Theme for this contest is: Greek Mythology. The world of gods and goddesses, heroes and titans is the vast universe of possibilities you can play with. 3D figurine has to be made using ZBrush and the work in progress has to be share on the ZBrush Forum. Check the rules in French here.

We are very excited to see that the ZBrush community is already sharing lots of passionate works in progress. This contest will bring real masterpieces on stage!

Take a look at these works in progress and take a chance:

Pascalb chose to design a Kraken inspired by Tay Harryhausen. See the full work in progress.

Queldo is designing the Chiron centaur. Go to the work in progress.

The contest is only open to France residents. We will keep you updated on the winners but you can already take a look at all the works in progress for inspiration.

Good luck to all of you! You can check our gallery of 3D printed figurines available in our Sculpteo stores.

A shortlist of finalists will receive each a $1,000 research budget and mentorship in order to develop their concept for the final. Funding opportunities for the finalists might happen as well.

The final will be held in the UK in October 2012 and hosted by techfortrade, the non-profit behind 3D4D Challenge.

In order to win, the project has to clearly address a significant need (income, access to water or energy). It has to be a cutting-edge technical innovation. The project needs a sustainable business model and not simply relying on donations.

Closing dates for the applications is July 31st, 2012. More information here.

We can help you 3D print prototypes for your projects. Contact us at contact[at]sculpteo.com or go to Sculpteo.com

The European Tech Tour Association is holding this Tech Tour happening on May 9-10th 2012.

The 25 winning companies from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands will have the opportunity to meet 60 key European, US and Asian investors who can assist in their global expansion.

We are proud to have been identified as an upcoming and leading 2012 top high-growth company and are excited about the event as it is a great opportunity for us to continue our growth.

Olivier Tate, co-founder of model making studio Work and Progress, will give a talk on the best practices for preparing and finishing 3D printed models. Discover more of their models on Work and Progress website.

The talk will be followed by free discussions and mingling between 3D printing enthusiasts. A great time for meeting other passionates and present your projects. Sculpteo team will be there as well to answer your questions.

We would like to give a big thank you to La Mutinerie for hosting the meetup. This new Parisian co-working space really rocks!

Please RSVP on our Meetup page here.

We will be giving two talks about the Sculpteo 3D Printing Cloud Engine and our vision for the future of e-retailing through 3D printing on the Arena Stage: Tuesday 8 at 5.30pm and Wednesday 9 at 9.30am.

NEXT is the leading European conference for the digital industry and a vital driving force across borders.

Sculpteo, pioneering online 3D printing, demonstrates at Next Berlin how the digitalization of manufacturing is ineluctably changing the face of the manufacturing industry.

You can follow the livestream of the event and our talks live here:

We start today with Nostromo, a newly opened Sculpteo store focusing on world data visualization through 3D printing. Data information and education go one step further thanks to 3D printing!

Thank you Nostromo for answering our questions and using Sculpteo!

Present yourself briefly and tell us more about the designs that you sell in your Sculpteo Store?
I am a retired professional, worked for many years in chemical industry, investment finance and consultancy services; filled many hard drives with powerpoint lectures for companies and investment bodies in Asia and Middle East…. My designs at the Store pick up the sort of stuff I made to communicate with clients.

When did you open your store and what was the purpose of it?
A week ago. I wanted to overcome the volatile character of printed data tables, charts, movies. The purpose is to show what 3D printing can offer to communication: Data series and information become solid, become “dataSculptures”… hand them around in meetings, put them on your desk or the classroom, let blind people feel the data. “Houston, we froze the data“.

Which one of your designs is your favorite, and why?     
At present, it´s the design “Corruption in poor and rich countries“ : Public corruption is everywhere, in rich and poor countries; and Transparency International- they allowed me to use their last ranking is an essential NGO player- I admire them for their constant investigative work.

Which 3D softwares do you usually use for your designs?
Until now, Sketchup Pro [NDLR: Google Sketchup supports Sculpteo easy 3D printing button]. But I would like to learn from other Sculpteo clients…

Modelizing for 3D printing can be a bit tricky. Do you have some good practices that you would like to share with the community?
I am a beginner in 3D design.. I try to re-use and modify models.

Which 3D printing materials and colors do you recommend for your designs?
Multicolour; it seems essential to represent at least two dimensions. The colour range and precision of the Sculpteo printers is amazing: You can see small places like the Dominican Republic on my smallest design. I have to find more colour bands that can easily be communicated.

