Boston Dynamics humanoid(ish) robot, Atlas, is probably better than you at jumping. Perhaps that is because they relied heavily on 3D printed parts.

Naomi Wu (SexyCyborg) unboxes an Anycubic Photon DLP/SLA 3D Printer.

Shapeways offers a free six part series (as of the writing of this article) for beginners in 3D printing and 3D modeling.

MIT is offering a free sneak peek of their 5 day short course in additive manufacturing.

Apparently the super math nerds at Rice University have also been studying history.

Lockheed Martin compiled a list of the top 6 coolest 3D printing gadgets, and by "gadgets" they mean industrial grade BAMF 3D printing.

The sneaky Australians at the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences through their EarthByte team have set up a secret portal of 3D globes. And by secret we mean not well advertised. You can view everything from 3D representations of Geophysical and geological data to Gravity Anomaly Grid reconstruction. Yeah, you read right, Gravity Anomaly... probably not what we think it means, but still... Gravity Anomaly!

AEXA Aerospace of Houston, Texas USA is embracing the Microsoft HoloLens to create 3D holographic representations of hardware and intuitive procedures to help streamline training and operations aboard the International Space Station. As of 2017 Microsoft says that HoloLens sales are in the thousands, admittedly a small number. However with companies like AEXA embracing the product, is a developer market for high quality content far off? What do you think?

One of the cool things about NASA is that in the last 10 years they have become a little less anal about their work product. They have opened an entire resource library dedicated to 3D visualizations. Everything from highly realistic graphic 3D models of the Eta Carinae Homunculas nebula (Clearly they are still working on creating cool names for space stuff) to an exact topographical map of the mars surface including rover paths which can be 3D printed.

Barring the usual open source limitations, all of the materials are royalty free and available for download just in time for your kid's next science project.

Carbon3D is partnering with Adidas to print part of their shoes using a process called digital light synthesis. Carbon 3D's printers are able print the soles of Adidas shoes faster and cheaper than ever before, allowing the venerable shoe brand to keep up with changing fashion trends. The new system is expect to cut development time of a new pair of trainers down to just two weeks. The two factories running these printers are expected to produce up to 500,000 pairs of Adidas per year (each).

A new study describes 3D printing of Shape Memory Polymers to produce active meta-materials that can be programmed to form versatile shapes and are then able to recover their original state when heated to above their activation temperature. The future of 3D printing relies heavily on the development of cutting edge polymers and meta materials.

File this under, "Things We Didn't Know We Needed Until We Saw Them". Not only is this 3D design by Gambody incredibly detailed both inside and out, but the StereoLithography (STL) files to make one yourself are available for download!

We've heard uses for almost everything, but the folks at BlizziDent.com have come up with a way to use 3D technology to brush your teeth in 6 seconds - perfectly.

MakerBots new Desktop Digitizer promises to offer a complete 3D Scanning and printing environment.

Interior design - its sort of a big deal. Every place you go (home, office, library, etc) has to be thought of, visualized, and created; and at some point redesigned. With 3D technology abounding, its about time someone made a really great tool for viewing and editing real spaces in 3D. Welcome, everyone, to Matterport.

Christmas is coming, and Santa can't be without the latest and greatest upgrades to his sleigh. Not only that, wouldn't it make sense that Santa would stay with the times and have it 3D printed? I'm sure you have some great ideas, and GE needs your help!

The minds from MIT Labs have once again come up with something that just blows my mind with a device called inForm. inForm uses Dynamic Physical Affordances and Constraints through Shape and Object Actuation. Ok, let me non-MIT that for you. The device uses a type of 3D scanning system to "see" the users interactions. The system then transmits that data to a display table which can then be seen and used by the observer. If you have ever seen those hand print pin toys, then you will have a good idea on how the display table works, in general.

Blender announced its new version Blender 2.67b, including tons of new features and over 30 bug fixes.

Doodle3D was developed by a couple guys in the Netherlands who had a couple 3D printers, but didn't actually know how to draw anything in 3D.

This UK based company has developed a "an easy-to-use, low-cost 3D scanning system that captures full colour, accurate 3D object data in minutes."

The big issue with 3D printing is how 'normal' people can make 3D objects from printing. 3D scanners are the answer, but many are very expensive. This one seems to solve the problem.

After lettings ladies create edible chocolate versions of their heads for Valentine’s Day, Shibuya, Tokyo-based FabCafe is letting men create gummy replicas of themselves.

The ‘White Day’ workshop is only for men, as White Day is a Japanese holiday on 14 March (1 month after Valentine’s Day) where males send out gifts to ladies, like on Valentine’s Day—in Japan, on the actual Valentine’s Day, women are the ones who give out chocolates to men.

David Conway and Keith Lawson realized that out of all the Virtual World type games out there, none where truly like real life. So, they have created it themselves.

Monster Energy released this 3D animation of the FIM World Championship Supercross Track that will be used in Anaheim, CA on 1/15. It's gives an excellent look at what these racers have to go through and why Supercross is considered on of the most physically demanding sports on the planet.



If you live near Anaheim and want to check out the event live, you can grab tickets here, starting at $20.
http://www.supercrossonline.com/Events/2013/01/05/Anaheim,_CA/

We found a great tutorial on how to make a smooth velvet or suede finish using some common software. This is a really good read, even if you just bookmark it for later.