TriMech Blog

Congratulations, you just finished designing your CAD model! Now, what's the next step? Prototyping! It's the next phase in the design cycle that helps you mitigate and reduce errors and issues. Prototyping allows you to test your model for functionality and design features. It has become more affordable and accessible as this trend continues at a non-linear rate. This phase decreases the time to market and increases productivity. Newer enhancements offer a more functional prototype and ability to rapid manufacture. Let’s review several things that you can leverage today to help make your prototypes in an efficient and affordable way.

In our last article, “How Do I Print Wood", we learned how to 3D print a texture in full-color using the Agilus30 White material on the Stratasys J750. We discussed how to use new SOLIDWORKS 2019 features to create physical 3D displacement models using a 2D bump mapping pattern and then apply the color texture to the model in Adobe Photoshop CC.

In this article, I’m going to show you another method to accomplish nearly the same end product, this time using a stone texture and only Adobe Photoshop CC. What’s more, we’ll go into how 3D displacement using bump maps in Photoshop works, showing you a quick and easy method to manually alter those bump maps to make smoother or coarser physical textures.

This month Stratasys announced that their PolyJet J735/J750 successfully passed the rigorous requirements required to make it the world’s first and only PANTONE validated 3D printer. Designers and manufacturers around the world are rejoicing! This changes the game for 3D printing as design and prototype colors can now be matched with 100% specificity, making the process from concept to final product even more accurate.

Today marks the release of the fifth movie from LAIKA studios “Missing Link.” This movie studio is known for their use of stop-motion animation in major feature films, but most don't know that they use PolyJet 3D printing technology in their production process.

“It’s really kind of an insane process that we’re doing, where we’re taking 3D printing and we’re fusing it with this really old technique of stop-motion and replacement animation and forcing these two technologies and techniques together to come up with some amazing performances and amazing results,” said Brian McLean, Director of Rapid Prototype at LAIKA.

Stratasys' GrabCAD Print is a sophisticated 3D printing app that allows designers and engineers to prepare, schedule and monitor 3D printing jobs. Since its release, GrabCAD has continued to make exciting updates to this software; and we will be updating you every other month on its new features. In this set of release notes, we will be looking at versions 1.26, 1.27, and the just released 1.28.

The ultimate goal of 3D printing prototype models is to create a part as close to the final product or part as possible. Ideally, you would be able to test the part for functionality and/or appearance to determine if your design is the correct one. That said, most of the time designers create their prototypes with overall part dimensions in mind and ignore the final physical surface textures and aesthetics because they are either too difficult to design or dismissed as just a “nice-to-have” but non-essential feature for this early phase of the project cycle. But what if you could include that level of detail?

Now, with the new software tools in SOLIDWORKS 2019 update and Adobe Photoshop CC, along with the new Agilus30 White material on the Stratasys J750, it’s easy to create these textures in full color that mimic what your final production material will be.

Stratasys Vero PolyJet materials are photopolymers known and used for 3D printing parts that require smoothness and accuracy, and for their strength, stiffness and versatility. These materials are commonly used to 3D print prototypes that are as close as they can be to the final product.  Although they belong to the same family, not all of the Vero materials and types can be combined with each other. In this article we will quickly explore the complete Vero line of materials to better understand all the differences.

Stratasys' GrabCAD Print is a sophisticated 3D printing app that allows designers and engineers to prepare, schedule and monitor 3D printing jobs. Since its release, GrabCAD has continued to make exciting updates to this software; and we will be updating you every other month on its new features – as we transition into 2019 there have been several major updates in GrabCAD Print with the release of versions 1.24 and 1.25 which we will highlight here.

Today I’d like to introduce some new 3D printing materials which take our prototype automotive lighting component printing capabilities to the next level: the VeroVivid Color Family.

Magic is in the air this holiday season at TriMech with all of the new toys we’ve been getting here in our print lab lately. Since we’ve been given the gift of an incredible new Stratasys J750, I decided that it would be great to get into the holiday spirit and create a miniature winter scene to share with some of my clients and co-workers that don’t get to experience all of the charm and joy that snow brings this time of year.

3D printing in color has been around longer than you think. Do you need a prototype printed in yellow ABS? No problem, load a yellow spool of filament in your 3D printer and voilà! You have yourself a yellow part. How about blue? We have you covered, just toss some blue photopolymer in your SLA vat and BAM! A blue part can be printed. How about a part with multiple colors? No problem. Break out the trusty sandpaper and good old-fashion elbow grease, maybe some primer, then either spray or hand paint your model until your heart is content.

Oh… you were hoping to have full color printed parts straight off the printer? Why didn’t you say so? Let me introduce you to Stratasys PolyJet technology.