Between the Lines

3D Printed Shells Help Tortoises Survive

Here is an amazing story combining Autodesk Memento software and 3D printing to help save endangered tortoise lives in the American Southwest. 3-D Printed Shells Help Tortoises Survive Hostile Desert Life –FastCo Conservationists are using new technology to study what eats the slow-moving critters—and then tricking those predators into stopping. “A team in the South Western U.S. is using 3-D printed tortoise shells to help the dwindling desert tortoise population. But these aren’t replacements for damaged shells. They’re high-tech decoys,... Read more →

Kids Design Their Own 3D Printed Prosthetics

This is such a great story and well worth spreading far and wide. I remember speaking with one of the volunteers working on this and just humbled by the use of simple 3D printed parts making a difference and creating so many smiles. Autodesk and Bay Area non-profit KIDmob held a 5 day event Superhero Cyborgs workshop where children with upper limb disabilities gathered at Autodesk’s Pier 9 along with professional designers and engineers to re-imagine prosthetics using their limitless... Read more →

3D Print Your Own Stormtrooper

3D print your very own Stormtrooper action figure using Autodesk Tinkerplay. http://autode.sk/1ZOfad7 Read more →

Meshmixer 3.0 Released at SIGGRAPH

Meshmixer is one of the most helpful software tools to help modify, repair, and prepare 3D geometry for 3D printing. This new Meshmixer 3.0 update from Autodesk Research’s Ryan Schmidt was released January 19, 2016 at SIGGRAPH and adds a major new toolset for designing discrete-region multi-material objects,developed by Autodesk Research’s Tyson Brochu This is the first-ever tool of its kind, making it much easier to design for the multi-material FDM & Stratasys Objet Connex printers available today. Meshmixer is... Read more →

3D print of the WWII Battleship USS Arizona

A completed 3D print of the USS Arizona was safely delivered to the the National Park Service at the WWII Valor in the Pacific in time for the 74th December 7th memorials and ceremonies. The 3D print of the WWII Battleship USS Arizona will located at the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was created from LiDAR, SONAR, and photogrammetry data compiled in Autodesk ReCap. It took 18 hours for WhiteClouds to 3D print it... Read more →

3D Print of the USS Arizona

Pete Kelsey of Autodesk provided some photos and a video of the 3D print of the USS Arizona that is currently being printed in sections. There are two 36” 3D prints being printed by Autodesk and the team at Whiteclouds. The 3D print is the culmination of a great deal of on-site reality capture work using LiDAR (surface and sub surface), SONAR, and some limited photogrammetry then processing the point data to a mesh ready to 3D print. The entire... Read more →

Replicate a Keepsake in 3D Using Autodesk Memento

Recently I replicated a silver necklace pendant of a very sentimental pinecone using Autodesk Memento which converted standard photos into a 3D model. I then 3D printed the model on an Autodesk Ember 3D printer and plan to then cast in pewter or silver an exact replicae. The pinecone pendant on a necklace was originally created as a silver casting from the real pinecone given to a mother by her oldest son. It was a really heart warming story why... Read more →

3D Preservation of the USS Arizona in Autodesk Memento

Over the past two years a team from Autodesk, the U.S. National Park Service, and multiple partners worked in Pearl Harbor Hawaii at the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument and USS Arizona Memorial to undertake the first comprehensive survey of the ship in the latest technologies of reality capture. We used many methods to capture and digitally preserve and study the USS Arizona above and below the water including LiDAR above and below the water, photogrammetry,... Read more →

Autodesk Ember 3D Electronics and Firmware Released as Open Source

In keeping with our open approach, the Autodesk Ember 3D printer electronics and firmware are now available to download & modify. http://autode.sk/1FaV5nL Read more →

Reverse Engineering with the Autodesk Ember 3D Printer

A colleague in the Lake Oswego Oregon Autodesk office Ryan McMahon (Senior Product Manager for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Simulation) is experimenting with my Autodesk Ember 3D printer and some reverse engineering of consumer goods. The original part is on the left and the part reverse engineered on the right designed in Autodesk Inventor and printed on the Ember. Read more →

3D Printing Making Dreams a Reality - Kieran's Hand

Everyone needs an inspiring and feel good story to start off their work week, and this is a great one about an amazing young boy and technology. Kieran was born with a birth defect of Amniotic Band Syndrome and has no fingers on his right hand. As Kieran states in the video it has been difficult to deal with until he received a 3D printed prosthetic hand. Modern prosthetics are very expensive costing tens of thousands of dollars, and even... Read more →

Autodesk Memento Beta New Build Posted

A new Autodesk Memento build 1.2.0.7 was just posted. http://memento.autodesk.com A few tasty highlights: Smooth boundary tool – you can now select an edge loop to smooth it and not have any more the jiggered cuts Surface tool enhancements New push/pull sculpt. We start to move towards real sculpting – not just smoothing. This is not yet a perfect implementation, currently the strength of the sculpt brush is dependent of the brush size, but we will be adding much more... Read more →

WTH Wednesday - 3D Sea Cockroach

Recently I visited Colleen Flanigan an artist working to save the Mesoamerican reef and some marine biologists at the UNAM University in Puerto Morelos Mexico. While there I saw a skeleton of what was called a “sea cockroach” or “sea roach” which appeared similar to a slipper lobster and was about 8 inches in length. I was there training scientists on how to capture objects like corals as 3D models for study using only a camera. I photographed the sea... Read more →

