (yet) have this machine on my desk, I just rent time on it. The process that I use is proprietary to Ex One, and they do the printing. What follows is very much a layman's explanation of how it works -- for more technical information, please visit Ex One's Prometal site. (Some information about other types of 3D printing is here.) To start with, the design is laid down, one layer at a time, in stainless-steel powder held in place by a laser-activated binder. You can see the layering on the finished pieces, it is the source of the characteristic texture of my work. Each layer is .004" to .007" thick. The steel granules are so fine that they feel like very heavy, cool flour. During the build the extra unbound powder supports the piece, so no extra structure is needed to handle undercuts. The powder is very flowable, it's not caky like cornstarch, so removing this extra supporting powder from the finished model is quite easy. It slides off with a little shake and a light brush, and it can be poured out of interior spaces. After the whole model is built up, and the extra powder is shaken off, the piece goes into an oven, where heat drives off the binder and fuses the steel powder. There's just enough heat to make the granules weld together where they touch, without collapsing the entire piece into a puddle. This produces a porous steel part that's about 60% dense, like the one at left. This "green" material is matte gray, feels like sandstone, and won't take a polish. It is soft enough to cut quickly with a hacksaw, but can't quite be dented with a fingernail. It's considerably lighter than steel, which is not surprising since it's 40% air. An artist exploring math and science in sculpture using 3D Printing in a variety of media