As the flood of new users is coming, I though it would be a good idea for us to get to know each other a little bit!
From the Kickstarter comments, it seems like there is a great variety of users spanning many interesting backgrounds. I think this forum will be a fantastic place to gain insight from multiple perspectives and I can’t wait to hear more about the Form users!! Big thanks to the Formlabs team for putting this project together and letting us get in on the ground floor, I would love to hear your stories too!
So, who are you? What do you do? Why do you love 3d printing?
I guess I’ll start!
I grew up with computer animation, dropped out of high school and started working when I was 18 (sorry mom!). I have been working on films in the visual effects / feature animation industry for the past 18 years. I got interested in 3d printing many years ago, but became really engaged around the time that Shapeways first launched. With a plethora of character designs locked inside the computer, the feeling of finally seeing some as physical objects was truly unique, and something that I will never forget. I guess you could say I’m completely hooked .
I will be creating prototypes for designer toys and can’t wait to get started!
I’m a Industrial Designer specializing in 3D modelling and high end visualisation, with extensive experience from Automotive and Product design to Advertising and Training. Particularly interested in Film Making and Animation with in-depth knowledge of the latest integrated software solutions.
I’m actually working as a freelance and my idea is to be able to create prototypes as well as the 3D geometry so I’m looking forward to get my printer.
I am a freelance 3D, 2D, artist and animator specializing in 3D modeling, sculpting and texturing. I grew up in a small college town south of Buffalo, N.Y. and from a young age I dabbled in digital art, teaching myself what I could from books and tutorials. But at that time I didn’t know that digital sculpting and animation was what I wanted to peruse. I had always loved building and creating things with my hands. But for the most part I was always lacking the proper space, tools and machines to see my designs come to light. So I turned to the digital realm as an outlet for creating, and when I was presented with an opportunity to go to school for digital animation I jumped right in. After I graduated I got a job working in the entertainment industry, and when that was over I decided to strike out as a freelancer. I love working in the digital realm, it gives me the perfect sandbox to build and create in. However, there was always that aspect of physically seeing and holding something that you created that was lacking from working digitally. So after I heard about 3D printing a few years ago I have been eagerly waiting for the day that I could afford a printer that could produce the high resolution prints that I was seeing from the corporate size printers. That day is now here and I’m going mad with anticipation for my printer to arrive! My friends think I have gone slightly crazy, but I think you half to be crazy not to be excited.
I have big plans for my Form 1 that range from toys, busts, maquettes, and stop-motion. There are so many possibilities!
I’m an industrial designer specialising in consumer products. I am born and bred in Melbourne, Australia and as far back as I can remember I have always been designing and building things. I was fairly good at graphics and art in school and was introduce to the world of Industrial design towards then end of high school. When it came to heading off to university I had to make a call between Engineering and Industrial Design. It was a tough call but the amazing hand made models and beautiful marker renderings I saw at the ID open day won me over and I embarked on my career as a Designer. I’ve worked in the Industry for just on 14 years now and have been involved with projects ranging from medical devices to motorcross knee braces to eftpos terminals. In early 2000 I was introduced to Solidworks and I took to it like a duck to water. I’ve had a few years on Pro-E but found I could work much faster in Solidworks so its still my CAD package of choice, especially now it has a decent rendering package attached (Photoview 360). I’ve been using 3D printing services since mid 2000 and still get excited when a 3D printed model pops out of the printer or is dropped off by a courier. I am recently married to my beautiful wife and I even design my own wedding ring which I had 3D printed in titanium by i.materialise!
These days I head up product design and development at Annex Products where I am the co-founder of the company. If you are familiar with early Kickstarter projects you may have seen the iPhone bottle Opener case called the Opena Case or the Quad Lock Mounting System, both of which we successfully crowd funded, unfortunately not quiet to the same level as the Form1 but it definitely kickstarted our business. I also blog on the number one 3D printing website in Australia - 3D-printers.com.au
I’ve very excited to get my hands on our Form1 so I can finally print out a bunch of prototype designs I have been working on for the Annex range. I’m also keen to see if there are many other Form1 owners in Australia so if your from Australia get in touch!
