Monthly Archives: October 2014

New Release of YouMagine

We’ve been getting lots of feedback lately from community members. We really love that you guys are participating and aiding our development. Keep your suggestions and ideas coming! Also, if you have any complaints or find any bugs, please do let us know as well.

You can now see who is following you.

We’ve done a big new release today that will improve YouMagine.

Today will bring a huge performance and speed improvement because of caching, smart reloading and indexing.
The site should feel more responsive and faster.
Searching now really finds something. We’ve been very unhappy with our site search and have improved it.
You can now search for designs based on their name or description. This is only the first implementation of a faster search, but in the future it will really get much better still.

Improved Search Results on YouMagine

The YouMagine site is now responsive on mobile devices. Initially the site would not display well on mobile and we’ve now solved this.
We’ve added “Collections” where you can add designs to a collection, e.g. “Things to print” or “Architectural Things I Find Beautiful.
The “Designer” pages now have nice stats.
You can upload a zip file and choose “Expand” and it will extract the file for you adding its contents as documents.
We’ve also made some layout changes such as to the the footer.
We’ve also added a button to upload your documents faster.
You can now see who is following you and keep in touch with them.
You can now on your profile fill in your skill set.
We’ve had quite a few complaints about registering with GitHub accounts. This functionality was broken. We’ve fixed it and now logging in with Github & Facebook works again. Sorry about this.
You can also resend a confirmation e-mail should you not have received it.
Additionally we’ve made some small bug fixes.

Resend Confirmation Email.

We’re working on improving the site and may be adding to our team soon. We hope you like the improvements! Please do keep giving your feedback, this is important to us.

Being discussed is clearer we think for users.

Interview with artist Bradley Theodore

New York based artist Bradley Theodore makes work that bridges street art, fashion, music and technology. He’s worked on murals in the streets of New York and Hong Kong; done cover art for albums for the Wu Tang Clan, created art for Def Jam, Universal Records, Sony, IAM, Wu-Wear and deployed his painting skills on people, plates and many other media. He makes paintings and murals depicting Anna Wintour & skulls while playfully exploring company logos and popular culture. Bradley has been experimenting with 3D printing for a few years now doing work for music labels as well as his own autonomous pieces. I wanted to get an artists perspective on 3D printing and was intrigued by his work, so asked him for an interview.

Bradley Theodore

Joris Peels: How did you come into contact with 3D printing?

Bradley Theodore: I used to make a lot of vinyl toys. I’d do them myself or have to order pieces in China. I also did graphic work working with for other people. I don’t like deadlines, I want to work at my own pace. If you work for or with people you have people calling you all the time. If you work with a factory to get things manufactured you are very dependent on other people. I was confident I could make things in 3D. I wanted to be independent, to work alone, to be free. Be in a place where I can create within my own serenity, in a bubble, with one visual energy at my own pace. A friend of mine owed me some money so he ended up giving me a 3D printer to repay me.

Cultural icons, popular culture, painted by Bradley Theodore

A lot of artists can’t work with 3D printing directly because they don’t have any 3D modeling skills. How did you acquire them?

I learned how to 3D model in school. I’m really glad that the School of Visual arts gave us 3D modeling classes. I experimented and taught myself more after that. Whats really important is to beyond the basics, acquire good 3D modeling habits. If you don’t learn the good 3D modeling habits, you hack out bad models. I’m still learning and experimenting and I’ve worked with Zbrush and now I’m doing most of my work in Blender.

Face painted by Bradley Theodore

How do you make 3D printed work?

For my 3D printed work I may sketch first on paper but most often jump right into the 3D modeling application. Sometimes I’m making something that is made first in 3D. But, often I’m trying to translate an existing work into 3D. I’ll have a mural or painting and now will make a 3D printed work based on it. After the work is 3D printed I paint it myself. This lets me ad a personal touch to the 3D print.

3D printed Wu Tang piece by Bradley Theodore

Do you think that automated manufacturing technologies such as 3D printing pose a threat to art? Does 3D printed piece have value? After all it could be replicated?

I think that too much reliance on technology may pose a risk to some art objects. This diminishes their value. For some artists its all about the concept, materials and process. This is where they derive their value from. This makes these works not easy to replicate. For my own work it is important to me that I paint the pieces. By painting the color on myself I feel that the “colors are my colors”, it makes each piece individual.

Selected work by Bradley Theodore

Don’t you worry that anyone could do what you do?

Everyone can do what I’m doing. Everyone is an artist & all of us could be artists. Art is one of the things that makes you an individual. It is just that each generation has some artists whose voices are heard louder than others.

