Granted, it's not a 3D printer in every home, but it's surely a step in the right direction. MakerBot announced today that its Replicator 2 will be joining Amazon's new 3D Printer Store, a central location on the site for devices, accessories, books and the like. The store features a number of other devices from the competition, though MakerBot seems to be far and away the biggest name involved at the moment. Surely the days of printing up those Amazon orders can't be too far off, right?

Filed under: Peripherals, Amazon

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"We're not scanning every object in the collection," Adam Metallo tells me, offering up the information almost as soon as we set foot in the Smithsonian's Digitization office. It's an important piece of information he wants to make sure I have, right off the bat. It seems that, when the story of the department's 3D-scanning plans first hit the wire, a number of organizations blew the scope of the project out of proportion a bit. And while the team's project is certainly ambitious, it's not, you know, crazy. It's the work of a three-person team, still in its nascent stages, attempting to prove the value of new technologies to a 167-year-old museum affectionately known as "the nation's attic."

In the fall of 2011, Metallo and fellow Smithsonian 3D scanner Vince Rossi (a duo the institute has lovingly deemed its "laser cowboys") unpacked their equipment in Chile's Atacama Desert. "They were widening the Pan-American Highway, and in doing so, they uncovered about 40 complete whale specimens," Rossi explains. "But it might take decades for them to remove the fossils from the rock, so we were able to capture this snapshot of what that looked like in 3D." The tool of choice for the expedition was a laser arm scanner, which utilizes a process the duo compares to painting an object, moving back and forth across its surface as the device records the relative position of its axes.

Gallery: 3D scanning with the Smithsonian's laser cowboys

Filed under: Science

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See that squeezable bunny up there? It was created in a material 3D printing mail-away company Shapeways calls Elasto Plastic. The substance is the latest medium offered up from the organization, currently available exclusively to makers to help test out its effectiveness. The resulting 3D printed objects can be squeezed, squished, twisted and can hold liquids. It does have some shortcomings, however, as it dislikes high temperatures, fire and isn't so great for printing small objects. To see the material in action -- and to hear a grown man utter the phrase "flexible squishy goodness," check out the video after the break.

Filed under: Peripherals

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Shapeways

Got hordes of old photos you don't know what to do with? Well, if you've got access to a 3D printer, what about blessing them with a third dimension? That's what Instructables stalwart Amanda Ghassaei (of 3D printed records fame) has done using an Objet Connex500, some algorithmic wizardry and a bit of left-field thinking. The images, rather than full 3D renderings, are still meant to be viewed in 2D, but use different thicknesses of print to create a silhouette effect. Ghassaei converts images to black and white, and assigns different printing densities to each grayscale pixel value. The results are surprisingly intricate, and still manage to impart a sense of texture. Fortunately for those interested in doing their own, this is Instructables, so, all you need to do is follow along at the source.

Filed under: Misc, Alt

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Via: CNET (Crave)

Source: Instructables

If you've navigated through the endless sea of 3D printers at this weekend's Maker Faire, you may well have caught a glimpse of the Series 1 Pro, the latest offering from San Francisco-based Type A Machines. The printer, which is still in the "engineering concept" phase, trades its predecessor's wood frame for a more solid aluminum version. The WiFi-compatible device has a build volume of about 18 liters, according to the company, and will be available in the third quarter of this year. That's the printer up top, pictured alongside Mark II, a little robot printed on the original Series One. Down below, you'll find a short press release.

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