23 Feb

Posted at 18:12h in 3D Printing

Where did I go? Here I am! After honing my hand-craft and digital fabrication skills everywhere from my home studio to Mythbusters to the Digital Fabrication Lab at the U.C. Berkeley College of Environmental Design, I've landed a home at Model-No. What is Model-No.? We make custom...

18 Jan

Posted at 11:58h in 3D Printing

Here are a few shots of my first successful print on my new lcd printer from Kudo3D--the Bean. Overall I am extremely impressed with the print quality of the Bean. At .050 mm layer height (50 microns), the layers are imperceptible--just smooth beautiful surfaces and...

09 Jan

Posted at 14:22h in Inspiration

Wishing you all good fortune in the new year and pausing to celebrate my own. I got back on skis over the New Year holiday after several years of not skiing, and it was great on all counts. On the ephemeral level, I shredded powder....

30 May

Posted at 16:27h in 3D Printing

I bumped into Thomas Sanladerer at Maker Faire. I didn't have a chance to chat with him but I can always tune in to hear him talk on YouTube. This excellent intro to desktop filament-style printing is typical of his dense but to-the-point information delivery....

23 Mar

Posted at 09:39h in 3D Capture

The beauty of photogrammetry is the ability to create a 3D model from ordinary photographs. This opens up great opportunity to people who could use such models for 3D printing or digital media but don't know how to design with CAD. How could this be better? Well, you don't even have to take the photos yourself.

If you can download photos, you can 3D model.  Try Google Images, Flickr, etc., to gather a collection of photos of a given subject.  Upload them into software like Memento--hey presto, 3D model. Check out the following Manhattan model I made while developing this 3D printed sculpture (photos from Google Earth):

Manhattan Skyline. Google Earth Capture by diffdaff on Sketchfab

Similarly, I'm modeling a Gaudí designed gate in Barcelona via crowd-sourced imagery. Finca Güell:

18 Mar

Posted at 09:20h in 3D Printing
Faster resin printers are a hotspot for venture capital right now. The primary stumbling block in this technology is the layer separation mechanism. These printers all pull a model out of a vat of resin "Terminator" style, using an upside down build platform and a light source beneath the bottom of the transparent resin vat. What this means is that, after curing a layer, the build platform lifts one layer height and the next layer is cured. The problem is, after curing, the resin is liable to be bonded to the bottom of the vat, preventing the platform from being able to pull away from the vat. carbon Solutions are either mechanical or material.  

16 Mar

Posted at 12:14h in Events, Steadcraft

I had an excellent reception at Maker Faire with Steadcraft last year and I'm super excited to announce that I'll be returning once again this year! Mark your calendar and come on down to the Maker Faire May 20th-22nd. You'll be glad to know that I'm still...