Update: unfortunately, this thing was the target of a DMCA takedown notice and is no longer available on Thingiverse.

Double update: this has been resolved and the thing is back up.!

This is an awesome print of an awesome object that does the very awesome trick of looking like it can’t possibly be real, even though it totally is.  I think in person you might have to close one eye or be far away for it to work.  But wow.  How cool is that?

Tony Buser’s Thingiview.js is an in-browser 3D file viewer powered by WebGL.  If you have a WebGL-enabled browser, you can view 3D files in your browser almost as fast as viewing them with a desktop application.

Now, Thingiview.js is available on Thingiverse! Just look for the little  cube icon next to the thumbnails for any STL file.  For example:

As a bonus, and as shown above, you can embed Thingiviews into your own pages! Each Thingiview page has an “Embed This Thing” button, which gives you the HTML to copy-and-paste into your site. You can even customize the colors!

If your current web browser doesn’t support WebGL, you might want to try the latest Google Chrome, which has WebGL support built in, or check out the latest Firefox and Safari betas.

The ability to preview 3D files in-browser has been on our wishlist for a while so it is great to be able to get this feature into the hands of the citizens of Thingiverse!

Please keep in mind that Thingiview is an experimental feature. If you run into any files that don’t work, please let us know!

A really neat round-off tutorial!

Making shapes with smooth edges and corners isn’t as easy in OpenSCAD as it is in SolidWorks, but it’s still definitely possible, and this walk-through shows you step-by-step how to make a carving “blank” and digitally “scrape down” the edges in your project!

Looking forward to more of this series!

Have I mentioned that I really love impossible-looking builds? This one really wows me.  Check out the pictures on the cube’s Thingiverse Page– those gears aren’t just for show!  (Well, okay they don’t do WORK or anything but you can twist them and have the gears mesh and turn on each other.)

This whole meme of gear-stuffed solids is wonderful!

Also, have you noticed how there’s a lot of real memetic breeding going on now that more people are using OpenSCAD?  That tool is driving a LOT of innovation!

Sneak Peek: WebGL modelling tool for 3D printing from Benjamin Nortier on Vimeo.

This is the beginning of an open source in-the-browser CSG package with many of the features of OpenSCAD and a lot of good stuff (such as having the code be implicit rather than something you scroll and type) added.  If Benjamin Nortier meets his ambitious goals, he’ll have created a web tool that adheres to modern API conventions, handles advanced CSG mathematics, and perhaps most importantly is completely Open Source and commercial-use friendly.

We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one!

There’s a great tutorial on I Heart Robotics showing how it is in fact possible to create a non-manifold mesh using even this solid-modeling package, and, the important part, how to avoid them!  Native solid modeling is the best way to make avoiding non-manifold geometry easy, but it’s definitely still possible to make something with coincident planes.  Holes, however, are as far as I know impossible, which is a big improvement over meshers, where they’re the bane of your existence!

The mashup challenge has been turning into a bit of a monster mash, and variations on the gangsta model are really common because it provides a pretty compelling posture to add, well, anyone or anything’s face to.  I particularly like gangsta brainy Walt.  Very memetically dense.

Mayhaps Hipster Cat will be next?

This is a knob for a dimmer switch.  It also, as it happens, is “the (7,6,6) hyperbolic tessellation, mapped into the Poincare disk, and draped over about two thirds of the sphere,” which is more math than I’ve ever seen in that small an area before, and not just because hyperbolic tesselations have an infinite number of unit cels mapped in a finite area! *nerd jokes*

What really impresses me here is the seamless combination of function, math and art.  The lines between these have always been blurred, but with digital manufacturing, a lot of the craft of precision manufacturing can be outsourced to robots who don’t mind doing our bidding!

The Popular Things section of Thingiverse has been a great showcase of some of the most popular Things ever posted to the site.

Unfortunately, this didn’t really reflect what the citizens of Thingiverse like right now. As a few things became really popular, they took over the top spots and stayed there.

We want popular things to showcase what the community currently thinks is the best stuff coming out of Thingiverse, so we’ve tweaked it to only take into account the last 30 days worth of “Likes” and other information.

Check it out! You’re bound to find something awesome in there.

This little bottle connector for making safe at-home tornadoes was actually posted a while ago, but this awesome picture of one working is new:

Did I mention I love it when 3D printing is used for science demonstrations?