Do you let your customers personalize your designs?
No. In my designs and descriptions, I am responsible to meet the requirements set upon by my data providers. Please accept.

Did you embed your store on your own website?
I have none.

Do you have a link you would like to share?
Yes, nearly all of you know it: infosthetics.com. It´s designer, Professor Andrew Vande Moere at K.U.Leuven university, Belgium makes a wonderful job.

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Discover Nostromo Store on Sculpteo.com and open you own 3D printing store today!

Pneuma 2, 2012
Série des pulmonaire / Pulmonary Series

Neri Oxman, director of the Mediated Matter research group and assistant professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab, and Objet chairman and top executives were gathered for a morning of passionate talks and intimate visit of the exhibition.

Elchanan Jaglom, Objet chairman, shared his vision enhancing how “3D printing are revolutionnary and democratizing technologies”.

Léviathan 1, 2012
Série des torses / Torso Series

Neri Oxman presented Imaginary Beings: Mythologies of the Not Yet, 18 new pieces presented at the Centre Pompidou for the first time. They are pushing the boundaries of 3D printing technologies and required advanced R&D from Objet (that 3D printed all the pieces and sponsored the exhibition).  She explained how 3D printing is allowing to imagine new materials and design capabilities. 3D printing is the only technology enabling unique combination of materials with different properties in very complex shapes.

Kafka, 2012
Série des torses / Torso Series

3D printing is on its way to fill the gap between what exists in nature and what humans create. Skin is one of the best example of flexibility and adaptability of organice shapes. 3D printing allows now to create organic-like shapes by combining strong and flexible materials into a same complex shape. Look at some of the 18 pieces, all inspired by human body, and mixing material properties to create next generation of design.

Tête du Minotaure aux lamelles / Minotaur Head with Lamella, 2012
Série des têtes / Head Series

For Neri Oxman, in the future we might go “from 3D to 4D“, allowing us to have control over the shape but also the internal properties of materials, such as temperature.

Photographer: Yoram Reshef

An online worldwide survey has been launched by Jarkko Moilanen and Tere Vaden from the Statistical Studies of Peer Production, supported by the P2P Foundation. It takes 5 minutes to answer and is intended for better understanding 3D printing communities.

Picture credit: OWNI.eu

Datas are anonymous. If you want to participate, you have until May 15th, 2012 to answer the 20 questions. Results and analysis will be available for everyone in the next months.

The survey is available here

Credit photo: Dirk Vander Kooij

The Dutch designer presented his new 3D printing project a few days ago at the Milan Design Week 2012, where Sculpteo was pretty active too. The Satellite Lamp is made from recycled CD cases and fluorescent lights placed between the 3D printed layers.

Credit photo: Inhabitat

A great example of how 3D printing is shaping a greener future by enabling the use of recycled materials and letting designers and engineers innovate closely together.

You can now have your build-in OpenSCAD parameters directly available for you and your customers on Sculpteo! This unique feature makes it very simple to turn any OpenSCAD file into a configurable Sculpteo design. We extended the idea behind CloudSCAD to propose this exclusive feature.

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Exemple 1 : Parameterized Spring

This spring has been designed by obijuan using OpenSCAD parameters. It is conceived as a design that you can customize through OpenSCAD parameters. You can change parameters of the design such as the number of folds, the strip thickness or the drill diameter.

Changing parameters requires for the user to know how to modify the source code and learn the OpenSCAD syntax. It is not simple for a non-expert end-user who would like a spring with more folds for example.

That’s why we developed our new OpenSCAD feature. Simply upload your OpenSCAD file on Sculpteo.com. The parameters of your design are automatically visible! You and your customers can then modify every parameters directly on Sculpteo and customize their designs depending of your parameters.

Exemple 2 : Parametrized Timing Belts

Another example with a set of timing belts designed by doommeister using OpenSCAD. Parameters created for this design are: tooth profile, belt width and number of teeth.

The dedicated panel shows automatically after uploading your OpenSCAD file on Sculpteo. Parameters can be changed easily.

Designers and developers interested to go beyond OpenSCAD, have a look at our XML and JavaScript API. More on this advanced customization tools later! The documentation for the OpenSCAD parametrization support by Sculpteo is available here.