But a funny thing happened as we launched our effort to sell Desktop Factory. We found interested parties who do understand the exciting potential for this breakthrough technology. We found companies that value the industry and can visualize the myriad applications for this affordable printer. Most important, we have found organizations that engage with customers and truly want to be a part of this next major wave in additive fabrication.

And, along the way we have found the best opportunity to place the assets, the intellectual property and many of our people with a leadership brand; a company with the resources and the desire to deliver on the promise of a truly low cost, easy to use 3D printer. We are cautiously optimistic that we can successfully conclude this sale of Desktop Factory within the next 30 days.

I think the problem here was overreach. People love 3D printing, but the technology is advanced enough to ensure that a 3D file sent to services like Ponoko and Shapeways would come out as expected and so the real need to have a desktop 3D printer is a bit of overkill. That’s not to say I wouldn’t kill for a 3D printer – and I don’t doubt any one of you folks would enjoy one as well – but sadly there’s just not a lot of opportunities in life that require a really quick plastic prototype.

Good luck, Desktop Factory, and here’s to the sub-$1,000 desktop 3D printer. Then maybe we’ll pony up.

First, the press info:

Innovation Takes the Stage with Metal 3D printing for modelers and creatives
Shapeways offers 3D Printing in Stainless Steel

SIGGRAPH (August 4, 2009) — Many 3D modelers have found their way to Shapeways to bring their personal designs to life by using 3D printing. Until now the materials were limited to different kind of polymers. Today Shapeways becomes the world’s first company offering 3D printing in stainless steel for everyone.

Technique
This is a completely new technique which deposits stainless steel powder in a very thin layer, combining it with a binding material. Printed objects are built up like this, layer by layer, gradually creating the form just as you designed it on the computer screen. When complete, they are infused with bronze and cured in an oven. After cooling, the models can be left in the original steel finish or tumbled to get a great polished look.

So, as you see, the objects aren’t carved in steel like Terminator parts. Instead they are made of layered steel powder. This would allow you to build heavy-duty items including jewelery and, dare I say it, car parts. The possibilities, in a sense, are endless.

That said we’re proud to announce that one lucky commenter will receive a stainless steel item of their choice. This could include items from the website or a small object you design yourself. Leave your email in comments below and we’ll pick one winner at random on Friday at noon Eastern.

For just under $10, you can get a themed stylus in either metal or the white, slightly flexible plastic they use for some stuff over at Shapeways. I’d definitely get the shield, although the mushroom is pretty cute. I doubt these will fit in the DS’s little stylus slot, though.

Good news, people with Dads or Dad analogs! Show Pop you care with Shapeways custom cufflinks.

Shapeways can offer two winning CrunchGear/TechCrunch readers each a pair of the custom 3D printed metal cufflinks as a Father’s Day gift. The final shipping date for this item is May 26, 2009, so be sure to let me know the winners prior to then. These items MSRP for $49, including shipping and gift packaging.

UPDATE – Congrats to Dave P and Kim, our winners. Thanks for playing!

Note: these don’t have to go to your Dad. Maybe Mom likes men’s dress shirts. No judgment.

How do you win? Tell us about how your dad turned you into a geek in comments. We’ll pick two commenters at random. We’ll close the contest on Friday, May 22, at noon ET.

Fluid Forms is a custom fabrication company, not unlike Shapeways. Fluid Forms lets you make lamps and fruit bowls from topographical maps. What better way to announce your geekdom than to have a fruit bowl that represents the topography of your favorite place on earth? Now we know the answer: to wear a belt buckle formed from a QR code!

On Wednesday, May 27, Fluid Forms will let you design your own belt buckle from a custom QR code. I can already see hordes of Japanese people pointing their mobile phone cameras toward my crotch in order to decode the message on my belt buckle. What a thrill! To complete the QR accessory extravaganza, Fluid Forms will be rolling out a ring, a brooch and cufflinks you can customize with QR codes.

All kidding aside, I can see several useful opportunities for this kind of thing. Do away with business cards at a geek conference, and just encode your contact info into a QR ring or brooch. Let people who want to contact you decode the QR code. This could also be used in a pretty clever cyberpunk LARP. And the cufflinks might be a nice way to flaunt your geek cred while forced to wear a monkeysuit at some fancypants fundraising event.

These things probably won’t make a good gift for mom, dad, or that cute girl across from you at Starbucks, though.

Okay, that was uncalled-for. But puns are just in my nature, boys and grills.

Unfortunately, it’s just a concept right now. But you better believe we’ll let you know the second this thing goes real. Of course, you could always fabricate one. Of course, then you’d be cooking with brass.

[via Neatorama]

We’ve been in love with Philips off-shoot Shapeways for months now and the service just got nominally better. While you can still fab in plastic, today you will be able to fabricate the first 3D items in brass, a cool and unusual addition to the Shapeways service.