Autodesk Provides a Streamlined 3D Printing Experience for Windows 10

Autodesk played a vital role in the newly released Windows 10 embedded 3D Printing functionality. To make 3D printing more accessible to Windows users worldwide, the Spark 3D printing platform will provide an optimized 3D printing experience directly within Windows 10. This helps streamline the additive manufacturing process from design to fabrication. Autodesk will also make the free* Spark APIs available to the Microsoft developer community, further extending the reach and growth of the 3D printing industry. "There's a crucial... Read more →

3D Printing is Not a Fad

Just read a great article in the Harvard Business Review highlighting some of the Autodesk #3DRV tour last year by TJ McCue. The 3DRV spent almost a year on the road crisscrossing the United States meeting amazing people and seeing amazing companies and technologies. To TJ’s point I have had several discussions with people outside of the CAD world using 3D printing in their daily lives now for practical purposes and not just plastic thingamajigs and silly doohickeys. 3D Printing... Read more →

Autodesk Open-Source Ember 3D Printer Design Files

Autodesk posted the open-source design files under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license for the Ember 3D printer this week. You can freely download the complete assembly in Fusion 360, Inventor, DWG, STL and more formats to create your own 3D printer design or modifications for Ember. If you design your own 3D printer based on the Ember you can use the open Spark platform. Ember Mechanical Design Files Complete Assembly (BOM) Read more →

Autodesk Spark integration for 3D printing in Windows 10

At Microsoft’s Build 2015 developer conference today, Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft vice president of developer and platform evangelism, announced new 3D printing features in Windows 10. More specifically, Autodesk Spark is being integrated into Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system. –VentureBeat Microsoft Announces Autodesk Spark integration for 3D printing in Windows 10 Read more →

High Tech Conference Table in Autodesk's AR Lab in Pier 9

We have the coolest conference table in my team's new Autodesk San Francisco Pier 9 Advanced Research Lab! The conference table was constructed with 3D prints and addressable LEDs designed by Lumigeek and Autodesk employees. The wood table was created using locally sourced book-matched Bay Laurel, that was harvested from a fallen tree in California. The darker spot seen on the slabs is visual remnant of what caused the tree to die. The physical pattern for the 3D printed crystals... Read more →

Corals in 3D for SCIENCE

Our good friend and a smart innovative marine scientist Sly Lee of The HYDROUS had a nice online piece covering his work in Wetpixel.com. Sly uses Autodesk Memento to generate 3D textured models of coral from photos he and teams take underwater in coral reef locations around the world. The ability to document a coral in 3D with textures is far more rich than 2D underwater sketching or 2D photos. The 3D models in addition to looking amazing and artistic... Read more →

Marine Scientist Uses Autodesk Memento to Build Digital Coral Models

My good friend (and brother from another mother) Hawaii based Marine Scientist Sly Lee has been featured in the Wired UK online and soon to be in the Wired print edition. Sly uses Autodesk Memento to build accurate 3D models to help track the heath and growth or destruction of a coral reef in 3D as opposed to 2D X Y grids which are difficult for most to understand. In addition to being amazing to look at like art especially... Read more →

Autodesk Releases Ember's 3D Printing Resin as Open Source

Autodesk is not only selling the Ember 3D printer and releasing the plans to build your own Ember as open source, but also the 3D printing resin recipe. This week we at Autodesk released the Standard Clear Prototyping resin formula named affectionately as PR48. In an effort to accelerate open for innovation the development of photosensitive resins for 3D printing. PR48’s formula has been published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. The Ember 3D printer is demonstration hardware for our... Read more →

REAL 2015 was a REAL Great Event

The past two days almost a thousand have attended the REAL 2015 event here in San Francisco California at the historic Fort Mason. The conference covered everything dealing with Capture Compute and Create. There was everything from laser scanning systems, structured light scanners, infrared, photogrammetry, software like point cloud and geometry tools, CNC mills, 3D printers,VR and augmented reality viewers, underwater and maritime technologies like unmanned boats and ROVs, Makers, and so much more. I had a great time meeting... Read more →

Crazy Creativity with Autodesk Maya, Mudbox, Meshmixer, and 3D Printing

I wanted to share an amazing project by Autodesk colleague Craig Barr recent created using a series of Autodesk products, a 3D printer, and above all his mad creative skills. He brought a wild digital character top the physical world. The workflow is fairly specific, but the 3D Printer is an ABS extruding type and could be one one of many brands out there now. Read more →

Catch a Dinosaur by the Toe

Current scientific evidence indicates the dinosaurs as we know them are all gone, but they left fossilized bones, tracks, and other traces behind telling the story. Last week I was working on a project in Northern Arizona and found an exhibit of a sandstone that had actual dinosaur footprints on it on display outside the Glen Canyon Dam visitors center. In Utah and Arizona it is not unusual to find dinosaur footprints in rocks and sadly a recent amazing example... Read more →

Autodesk 123D Sculpt+ for iOS and Android

Create anything from fighter jets to frogs by sculpting using the new Autodesk123D Sculpt+ for Android and iOS tablets. This is a great way to pass time, improve your creativity, or even give your kids something constructive on their tablets. I can even create semi-cool looking things using this app that I can export to Autodesk 3ds Max or Maya or order as a 3D print! Read more →