Why do you make art?

I make art because I need to. Art to me is producing something that exists in order to make someone feel good. To make someone happy with a piece they like. A work that they like seeing & experiencing, in the street or in their own home.

What are some of the advantages of 3D printing for you as an artist?

3D printing is an enabler for me. It lets me produce work when I want to make it. I can work at my own pace and manufacture things in my own studio. I can create with myself, by myself. I imagine this, I can make this, I can paint it, do anything I want, make it however I want. You don’t have to work with somebody or rely on external parties. It gives me the freedom to make.

What are some of the 3D printed pieces that you’ve made?

I was asked to do some work for a Wu Tang art show and I’ve made pieces for collectors.

What are some of the limitations for you?

I want to make really large things. I am looking to make life sized 3D printed sculpture. This is currently not possible with the desktop machines. I’m trying to find out how to best make large scale 3D printing pieces. There are challenges with the technology but on the whole it enables me.

What will the future hold for you?

At the moment I’m making work. I have 3D printed pieces and paintings. I’m thinking about doing a gallery show next year. Beyond this it is my dream to start an art fab lab on the Turks & Caicos where I am from. A sculpture garden with a studio space. People could then come by get inspired and use machines such as 3D printers to create. To be able to create in a peaceful serene environment like that would be great not only for me but for neighbors and kids as well. Something like this is especially valuable for countries that don’t have a lot of manufacturing. It could teach kids important skills such as engineering, 3D modeling, let them make everyday items and all the while letting them also make art.

I don’t like deadline, work at my own pace. people calling

Fareham College on 3D printing in Education

Ted Turnbull of Fareham College

YouMagine has a passion for education. To see what is exactly happening in 3D printing in education we sat down with Phil Savage and Ted Turnbull of Fareham College in Fareham, in the UK. The college has 4 Ultimaker 2’s & 6 Ultimaker Originals as well as a Replicator x2. The College is committed to getting students of all ages to use the printers. They want to increase the quality and learning of their technology lessons. Most schools that are looking into 3D printing are only getting one machine, for one class. Fareham’s 3D printing implementation is much more extensive. Actually it is one of the most extensive ones I’ve seen so far. I took the time to catch up with them at the TCT Show in order to see if they had any lessons that other schools looking at 3D printing could learn from.

Fareham College students assembling Ultimaker Originals

What does your 3D printing implementation look like?

“The plan with the 3D printing hub is initially geared towards enabling and enthusing teachers learn how to use 3D printers in their education practice.

Student course work and teaching materials are financed by the college, with personal and private work for staff and students produced at cost. Education Budgets in the UK have become increasingly stretched in recent years, so acquiring teaching materials aimed at kinaesthetic learning is financially challenging. The VAK (Visual, Audio, kinaesthetic) model suggests that some students learn by being told things, some learn by being shown something but others learn by experiential physical (kinaesthetic) learning. For this last group of students with the budgets the way they are it is hard to find the teaching tools to enable this. However, 3D printers coupled with a growing range of resources, such as YouMagine, give us the tools we need in to enable this learning experience.”

Kids making 3D printers!

Who operates the machines?

“Its a combination of options. Many students and teachers have received enrichment training or continuous professional development training covering using the 3D printers. In terms maintenance and optimization we have people trained to do that as well. The 3D printers are racked in the back of our largest classroom and someone is always present. When we move to a new facility in the next academic year the printers will be in HVAC controlled space.”

A student placing an axis rod on an Ultimaker one.

What have been the major issues you’ve encountered?

“The biggest issue for us has been funding – Ultimaker’s Create program has been an enabler in this regard. We also had to take into account a range of health and safety issues. In the UK we have to comply with legislation known as COSHH, and we’ve had to perform a detailed health and safety assessment process which took quite a long time. One particular area being issues around the properties of materials such as PLA and Nylon, which were hard to certify because of the comparative ‘newness’ of their use in education for 3d printing.”

What are some of the biggest advantages?

“We’ve an ongoing project with our Child Care and Early Years program for people who want to work in nurseries and in the wider child care sector. We are enabling them, in-house, to design and manufacture bespoke board games, toys and other learning resources, with a professional finish, to use with the context of child care provision. This can be achieved at a fraction of the cost and time, by utilizing 3d printing technology, when compared to almost any ‘traditional’ manufacturing process available in education.

