The latest 3D printing news, the first 3D content generation and software development startup is a big announcement of Whispering Gibson, who uses its innovative RenderFeb technology for freeware and 3D print video game action. A few months ago, British Startup had announced six-figure investment from Not-profit Company Creative England to help renderfabs and its patent-pending Grabit software to be taken out of the ground. Now, Whispering Gibbon has officially launched its rebranded 3D printing technology, Perfect 3D.
3D printing
3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), refers to processes used to create a three-dimensional object in which layers of material are formed under computer control to create an object. Objects can be of almost any shape or geometry and are produced using digital model data from a 3D model or another electronic data source such as an Additive Manufacturing File (AMF) file. Thus, unlike material removed from a stock in the conventional machining process, 3D printing or AM builds a three-dimensional object from computer-aided design (CAD) model or AMF file by successively adding material layer by layer.
The term “3D printing” originally referred to a process that deposits a binder material onto a powder bed with inkjet printer heads layer by layer. More recently, the term is being used in popular vernacular to encompass a wider variety of additive manufacturing techniques. United States and global technical standards use the official term additive manufacturing for this broader sense. ISO/ASTM52900-15 defines seven categories of AM processes within its meaning: binder jetting, directed energy deposition, material extrusion, material jetting, powder bed fusion, sheet lamination and vat photopolymerization
The umbrella term additive manufacturing (AM) gained wide currency in the 2000s. The term subtractive manufacturing appeared as a retronym for the large family of machining processes with metal removal as their common theme. The term 3D printing still referred only to the polymer technologies in most minds, and the term AM was likelier to be used in metalworking and end use part production contexts than among polymer, inkjet, or stereolithography enthusiasts.
By the early 2010s, the terms 3D printing and additive manufacturing evolved senses in which they were alternate umbrella terms for AM technologies, one being used in popular vernacular by consumer-maker communities and the media, and the other used more formally by industrial AM end-use part producers, AM machine manufacturers, and global technical standards organizations. Until recently, the term 3D printing has been associated with machines low-end in price or in capability. Both terms reflect that the technologies share the theme of sequential-layer material addition or joining throughout a 3D work envelope under automated control.
Other terms that had been used as AM synonyms or hypernyms included desktop manufacturing, rapid manufacturing, agile tooling (as the logical production-level successor to rapid prototyping), and on-demand manufacturing (which echoes on-demand printing in the 2D sense of printing). Today, the term subtractive has not replaced the term machining, instead complementing it when a term that covers any removal method is needed. Agile tooling is the use of modular means to design tooling that is produced by additive manufacturing or 3D printing methods, to enable quick prototyping and responses to tooling and fixture needs. Agile tooling uses a cost effective and high quality method to quickly respond to customer and market needs, and it can be used in hydro-forming, stamping, injection molding and other manufacturing processes.
Whispering Gibbon
Whispering Gibbon is based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and staffed by a highly experienced team, with a background specializing in 3D Graphics and rendering engine development. Our team is working on applying their expertise to in-game merchandising – by developing technology to capture models in-game, and then enable them to be 3D printed, automatically. This has resulted in our flagship products, Grabit and RenderFab. The company is also keenly awaiting the award of several patents on our breakthroughs in this field.
Since graduating from the first UK Microsoft Ventures Accelerator the company has gone from strength to strength and was included in the prestigious Develop 100 list in 2014. The company have secured two rounds of venture capital investment and in 2015 started working full time on developing their RenderFab technology with the support of an Innovate UK SMART grant.
Goal of the company is to be leading player in the dynamic world of 3D content, known for creating ground breaking technology that disrupts traditional business models. It has been recognized by TIGA and Develop Company that will change the games industry. It works closely to the following companies Microsoft Ventures, Technology Strategy Board Driving innovation, Shapeways creative etc. This year has started off brilliantly for software developers, Whispering Gibbon, as they saw themselves listed as one of the top 100 games companies to watch in 2014.
They are now part of Develop100, a list of the top 100 software companies expected to have the biggest impact on the games industry over the next 12 months. Created by game development and news site Develop-online.net in conjunction with The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment, the list saw Whispering Gibbon rubbing shoulders with the likes of Xbox, Valve, Ubisoft Montreal and Tango Gameworks the brainchild of Shinji Mikami, creator of the Resident Evil game franchise. Understandably, Whispering Gibbon was thrilled to hear that they had made the cut. Joe Stevens, Director of Whispering Gibbon, says: “We always looked forward to the new Develop100 to see who would be doing exciting things in the year to come. It was a very proud moment to be included alongside so many of the world leading studios that we admire.”
Rebranded Technology
Rebranding technology is the creation of a new look and feel for an established product or company. The usual goal of rebranding is to influence a customer’s perception about a product or service or the company overall by revitalizing the brand and making it seem more modern and relevant to the customer’s needs.
Rebranding can be applied to new products, mature products, or even products still in development. The process can occur intentionally through a deliberate change in strategy or occur unintentionally from unplanned, emergent situations, such as a “Chapter 11 corporate restructuring,” “union busting,” or “bankruptcy.” Rebranding can also refer to a change in a company/ corporate brand that may own several sub-brands for products or companies.