I’m David Clark, lead mechanical design engineer for a company called Electricfil. We are a tier-1 supplier to GM, Ford, Chrysler, VW, and others. I spend my day working in Pro/engineer wildfire 4. I don’t have my Form1 yet and every day without it is killing me. (It is one of the many on order via Formlabs.com). I love 3D printing because when you’re working with a multidisciplinary team across multiple continents, everyone has ideas on what works best, what’s easiest for manufacturing, what design just plain sucks, etc… With 3D printing, you can quickly end the opinion and make data driven decisions. Right now, my organization has to outsource this to quickparts.com. Aside from the cost of outsourcing, I’m incredibly eager to get my printer because i want my parts in hours, not two weeks. So please, Formlabs, ship ship ship!!!
I’m planning to use the Form 1 for a new business called Railway King, which will build ready-to-run and kit versions of 19th century railway rolling stock. Initially in 4mm/ft (OO gauge etc). On British railways there was a lot less standardisation of wagons’ chassis dimensions before the Railway Clearing House 1887 specification started to impose common standards, so 3d printing is ideal for producing large numbers of individual designs in relatively small quantities…or that’s the theory anyway. I’ve hopefully uploaded a photo which shows the sort of early wagon that I’ll be starting with in a few months’ time. Maybe other items to come later - carriages - or 'passenger cars’in American parlance - human figures, signals, even locomotives.
Quick further explanation - the photo was taken in 1893, but the wagon is much older - probably 1860s - so wasn’t built according to the 1887 specification.
First of all, I am glad to belong to this amazing community! Even though my Form 1 is still in the production line, I think that we will make a great work all together. My name is Fabien JOUAULT, a French industrial engineer working for a 3D metal printing manufacturer. As a technical manager, making challenging parts in metal is on my daily routine. This is why I decided to explore the main face of the 3D printing world which is plastic. Hope this will be a nice journey with you guys!
Hello Everyone. I am a hobbyist currently living in Vancouver, Canada. I have been working in the VFX industry for some time, but my true interest is in tabletop miniatures. Needless to say I am very interested in the Form 1, but I haven’t bought one yet because I am worried about the exact level of detail the Form 1 can handle.
Has anyone tried to print 28-30mm models like this with the Form 1?
I’m a videogame animator and part-time product designer in Vancouver, Canada. (Just released Luigi’s Mansion 2 - go get it!) I’ve been transitioning from using 3dsMax to CAD for design work, and I’m looking to redesign household products in stylish ways. I’m a huge fan of the stuff Dieter Rams did for Braun decades ago, and I’m planning to buy off-the-shelf household devices and create new industrial designs for them. Hopefully, they’ll maintain or improve on their function.
My first taste of 3d printing was in development of a simple soap project - called STACK soap, which is a new type of soap bar that has no waste. When a person has worn their bar to a smallish sliver, they can join it onto the surface of the next bar which is perfectly sculpted to easily join them together. I used Shapeways for most of the prototyping and made silicone molds to test prototypes in my kitchen before the final soap die was milled out of copper for use at the soap manufacturing company. It was a fun project and had a successful Kickstarter project too. It’s now on Amazon in the US! www.stacksoap.com
And, also with the VFX background, been doing this for 10+ years and now is finally the time to convert works into a medium, which can be manipulated in real life!
Let the Forms out! Can’t wait for my printer to ship!
I run an anatomical engineering service bureau called Biomedical Modeling Inc. in Boston. We mostly build SLA and Polyjet models for surgical planning, prefabricating implants and medical device design as well as CAD models of anatomy from CT & MRI scans. We look forward to using the Form 1 for inexpensively testing ideas, making fixtures and making molds for silcone or polyurethane casting. http://www.biomodel.com/
I’m a programmer who became a lawyer who then became obsessed with 3D printing, and now I’m lucky enough to get to work at Formlabs. Before joining Formlabs, though, I was one of the first 25 backers on Kickstarter, so I’ve got a perspective from both outside and inside now.
