Solidscape Users Explore New Precision 3D Printing Boundaries from Wearable Art and Smart Jewelry to Disruptive Manufacturing Processes
2015 promises to be another record year of creative ingenuity and manufacturing advances based on a rapid acceleration of new high-precision 3D printing techniques throughout 2014. The momentum going into 2015 is amazing, and below are just a few examples why:
Jenny Wu’s LACE 3D Printed Jewelry
Award-winning architect turned jewelry artisan Jenny Wu launched her exquisite wearable art including the Papilio Ring and Tangens Necklace, in collaboration with Solidscape and Stratasys. The 3D-printed jewelry line, called LACE, is inspired by line-based geometry and organic movement.
The first 3D-printed ring in the collection, the Papilio Ring in Sculpted Box, was sold on Paddle 8 at the end of August, while pre-orders began on October 1st. The first launch and exhibition of the line was at Aqua Art Miami in December.
The launch of LACE was extensively covered throughout the year by Forbes, Bespoke, The Wall Street Journal, Architect Magazine, TCT Magazine, Arch20, The Architect’s Newspaper and Robotics Tomorrow.
LSR and MEMI Smartbracelet
Solidscape and LSR partnered up for new disruptive process showcased at Euromold 2014 in Frankfurt, Germany and announced on January 27, 2015. This new process disrupted the tooling process to save time and money by condensing the process to between a week and a half and two weeks. LSR presented a case study of this process for MEMI on their iPhone-compatible smartbracelets. The bracelets were created from digital files, printed in sets of lost wax castings on Solidscape 3D printers with incredible precision and cast in brass, eliminating a time-consuming metal tooling process.
Baselworld Design Competition
There were three awards and five winners at the 3rd Annual Baselworld Design Competition in 2014. The competition winners covered six countries over three continents.
There was a tie between two Silver Award winners for Ms. Ananya Chauchangleg from Thailand and Remus Covriga from Canada, who created complex and elegant ring and earring designs. Another tie for the Gold Award for Stanislav Drokin from Ukraine’s whimsical frog ring and Alain Dinant from France’s classic bust design.
The Platinum Grand Award was presented to OG-Art Studio from Poland, for the second year in a row, for a beautiful platinum horse head pendant.
Staffordshire Hoard and Birmingham City University
In October 2014, 3Dprint.com featured Birmingham City University and Staffordshire Hoard utilizing Solidscape 3D printing to create a replica of a fragile Celtic cross. The Staffordshire Hoard collaborated with Birmingham City University’s Jewellery Industry Innovation Centre to create 3D printed replicas of their collection in order to share the artifacts in a more personal and interactive way with their museum visitors. Watch the video below!
Arizona State University (ASU) and Cerebral Aneurysm Research
Dr. David H. Frakes, Principal Investigator at the Image Processing Applications Laboratory at Arizona State University, and his team’s leading programs in cerebral aneurysm research, was featured in the press in the later half of the year, including Medical Design Technology Magazine, Today’s Medical Developments, and 3D Printing Industry. ASU’s anatomically correct 3D-printed blood vessel models created on Solidscape printers lead the way for groundbreaking research in the medical field. Dr. Frakes states that “The Solidscape machine is the heart, backbone of our process. We use that to build the core blood vessel models that we then translate into transparent flow models for our experiments.”
Bold Machines
Serial entrepreneur and innovator Bre Pettis launched Bold Machines in September, the Innovation Workshop at Stratasys that partners with innovators to collaborate with on 3D-printing projects using Stratasys, MarkerBot, and Solidscape technology. The first Bold Machines project of the year included 3D printed character Margo, from Bold Machines’ Margo movie project. Every week Bold Machines posted 3D printable characters from the movie on their blog and Thingiverse for printing. Margo received extensive coverage including Huffington Post, 3DPrint, and 3ders.org. In October, Bre Pettis and his Bold Machines team visited Solidscape headquarters and presented a tour and overview of Solidscape 3D printers through his own eyes.
Multistation and nettfab
Multistation revealed at Euromold 2014 a new process for aerospace and automotive industries with netfabb Selective Space Structure software. Micro-precision lattice structures were designed with the 3S software and printed in wax on Solidscape High Precision 3D printers. Solidscape’s precision and pattern accuracy allow the printing of fine lattice structures in wax. “We are very proud that Multistation continues to discover new applications which will open new market for our 3D printers,” adds Fabio Esposito, CEO of Solidscape. “Multistation has been one of our most innovative partners for over 15 years.”
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Check back to the blog soon to see even more amazing 2014 highlights from Solidscape,