Rebranded to perfect 3D
We have completely re-branded for 3D so that we can concentrate on automating manual model processing for all printing services and focus our attention on the game. “The company’s founder and CEO Joe Stevens said,” We are launching a free beta of our online cloud service to automatically optimize any 3D data as a print-ready model. ”
Perfected3D is an online, 3D technology cloud service and, according to the company, can completely change the way of 3D printing by automating its existing manual processes. This will make the technology efficient, affordable and accessible, which can have a big impact on small businesses, large scale printing services, and the manufacturing industry, all the way to build from the consumer.
3D models are Hand-fixed
Most 3D models have been hand-written manually, so that they can be print-ready, which is costly and time consuming,” Stevens explained, “fully automating the process reduces costs in our platform. And throughput increases. This makes 3D printing much more cost effective for bigger companies, accessible for smaller companies allowing them to create personalized content and easily scale up.
According to the newly introduced Perfected3D website, there are several reasons that 3D data will not be successfully printed as 3D, such as the volume of expansion; Badly structured, complex, or incompatible data; Or not being well structured for the selected 3D printing technology, it can take a long time to identify and fix all these problems, so production is slow, more expensive, and disappointing on large scale optimization. But Perfected3D says that its patent-pending software corrects these issues, and automatically optimizes print jobs, creating quality, full-color, multi-material models from any form of 3D data.
Perfect data looks!
The exact 3D process seems very simple once the data is uploaded and size is selected, the company takes care of the rest: checking data compatibility, adding visual enhancements and scaling, weak parts for printability Strengthening, and optimizing for appropriate print technology. Then, customers choose the output type and download the Perfected3D model. The technology is in the process of being rolled out to 3D printing services, like Beamler, and is being used by game company Lockwood Publishing. “This tech allows the users of our app, Avakin Life to turn their unique video game creations into 3D print ready models and we have been really impressed with the results,” explained Joel Kemp, the director of Lockwood Publishing. As part of your official launch, now totally free to access 3D printers for 3D Beta service businesses. Businesses can print their own 3D models, and “immediately prove their ground-breaking abilities for themselves.”
Although beta service is now free, it will eventually become on-demand, pay-per-upload service. You can also sign up for a monthly subscription on the Perfected3D API. While we will remember whispering Gibbon, it seems that everything is going right in the direction of what is right now.
Sigma labs publishing Patent
On another interesting piece of 3D Printing Business News: Sigma Labs, which provides quality assurance software under the PrintRight 3D brand, has announced the publication of US patent on June 30, 2016. Application No. US 2016/0185048 for Multi-Sensor Quality Inference and Control for Additive Manufacturing Processes. The patent relates to real-time quality analysis during AM processes, as well as the characterization of material properties using acoustic signals that are emitted during these processes that can be used, along with optical signals, to make the qualification of printed parts simpler.
About the Sigma labs
Sigma labs is a provider of 3D printing products and services, including quality assurance software and contract printing services in a variety of industries: aerospace, healthcare, automotive, and consumer products. It was founded in 2005 by high-level scientists from the world-renowned Los Alamos National Lab. The company went public in 2010 with the commercialization of the breakthrough PrintRite3D® system. Just as Los Alamos helped shape the modern world in the 20th century, Sigma Labs is bringing to market advanced manufacturing, materials and process monitoring technologies that will serve our clients in many ways. There leading Scientist and engineers team from Los Alamos National Laboratory have over 100 years of combined industrial R&D experience. We develop manufacturing and materials technologies and R&D solutions for first-tier integrators like Boeing, GE Aviation, Honeywell Aerospace, and other commercial firms around the globe. Sigma Labs has current contracts with Federal Government and private industry clients to develop technologies from their conception through the design, building, and testing of prototype systems by integrating sensing, software, materials, and manufacturing technology risk-reduction solutions.
System with multi-sensor Quality
The Sigma Labs patent also includes a system with multi-sensor quality interference for AM. The system can discern and address three separate quality issues:
• Process anomalies, or extreme unpredictable process events uncorrelated to process inputs.
• Process variations, or difference between desired process parameters and actual operating conditions
• Material structure and properties, or the quality of the resultant material created by the AM process.
The system was aggregated sensor data to evaluate and control AM’s operation in real-time. The company’s patent application tells how the optical sensor can measure oscillation in a printer’s melt pool, and also to increase the “specular reflection” by increasing the sensor reading by using lasers to artificial reduce the pool. Include oscillation frequency information.
Patent no.-US2016/0185048
This invention teaches a multi-sensor quality inference system for additive manufacturing. This invention still further teaches a quality system that is capable of discerning and addressing three quality issues: i) process anomalies, or extreme unpredictable events uncorrelated to process inputs; ii) process variations, or difference between desired process parameters and actual operating conditions; and iii) material structure and properties, or the quality of the resultant material created by the Additive Manufacturing process. This invention further teaches experimental observations of the Additive Manufacturing process made only in a Lagrangian frame of reference. This invention even further teaches the use of the gathered sensor data to evaluate and control additive manufacturing operations in real time.
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