I have a fair amount of prior experience using “hobby” FFF 3D printers, like the RepRap Mendel or a Makerbot. I still play around with my RepRap from time to time, but my other 3D printers don’t get much love now that I have a Form 1 to use! I’ll try to share observations about some of the differences I see between the Form 1 and the older desktop 3D printing technologies. Some of you, I suspect, are coming from that perspective as well.
When I’m not working, I enjoy making models in Rhino and Zbrush, some of which I’ve posted on the forum. I’ve been particularly excited to see all the fine detail of my Zbrush models in prints from the Form 1.
I’m a game developer in San Diego California for Sony Online Entertainment and my hobbies include radio-controlled planes and multi-rotors, miniatures, board games and all thinks geeky and technical. I like building things out of wood and doing electronics projects with microprocessors. Some friends and I have just started a business designing and manufacturing multi-rotor frames and accessories. In addition, I’m in talks with some of the artists at my company to produce a line of miniatures. I may also try to obtain rights to create models for some of our own IP at Sony. I can do technical modeling myself, but not really artistic modeling. Fortunately I have a lot of amazing artist friends.
I haven’t received my Form1 yet, but I have a pretty big backlog of things I want to print as soon as it gets here. Maybe I should have ordered two!
Taking Your Project into the _3_rd Dimension with Zip-Bit, Inc.
Zip-Bit, Inc. provides Rapid Prototyping Services in the engineering disciplines of 3D Scanning, 3D Modeling, 3D Printing for all businesses and applications. We specialize in work for niche markets and in producing unique one-off and limited run custom assemblies. Zip-Bit offers affordable, customizable 3D engineering, development and support services for all areas of industry/manufacturing, science, education, arts, and more…
Hi All,
I am a well seasoned engineer with a multi-disciplined background, most recently focusing my attention on rapid prototyping (additive manufacturing) and to that end have started (2005), my own 3D Engineering Service company Zip-Bit, Inc., equipped with 3D Scanners (Laser & SL), Rapidform’s XOR3 software, 3D printers (FDM, 3DSLP, SLA), CNC lathe and eight axis CNC mill. I have attended Rapidform and SolidWorks in house training here in Silicon Valley and am totally immersed in the 3D Scanning/3D Modeling/3D printing/reverse engineering - I just flat out enjoy making “things” from peoples ideas that have never existed before using this new and exciting technology.
My name is Jory and I currently work as a Support Engineer at Formlabs. If you have written into us, there is a good chance we have already met!
I am very excited that our forums are up and running and look forward to reading all the awesome stories and experiments that I am sure will populate the space as we get printers into the hands of our customers.
We are very busy here at HQ, but I’ll be participating in conversation when and where I can.
I’m a freelance engineering consultant in Vancouver, WA USA (across the river from Portland, OR). I mostly design/write hardware and firmware-- everything from LED flashlights to battery backup systems for drone aircraft. Prior to that I was in the computer/electronics industry since the early 1990’s and developed the earliest commercial MP3 players (pre-iPod!).
I’ve done small scale manufacturing for various niche products (mostly arcade video game related) since 1995 and will be using the Form1 for making small parts and pattern masters for casting low volume components and replacement parts for arcade video games of whatever else catches my fancy. (I’m co-owner of a ‘classic’ arcade/bar in Portland (www.groundkontrol.com), so keeping 30+ year old arcade games running takes a lot of parts that are no longer available ‘new’.)
Awesome responses so far! Some amazing backgrounds here too. I suspected there would be some VFXers here, but not so many, cool, and Van is definitely representing! =]
My name is Colus, a South African living in San Diego, CA. I am a character animator by trade and also have a little design brand on the side ( www.colus.co ) that sells shirts, jewelry, prints and hopefully soon…toys.
I recently had the pleasure of having a 8" Dunny released through Kidrobot ( http://www.kidrobot.com/ShopAll/DesignerToys/ArtToys/TheHuntedDunny8Inch.html ) and I hope to continue in the designer toy realm with the Form1. I will post all my print adventures on this forum… as soon as I can get Bootcamp to work
