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The Dutch company Shapeways proposes to create the real models of your projects starting from your models 3D. An accessible service in line and with lower costs…

Dutch Start up, Shapeways belongs to the Incubator program from Philips Electronics. At its head, the CEO Peter Weijmarshausen directs a team of 10 people.

To obtain the quite real model of your last creation 3D, the step is simple. It is enough for you to charge on the Shapeways site your file 3D created beforehand with the current software. The team then studies your project and an estimate subjects to you. After agreement, it is enough for them 10 days to produce your prototype and to dispatch it to you. The models are made today out of plastic, to choose among 4 types available, but Shapeways envisages to propose them soon out of metal…

The machines of rapid prototyping and the scanners 3D being still very expensive, this start up Dutch proposes a cheap alternative to the small companies and independent working in 3D. This service indeed makes it possible to create relatively complex objects, although still of reduced size, for an average tariff ranging between 50 and 150 USD. 

The Shapeways site also places at the disposal of the tools of CAD on line and deals with the standard sizes of industry 3D (STL, Collada, X3D). It will also in the long term make it possible to divide and create objects in co-operation on line. Advantageous tariffs, adjusted lead times, infinite possibilities, a cocktail which could cause well the interest of many architects and designers…

Discover it video of presentation:

The Shapeways site is still in phase of beta test, the community of users being being created before the official launch of the service.

Sources: Techcrunch and Shapeways
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