Right now you can only create brass “ring poems” – a fairly limiting proposition – from now until March 31st. The “ringpoem maker” lets you choose a font and a design and Shapeways will do the rest, creating a unique napkin ring for your special occasion. The rings cost $50 each.

While the cynical among us will say “$50 for a napkin ring? F that noise!” I beg you to understand that this is autofabrication in brass, something our ancestors would equate to dark and evil magic.

First 3D Metal Printing Service for DIY Consumers Announced: Shapeways
Bronze RingPoems

Just in Time for Easter or Passover Festivities, Shapeways Introduces First
Step to Bringing 3D Metal Printing To the Masses With Bronze Personalized
Heirloom Napkin Rings

Eindhoven, The Netherland – March 25, 2009 – For the first time,
Shapeways.com enables DIY creative individuals to express their poetic
spirit in precious metals with the Shapeways Creator RingPoems napkin rings.
The Shapeways RingPoem Creator uses text, like an inspirational quote, poem
or family name, to create a 3D circular ring that can be placed around any
napkin, bottle of wine, or special item. The unique model is then printed
with Bronze metals using the latest in 3D printing technology.

In just a few mouse clicks users can type in text, select a font and create
a personalized Bronze 3D printed table accessory ideal for any elegant
celebration. A distinctive heirloom, the Shapeways Bronze RingPoem makes the
perfect accent for any holiday table setting. Shapeways CREATOR products
are produced and delivered globally within 10 working days. Attractively
priced at $49.00 each, including tax and shipping, the personalized napkin
RingPoems arrive beautiful packaged and add the perfect charm to any
occasion. The Shapeways Bronze RingPoems are offered only for a limited-time
at http://www.shapeways.com. The Shapeways RingPoems are also available in
White Strong and Flexible material for a modern, sleek design for any
special occasion.

The “lightsculpture” that gets made looks pretty much like an “emboss” filter applied to the picture, except actually 3D. The picture of me at right would end up looking like it does below, but it appears that once you get a light behind it, it looks more like a freaky amber cast. Sure, it’s pretty strange, but it might be kind of fun. Prices depend on the size, of course, but I think $40-$50 for a 4×6 is what you should expect. You could also design a little stand to hold it up and put a candle behind it.

CES 2009: BeerTubes.com beer tube video review
Shapeways easy fabrication’s fabulous little objects
Palm announces Palm Pre at CES 2009
Pet collar cameras reveal the exciting lives of pets
Spyball: Capture the face of God
iFrogz’ new headphones – plus a contest (still going)

There’s no real news here, just a couple pictures of the little objects you can cause to be made.

Users submit their designs in whatever 3D document format they like, and Shapeways does pretty much all the rest. Say you design a cool Megatron model or an improved coat hanger. People will be able to browse by category or go to featured pages just like any other user-generated merchandise site. They order it and it gets made and shipped, and within ten days, they’ll have a nice neutral-colored Megatron and you get however much money you put as the markup.

It’s not clear exactly how you are limited precision and size-wise; obviously you’re not going to be replicating 19th-century mechanical watches, and likewise you won’t be prototyping a new all-plastic car. Still, it’s a good size for miniatures, components of things, accessories, nozzles of various kinds, you get the idea. The best part is the descriptions, which run along the lines of “extruded with ‘mograph spline wrap’ on a cube with helix-shape spline.”

There’s nothing surprising about the business model, which is proven many times over, but the question to be settled is whether there’s enough market to keep this neat little service alive. I’d like to think so. And now I have a use for my 3D-savvy friends. They’re gonna design me up a sweet exoskeleton for my dog.

The site is live, as you can see, but it should be noted that it won’t be possible to order stuff until early Wednesday according to people who know these things.

Here’s the full press release, which I neglected to include at first:

SHAPEWAYS SHOPS HAVE ARRIVED:
NEW GLOBAL MARKETPLACE FOR 3D PRINTED PRODUCTS LAUNCHES

From Model Trains to Gadgets, Shapeways Shops launches for 3D designers to Sell their Products in the Worlds First 3D to Reality Marketplace

CES – January, 2008 – Shapeways, the 3D printing and production service, announced today the
launch of the much anticipated Shapeways Shops. The Shops offer artists, designers and hobbyists alike, a unique online platform to show and sell their designs to a world-wide audience. This new marketplace enables anyone to make money with their 3D modeling skills, bridging the gap between the digital 3D models and real tangible products.

More details can be found at www.shapeways.com/shops
Shapeways makes unique production affordable. Whether you design beautiful interior
accessories or make useful items for you and your fellow hobbyists. You don’t have to think about
mass production anymore. From now on you can actually make money with your 3D models.
Upload your models and sell them at the Shapeways Shop and start your own personal
production line without any investments.

