Chemical Shift

I’ve seen a lot a products and projects recently that involve using a computer to design objects in 3D and creating a physical object in the real world from it. Eventually, I would like to incorporate some of these into a future design business with Melissa.

The first is a really neat program called ZBrush from Pixologic, which essentially enables you to sculpt digitally. The interface looks like it shouldn’t have a difficult learning curve and costs $500 to 600.

There’s also a 3D scanner from NextEngine to scan objects into the computer, which is just under $2,500. I learned about this from an interesting project called Fab@Home, which is trying to bring rapid prototyping to the more technically inclined home user. While not cheap, around ~$2,300 to 4,000 depending on how much time you want to spend in building it. Its significantly cheaper than commercially available 3D printers, such as Z Corporation’s ZPrinter 450, which starts just under $40,000.

I recently found out about the CarveWright Woodworking System, a.k.a. the Sears Craftsman CompuCarve, which I’ve read can work with some plastics as well as various woods, which runs just under $2,000. For an additional $300, they also have a scan probe attachment to do another type of 3D scanning.