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News: mobile phone maker Nokia has released open-source files that will let Lumia 820 smartphone users 3D print their own customised case.

Nokia has published mechanical drawings for the phone’s back panel and shell that will allow users with access to a 3D printer to customise and print their own case.

John Kneeland, community and developing marketing manager at Nokia, explained the move in a blog post: “We are going to release 3D templates, case specs, recommended materials and best practices – everything someone versed in 3D printing needs to print their own custom Lumia 820 case,” he wrote. “In doing this, Nokia has become the first major phone company to begin embracing the 3D printing community and its incredible potential.”

“In the future, I envision wildly more modular and customisable phones,” he continued. “Perhaps in addition to our own beautifully designed phones, we could sell some kind of phone template and entrepreneurs the world over could build a local business on building phones precisely tailored to the needs of his or her local community. You want a waterproof, glow-in-the-dark phone with a bottle-opener and a solar charger? Someone can build it for you — or you can print it yourself!

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Nokia’s move adds to a growing database of 3D templates available to ordinary users from websites like Thingiverse, run by 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot, which provides digital designs for a variety of everyday objects such as toys and jewellery.

Dezeen has been following the rise of 3D printing with reports on 3D-printed electronic devices that use a new type of plastic to conduct electricity and the introduction of 3D printing on the frontline in Afghanistan.

We also met with MakerBot CEO Bre Prettis, who told us that 3D printing would bring the factory back into the home – see all news about 3D printing.

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News: 3D technology company Inition has developed an augmented-reality iPad app that allows architects to look inside static architectural models, visualise how their building will look at night and track how wind flows around their design proposals (+ movie).

The London-based company used a 3D-printed scale model of The Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum in Michigan designed by Zaha Hadid Architects to showcase the technology, which can also be used to reveal a building’s structure and services.

Inition director Andy Millns described the technology as “augmented 3D-printing”.

“3D-printed models have benefits and augmented reality has other benefits, so we thought we’d bring the two together to get the best of both,” Millns told Dezeen. “We approached one of our existing clients, Zaha Hadid, and came up with the idea of augmenting one of their buildings.”

By pointing an iPad at the 3D model, architects can call up a variety of information overlays that combine with the physical model.

The physical model sits on a patterned mat that acts as a marker, allowing the iPad to keep track of the model as the user moves around.

Millns said the technology could be particularly useful to architects when reviewing their designs or presenting to clients: “It’s much easier than showing traditional architectural plans,” he said.

The iPad screen can display the building in its environment with trees, passing cars and moving pedestrians and the user can switch between day and night views. Audio replicates the sound of traffic and birds during the day, with chirping crickets taking over at night.

Other views can show the building’s location on a Google map or reveal windflow data, internal floorplans, wireframe views and information about the programme.

“Augmented reality in the broadest sense has already had a great impact in the built environment with regards to generating easy to understand overlays of digital information and graphics,” said Shaun Farrell, head of building information modelling at Zaha Hadid Architects. “This transfers well to the smaller scale of 3D printing, allowing for direct visual context as an overlay on to a real-world replica of the project and intuitive, useable and accessible navigation.”

Millns said the collaboration with Hadid was intended as a proof of concept to find out what kinds of augmented-reality data would be useful to architects.

The technology could be used to simulate events such as fire evacuations, displaying the way people would leave a building or move through a park or urban district, he added.

See all our stories about 3D printing »

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News: engineers at a UK university have printed working electronic devices for the first time using a standard 3D printer fitted with a new type of plastic that conducts electricity.

The team used the material, called “Carbomorph”, to print a simple computer game controller (top), a glove containing flexible sensors and a mug that knows how full it is.

“This technology could revolutionalise the way we produce the world around us,” said Dr Simon Leigh (above), who led the research team at the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick.

Carbomorph is a carbon-rich composite material that can be used in existing 3D printers to print electronic circuits.

Using Carbomorph alongside a regular plastic in multi-headed printers could one day allow the printing of the physical forms plus the electronic innards of objects such as mobile phones and remote controls in one go. Until now, the exterior form and interior workings of electronic devices have had to be manufactured separately.

“It’s always great seeing the complex and intricate models of devices such as mobile phones or television remote controls that can be produced with 3D printing,” Leigh said. “But that’s it, they are invariably models that don’t really function.”

He added: “We set about trying to find a way in which we could actually print out a functioning electronic device from a 3D printer.”

“It’s a very high-carbon plastic,” said technology journalist Adrian Mars. “That means that with a dual-head printer you can not only print a case for electronics but you can print the buttons, the circuit boards, the tracks, the contacts. And you don’t have to upgrade your printer. If you’ve got a two-headed printer you just buy Carbomorph when it goes on sale.”