Shapeways does everything for you: payment service, customer support, production and
shipment, which is all provided free of cost. All you have to do is creating your own 3D models.

Shapeways provides an easy, online interface for 3D artists and contemporary design consumers
of all skill levels to order their reasonably priced 3D designs as physical, printed objects. Within
ten business days, a tangible, 3D product will be produced and arrive at the customers home.
Join Shapeways and become a member of the vibrant and creative community to share your
knowledge, interest and now make some money with things you really like to do.
Key Points:

- Shapeways offers an online platform for 3D creative’s to show and sell their designs to a
world-wide audience
- Shop owners can price the items they are selling with their own mark up.
- Artists and designers keep the copyright rights to their designs / products.
- Shapeways assumes full responsibility for production, orders, shipping and customer
service enabling designers to focus on doing what they do best: Imagine and create.
- Shapeways accepts most file formats of 3D modeling software (.STL, VRML, .X3D,
colada) what makes uploading a design easy and efficient.
- Users and potential buyers can browse through their favorite designs easily through
categorized objects the can enter the shop via the models or via the shop gallery.
- Shop owners have the ability to promote their shop and 3D designs on the Shapeways
landing page as well as display feedback and comments through Shapeways Shops.

About Shapeways:

Shapeways is a 3D printing and production service that harnesses the power of a global network
of 3D production service partners to ensure cost-efficient, reliable manufacturing and order
fulfillment of 3D designs starting with custom 3D printing. Shapeways, passionate about creating.
Shapeways is spinning-out from the Lifestyle Incubator of Royal Philips Electronics, located in
Eindhoven, The Netherlands

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Live from Philips Research Labs: ShapeWays: 3D printing for everyone

3D printing has been around for a while, and has traditionally been used to create small prototypes of larger products (or parts of products).  The folks at ShapeWays are bringing 3D printing to you, and you don’t even need to know how to use 3D modeling software.

From the ShapeWays website you can use the Creator tool to design and personalize a few stock items, like the LightPoem above, which turns your words into a candle holder: you select the font, and whether the text should wrap or spiral, and their software does the rest.  You can try the Creator for yourself, or watch an expert using it in the YouTube video below.

Products are printed and shipped anywhere in the world within 10 days.  All costs include shipping and are displayed up front, either as you use the Creator or after you’ve uploaded a 3D model, so you know exactly how much each design will cost you.

People with 3D modeling software can upload files that ShapeWays can then print: great for model hobbyists or those who want a chess set made of entirely custom pieces.  Almost anything you imagine can be printed.  3D printing is an additive process, so the final product is built up by placing successive layers of material on top of one another.  This process allows extremely complex structures to be built with no seams or gaps.

ShapeWays allows you to make your projects visible to other users of the site, and also allows control of whether or not to permit others to order designs you’ve uploaded.  There’s no CafePress style profit sharing yet, but I don’t expect it would be overly hard to add later on.

So first there was the online creation of pretty simple items like business cards and T-shirts – businesses which cut out the old middle-man way of doings things. Soon there will be a way to create and “print” objects in 3D on a mass scale, and the first of these is starting to arrive. Netherlands-based Shapeways is launching a private beta of a community for consumers wanting to create real objects. Eventually you’ll be able to share and co-create online as well.

Imagine you wanted to create a 3D dummy of a new type of Web tablet. You just upload the design from some CAD software onto the site. Shapeways checks whether the object can be made and provides a real-time cost estimate. Within 10 working days, a tangible 3D product is produced and shipped globally. At the moment they only print to four kinds of plastics but other materials, like metal, are planned.

To reproduce something that already exists you’d need a 3D scanner, which costs thousands. So Shapeways is actually aimed at people with 3D CAD software used by small businesses and will eventually offer its own online CAD tools. The site uses 3D industry standard file formats (STL, Collada, X3D) and the average cost of objects is $50 – $150. At the moment it looks like they are limited to desktop-sized pieces, but perhaps we’ll one day see Star-Trek-style printing of bigger objects.

Shapeways is a spin-out startup from an incubator programme at Philips Electronics, in Eindhoven. The CEO is Peter Weijmarshausen, formerly of 3Dsoftware package Blender, and he has a team of 10 people. They plan to be out of private beta in a couple of months.

Update: Notionally they compete with US-based Ponoko, which allows people to mass customise and make bracelets, brooches, earrings etc and items like wooden coasters. But Shapeways looks capabale of more complex modelling.

CrunchGear readers can sign up for 500 beta invites here using the Beta Code: “TechCrunch100″.

(Photo Credit: “Petunia” 3D object designed by Dolf J. Veenvliet, Shapeways Community Member)

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