Italian artist uses 3D printing to help restore coral reefs

An Italian engineer has gone from playing with sand to printing with it. Enrico Dini hopes to re-shape the world for the better by replicating natural objects with the D-Shape - one of the world's largest 3D printers.

His website

Dini spent his childhood playing with sand. Now many years later, the Italian inventor is using it to create large-scale replicas of reefs.

In the last few years, Dini has been perfecting a technique for moulding lifelike coral reefs from sand using his massive D-Shape 3D printer. He and his team have been dredging sand and sludge from the seabed along the coast, drying it in the sun, ticking it through D-Shape and printing the reefs one layer at a time using a mixture of sand and a seawater-based binder. Once this has been done, it's placed back in the seabed from whence it came to protect the coast.

Dini said 3D printing allows him to create things which is almost impossible to make by hand. The idea is to mine the seabed and take the binders and sand from the exact same spot where the 3D printed object will be placed.

General Electric on 3D printing: 'We are on the verge of the next industrial revolution'

NEW YORK — It's not every day you get a 20-year-old Indonesian student outsmarting some of General Electric's greatest minds and designers. 

According to GE's general manager for technology Christine Furstoss, the unnamed student helped General Electric save considerable sums of money in development and manufacturing costs by designing a critical aircraft part that was 83 percent lighter and yet still met the safety and design criteria.

And that's all thanks to 3D printing. While it may be today's buzzword, in reality it's just a fraction of the overall manufacturing process — and General Electric wants to lead the way.

But it can only do that by embracing change and its desire to learn. 

Furstoss told attendees at the Inside 3D Printing conference in New York on Thursday that the "maker movement" is revolutionizing how the traditional manufacturers look at their own design and building process — showing everyone how anything can be developed and built in a fraction of the time.

3D Systems CEO touts '3D Printing 2.0'

NEW YORK — The 3D printing industry is entering version 2.0, which will tranform and localize manufacturing, according to Avi Reichental, president and CEO of 3D Systems, who gave the keynote address at the second annual Inside 3D Printing Conference and Expo in New York City on Thursday. 

"What we mean by 3D printing 2.0 is the complete imagination of the desktop and democratization of desktop prototyping, and the beginning of real mass manufacturing," he said. "And here I am talking about making tens of thousands of units a day using sophisticated and mutliple materials. The third leg is cloud sourcing--platform capabilities." 

3D Systems introduced its 3D Printing 2.0 capabilities, which are specifically designed for engineers' desktops and the production floor in manufacturing. It increases reliability, performance, material utilization, and sustainability, said Reichental.

Another 3d printing innovation in ceramics!

http://www.studiounder.com/

Studio Under, a design and research studio based in Israel, claimed that they have built the largest ceramic 3D printer ever made.

Founded in 2012 by Eran Gal-Or, Liat Akerman and Omer Merzel, Holon Institute of Technology grads, Studio Under focus on designing and printing ceramic products and selling them world-wide. In 2013, the studio unveiled colored ceramic 3D printing, a printing process that enables affordable multiple-color prints.

German company launches biodegradable filament designed for 3D printing.

Two Bears website

twoBEars develops and sells only products, produced by sustainable processes. We and our business are focused on the benefit for humans AND environment.

New consumer 3D printer for $700 USD!

XYZ Website

XYZprinting's da Vinci 2.0 Duo 3D printer will have several major changes from its predecessor. The device sports a dual extrusion head which allows it to print PVA along with the main printing material, or print in two colors at the same time. It prints ABS and PLA, has a printer bed that can handle objects with dimensions of up to 150 x 200 x 200 mm (5.9 x 7.8 x 7.8 inch).

Photo shows the da Vinci 1.0 ($500 USD)

3D printed houses appear in Shanghai

Back in 2011, University of Southern California Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis said new technology will soon allow massive 3D printers to build entire multi-level houses in under a day.

A group of 3D printed houses, 200 m2 each, recently appears in Shanghai, China. These building were created entirely out of concrete using a gigantic 3D printer, and each costs only 30,000 RMB ($4,800).

Original Article