Purveyor of all things candy, Hershey, just made the delicious announcement that it will be making 3D-printed sweets in the future using machines from 3D Systems. Is your mouth watering?
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3D printing has grown from a fascinating novelty to the means by which dreamers will usher in the future. One such dreamer is professor Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of … Continue reading
Adobe has just announced the immediate availability of some new features for Photoshop CC or Creative Cloud. Starting today, users will be able to directly print out their models to … Continue reading
Adobe is updating Photoshop to let you create 3D-printable files within the program. Hooray!
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When shopping for a music box there’s usually a decent selection of lawsuit-free public domain songs to choose from. But a new online service called Music Drop finally lets anyone compose their own 16-note tune, which is 3D printed alongside these adorable custom hand-cranked music boxes.
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If you know me you know I like two things: sausage and 3D printers. While I primarily use FDM printers like Makerbot at home, I do love the quality and coherence of SLA – stereolithographic – machines. This new one, the Pegasus Touch Laser, is similar to the Form One in that it uses an inexpensive UV-cured resin to build surprisingly detailed models using laser light and a little elbow grease.
This model improves upon the average 3D printer in a few ways. First, it has a nice 7x7x9 inch build envelope and supports multiple colors of resin. It also has a built-in minicomputer and LCD that you can use to control the print as it comes out. Writes the Las Vegas-based team:
You can see the Pegasus in action over here and pledge $2,000 to get your own printer. It’s a slightly faster print as well thanks to the group’s efforts to build a 3000mm/sec laser path. And, unlike the Form One, the Pegasus uses more logical and less obtrusive supports as it rises out of the resin bath. It will sell for $3,499 after the initial Kickstarter run.
The company calls this a sub-$2,000 SLA printer which isn’t quite true. However, given that the closest competitor goes for $3,299.00 the price is just about right for a powerful SLA machine. While I still think FDM is great for beginners and hobbyists, a nice resin-based laser printer makes me all warm and resiny inside.
Miniatures and figurines are some of the best aspects of tabletop gaming. But if you’re playing a tabletop RPG, you might not be satisfied with the figurines that come with your game or even the ones you can buy online. And while we already have relatively affordable 3D modeling software and 3D printers, it requires a bit of training to use those tools. Hero Forge wants to meet you halfway.
Currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, Hero Forge will let you create your own figurines right from your browser. Hero Forge’s web-based creation tool looks a lot like the character creation screen in many video games. Its options include gender, clothes, weapons and poses. Naturally, your character’s 3D model will instantly reflect your choices. Once you’re satisfied you can then order a 3D print of your figurine from the tool itself.
The founders of Hero Forge claim that 3D printing has big advantages over injection molding, one of them being the ability to print on demand. Miniature makers that use injection molding have to make products in batches for the process to be cost-efficient, which means they’ll only make designs that they think are guaranteed to sell. But with a 3D printing service like Hero Forge, you can create and print a miniature even if you’re the only one in the world who’s willing to buy what you made.
Apparently, 3D printers can also pull off aesthetic tricks that are hard to emulate through injection molding, such as interior or recessed details as well as moving parts.
Another advantage of Hero Forge is that you can easily scale the size of your created character. Hero Forge plans to offer three sizes at launch: 28mm, 3in and 6in.
Customers will also have two print qualities to choose from. One is very durable and cheap but not suited for painting, while the other one is more expensive but is very detailed and is suited for painting.
Finally, like many video games Hero Forge will save your 3D models. You can have them reprinted, modified or both as often as you like.
Pledge at least $20 (USD) on Kickstarter to receive a customized miniature as a reward. It would be awesome if the creation tool allowed you to upload your own designs for even more customization. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a miniature that looks just like you?
Books for the most part are printed on paper. The cover of the books themselves are sometimes printed on paper too, although there are books with more unique covers that act as coffee table books and conversation pieces, which is why we have to say that a limited edition version of Chang-Rae Lee’s novel, On Such a Full Sea, might be one of the more unique books we’ve come across due to the fact that it sports a 3D printed cover, making it the first book to ever sport a 3D printed cover. Designed by the book’s publisher’s art director, Helen Yentus, the cover initially took about 30 hours to print, before it was streamlined to 15 hours, but either way safe to say the end result was not cheap with the book being priced at $150, way more than the normal version which is a fraction of the price.
So what’s the point of a 3D printed cover? Well according to Lee, the goal was to re-introduce the book as an art object, which at the same time could keep the interest in printed books alive. After all with ebooks and e-readers being so widely available and sometimes more affordable than their printed counterparts, there really is not much reason to purchase hard copies, especially when they take up a lot of space. It’s starting to look like the print industry is headed where the music industry once was with CDs, which not only took up more room, but was not as convenient compared to its digital counterpart. For those who don’t mind forking out $150 for the 3D printed version of Lee’s book, you can head on over to Penguin’s website for the details.
Book With 3D Printed Cover Sells Fetches A $150 Price Tag original content from Ubergizmo. 
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So we’ve seen how 3D printers can print all sorts of things, ranging from medical, to even musical, but what about mythical? Can 3D printers actually print dragons? Well maybe not a real dragon, but how about a tiny sculpted model instead? That’s what the scientists at CSIRO did when a seven-year old girl by the name of Sophie Lester wrote a letter to them asking them if it was possible that they could create a dragon for her. Apparently her dad had been raving to little Sophie about the wondrous things that the scientists get up to in their labs at CSIRO, and she thought given their smarts, a dragon would not be completely out of the question.
CSIRO initially responded with an apology on their blog, saying, “We have sighted an eastern bearded dragon at one of our telescopes, observed dragonflies, and even measured body temperatures of the mallee dragon. But our work has never ventured into dragons of the mythical, fire-breathing variety. And for this Australia, we are sorry.” However given the viral nature of their apology and Sophie’s letter, they decided to do the next best thing which was to 3D print a tiny dragon for the little girl.
The dragon, named Toothless as per Sophie’s request, was made from a 3D printer using titanium at CSIRO’s lab in Melbourne, Australia. According to to Chad Henry, an additive manufacturing operations manager at CSIRO, “Being that electron beams were used to 3D-print her, we are certainly glad she didn’t come out breathing them… instead of fire […] Titanium is super strong and lightweight, so Toothless will be a very capable flyer.” Good on CSIRO for making a little girl’s dream come true (sort of). If you’d like to check out the creation of the dragon, you can view its progress in the video above.
CSIRO Scientists 3D Print A Titanium Dragon For A Little Girl original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Perhaps a few years ago, the idea of anyone owning a 3D printer would be ludicrous given its price, but nowadays it’s not such a far-fetched idea, and with that being said, it will be interesting to see what sort of things people are able to cook up using their 3D printers. We’ve seen in the past how 3D printers can be used to make all sorts of things, ranging from medical to novel, but what about musical instruments? During CES 2014, the folks at Mac Observer came across a 3D printing booth and performing live at the booth were a group of musicians who, for the most part, were performing on instruments that were 3D printed!
As you can see in the video above, the drums, the guitar, and even the piano were 3D printed, at least for the most part. While the innards of the instruments remained the same, it was their shells that were 3D printed, leaving rise to the possibility that those at home could one day start fashioning their own instruments easily, coming out with all sorts of interesting looks and designs that normal instrument makers might not have thought of. Of course some might argue that using plastic is hardly the best material to use when it comes to making an instrument, especially given wood’s inherent acoustic properties, but hey if it sounds good, who are we to judge, right?
If you have a minute to spare and want to see what jamming with 3D printed instruments might look and sound like, check it out in the video above.
Musicians Perform Using 3D Printed Instruments original content from Ubergizmo. 
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