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The Future of Fabrication Is Here: Shapeways Announces Stainless Steel Printing

John Biggs — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:47:02 +0000

Sure you're not going to make a Hatori Hanzo sword - yet - but Shapeways, a 3D fabrication service, has just announced stainless steel printing, allowing you to make steel objects as easily as you would made resin or plastic prototypes. That's right: something that took our ancient ancestors generations to perfect is now available to anyone with a CAD/CAM program and some Red Bull.

Contest: Would Your Dad Like Some 3D Printed Metal Cufflinks?

John Biggs — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:33:32 +0000

Good news, people with Dads or Dad analogs! Show Pop you care with Shapeways custom cufflinks. Shapeways can offer two winning CrunchGear/TechCrunch readers each a pair of the custom 3D printed metal cufflinks as a Father’s Day gift. The final shipping date for this item is May 26, 2009, so be sure to let me know the winners prior to then. These items MSRP for $49, including shipping and gift packaging.

Shapeways Rapid Prototyping Service Enters the Brass Age

John Biggs — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:36:11 +0000

We've been in love with Philips off-shoot Shapeways for months now and the service just got nominally better. While you can still fab in plastic, today you will be able to fabricate the first 3D items in brass, a cool and unusual addition to the Shapeways service. Right now you can only create brass "ring poems" - a fairly limiting proposition - from now until March 31st. The "ringpoem maker" lets you choose a font and a design and Shapeways will do the rest, creating a unique napkin ring for your special occasion. The rings cost $50 each.

Forget Crowd-Sourced T-shirts: Print Objects In 3D

Mike Butcher — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:59:59 +0000

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)

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