Leigh’s research team now plans to work on printing more complex items such as cables that connect devices.

“In the long term, this technology could revolutionalise the way we produce the world around us, making products such as personal electronics a lot more individualised and unique and in the process reducing electronic waste,” said Leigh “Designers could also use it to understand better how people tactilely interact with products by monitoring sensors embedded into objects.”

Leigh added: “However, in the short term I can see this technology having a major impact in the educational sector for example, allowing the next generation of young engineers to get hands-on experience of using advanced manufacturing technology to design fairly high-tech devices and products right there in the classroom.”

The full research article, A Simple, Low-Cost Conductive Composite Material for 3D Printing of Electronic Sensors, can be viewed here.

See all our stories about 3D printing.

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“revolutionise the world around us” appeared first on Dezeen.

Customers visiting a pop-up 3D photo booth in Tokyo from tomorrow can take home miniature colour models of themselves (+ slideshow).

The Omote 3D Shashinkan project, by Japanese creative agency Party, will allow customers to buy models of themselves in three sizes: small (10cm high), medium (15cm) and large (20com).

Prices start at ¥ 21,000 (around £160) for the smallest size, with discounts available for family groups.

Customers first have to stand perfectly still for around 15 minutes while staff scan them with a handheld scanner. The figurines are then printed on a colour 3D printer.

Shashinkan is the Japanese term for photo booth.

Omote 3D Shashinkan opens tomorrow at Gyre, a shopping centre in Omotesando designed by MVRDV, and runs until 14 January. Sessions need to be booked online in advance.

Earlier this week US 3D printing company Makerbot opened a 3D photo booth at its New York store, although it only produces models of customers’ heads. See all our stories about 3D printing.

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by Party appeared first on Dezeen.

Istanbul Design Biennial 2012: design duo Kram/Weisshaar used custom software to adapt and strengthen the branch-like metal joints of this collection of 3D printed furniture, currently on show at the Istanbul Design Biennial (+ movie).

The Multithread collection was devised using a software application created by Kram/Weisshaar, which can analyse the forces acting on supports for a slab – in this case a table top or shelf – and automatically alter the shape of the joints to enhance their load-bearing strength.

The movie above explains that while standard joints work well for symmetrical loads, an asymmetric load places irregular stresses on the joint.

The Multithread process adapts the joint for asymmetric foces, adding support where required by twisting the joint or increasing its mass.

Once finalised, the design is exported as a set of digital blueprints to be 3D printed in a selective laser sintering process, which applies powdered metal in layers to build up a shape.

Tubes are CNC-cut to length to connect the finished joints before the base is painted to illustrate the forces at work, with yellow denoting areas under most stress.

Originally created as an installation for Nilafur Gallery in Milan, Multithread is now part of the Adhocracy exhibition at the Istanbul Design Biennial, which continues until 12th December. Exhibition curator Joseph Grima told Dezeen in an interview that new technologies are causing a “cultural revolution” that could transform how objects are made and how they look – read our full interview with Grima.

Swedish designer Reed Kram and German designer Clemens Weisshaar founded their design studio in 2002. Other projects by Kram/Weisshaar we’ve featured on Dezeen include a family of interlocking cast concrete objects and an installation of message-writing robotic arms in Trafalgar Square in London.

See all our stories about Kram/Weisshaar »
See all our stories about 3D printing »
See all our stories about furniture »

Photographs are by Tom Vack.

Here’s some more information from the designers:

Multithread by Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram for Nilufar Gallery Salone Internazionale del Mobile Milano 2012

In this installation for Nilufar Gallery, Weisshaar and Kram introduce a new paradigm of Force-Driven Structures. The design of each piece of Multithread furniture begins with a set of horizontal surfaces positioned in space: table top, shelf, desk, etc. A web of thin connecting bars is defined to support these surfaces.Then a custom software created by the designers analyzes, modifies and paints the structure based on the forces passing through it. The final form and colour of each joint is a direct representation of the energy it supports.

The software then outputs a complete set of digital blueprints for the tubes and connecting joints which are subsequently 3D printed by the latest metal printing technology: Selective Laser Melting (SLM). These are then handed to a team of master 21st craftsmen who join the parts together and apply colours to the frame according to the computer generated finite elements calculations. Each joint is custom painted to illustrate the forces acting within it.

Nilufar Gallery hosted this special exhibition together with an installation of important antique Chinese carpets from Nina Yashar’s collection in the Sala Pericoli of the Gio Ponti-designed Palazzo Garzanti on Via della Spiga, Milan from April 16th to 22nd, 2012.

Multithread will be part of the Adhocracy show curated by Joseph Grima at the Istanbul Biennal from October 13 to December 12, 2012 at the former Galata Greek Primary School.

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by Kram/Weisshaar appeared first on Dezeen.