Our sports science department is providing its students with 3D Printed knee joints to help them better visualise, understand and learn about skeletal mechanics. For chemistry, students can be provided with molecular modelling kits, at a tiny proportion of the cost of similar commercial alternatives. In total we have 16 ongoing projects at the college at the moment. Amongst other goals for the year we hope to gather a lot of usage data and evaluate how people use the facility. This information can then inform an iterative development process for our use of the technology just as the wider 3D printing industry does.”

e-NABLE the future conference & Hand-O-Matic 3D printed prosthetics tool

Last week at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, there was an amazing community event, the Prosthetists meet 3D Printers conference. Currently at 1600 volunteers and rapidly expanding, this community is “Enabling The Future.” E-Nable is collaboratively designing, printing and assembling 3D printed prosthetics for children and other underserved populations.

Awesome new hands!

The e-nable conference was an amazing combination of children, parents, physicians, prosthetist, 3D modelers, software developers and many amazing volunteers. Ultimaker has been a big supporter of this event through a donation of $10.000 worth of printers and YouMagine is supporting it by providing infrastructure for sharing and collaborating 3D designs for prosthetics. Everybody is dedicated to make this work and the mix of people all “joining hands” towards a common goal.

272 hands were created by the community and made into kits by 3DUniverse, ready to be built at the event!

Within the community so much progress was made. Many people met in real life for the first time, because e-NABLE operates globally and online. Contributions come from across the globe and are available for use, study, modification and production anywhere. While global, 3D production can be as localised as the home of a prosthetic user on the family’s 3D printer or a relative or someone neighborhood who has one.

Click here for more photo’s that were taken at the event.

The 3D models for the latest design called the “Raptor Hand” were released just before the event. Yuo can find the official files hosted here on YouMagine. It contains the best design elements from several designs that had been made up to that point. Literally, the designers “joined hands” and made it better! Anyone can contribute and anyone can benefit.

The great thing about 3D printing is that it puts no premium on printing something different every time or making something completely customized. The exact measurements of the body can be used to create a perfectly fitting hand, taking into account the amount of padding material to make it comfortable. YouMagine works with the e-NABLE community to deliver a next generation of model customisation tools, starting with the Hand-O-Matic, which is available at e-nable.youmagine.com. This makes generating a tailored prosthetic hand radically easier, because you only need to provide your measurements. We’re proud to be able to support the e-NABLE community.

Hand-o-Matic: Easily create customized 3D printable prosthetics

I also gave a talk at the event. I explored the question of what defines us as humans. Since we differentiated from the apes, our hands have allowed us to create powerful tools which have become a major part of our society. We shape our own tools and our tools are in turn shaping us. Which tools we use and how we evolve them is what defines us. Our perception of the world changes as soon as we realize that we can be a creator of the physical objects around us. This is not new, we’ve just lost touch with the process of making physical things. We can awaken our maker DNA, but now with more powerful tools. The fact that you can collaborate with people around the world to create real objects that matter, that’s a game changer.

Now we’re using collaborative online tools and desktop 3D to provide hands to people who need them. e-NABLE is about community, sharing, giving, collaboration, making, open source and 3D printing. It’s the ultimate example of humanity enabled by powerful tools.

Catching up with RepRapBCN at the TCT Show

Many interesting 3D printing projects and events are taking place in Barcelona. Its one of the most happening places in 3D printing. I love what RepRapBCN is doing, they are showing a lot of people the way to as a non profit develop 3D printing and teach people about it. While at the TCT Show I had a chance to catch up with them. I spoke to Xavier Martinez, the CTO of RepRap BCN about Barcelona and their company.

Why is Barcelona such a happening place for 3D printing?

“Because has always been a design city. There are a lot of designer in Barcelona. They tend to want make and show off their designs. Its a consequence of being a design city. We have lots of events relating to industrial design and 3D printing such as Fab 10. There are also lots of new fablabs and initiatives such as this as well.”

RepRapBCN’s Delta 3D printer

What is RepRapBCN?

We are a group of people inside a technology center, Fundacion CIM. We’ve making RepRaps since 2011. We started with Prusas. We’ve now made our model in 2012 the BCN 3D Plus based on the Mendel and Prusa. And now we have our delta, BCN 3DR which is our delta machine. We try to show the people in Spain and Barcelona how 3D printing works & then educate them about 3D printing. We help people assemble 3D printers as well and do workshops on 3D printing, design and making.

RepRapBCN Workshop

Is it a company?

The Fundacion is a nonprofit. Everything we earn we spend on improving the workshops and printers.

What do you see as the future for RepRap BCN?

Our next machine will be a pre-assmbled machine. We feel that there people who need more professional machines but we don’t want to forget our past. We want to make more professional machines but also continue with workshops and entry level machines. We want to also make DLP 3D printers and other machines.

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