With the 81st Annual Academy Awards coming up this Sunday (live from
the Kodak Theater), I thought I'd share a few print-related links that will pulverize your pupils with their 3D awesomeness!

3D Graphics Come to Life with Moddler

As I scoured Internet 1.0 for printing news yesterday, I came across a
story on VFXWorld about a San Franciso-based company named Moddler
that "prints" 3D models. As you might guess from their Bay area locale, Moddler's primary market is the the animation and special effects industry.

According to the VFXWorld article and Moddler's website, the recently
launched company transforms digital 3D models into physical 3D models
using a process similar to inkjet printing.

A quick glance at their website, however, shows that while they're
referred to as "printers," they're definitely not putting ink (or toner) on
paper. Here's the skinny directly from their site: 

“3D printing refers to an industrial process where digital data is translated directly into a physical model. It has been around in one
form or another for 20 years and has been used mainly for creating prototypes for the automotive, aerospace and OEM industries.
There are several different technologies out there that have various strengths and weaknesses. Whatever the technology, these
machines essentially operate like big printers that print in three dimensions instead of two.”

Of course, the website features a portfolio of samples. Here's a mako
shark created for Moddler by artist Adam Ely.

And here's one of a futuristic space soldier titled "Castaway."

The Moddler website intrigued me. I wasn't quite sure how a process "similar to inkjet" could create a 3D model. So, I did some more poking around, and I found the website for Z Corporation, a company that manufactures machines (referred to as printers) that can produce these types of models.

Honestly, watching the Z Corporation's ZPrinter 650 video felt like watching something out of a science fiction movie. Someone loads a 3D image from a computer into a machine, and the machine spits out a detailed, full-color model.

I'm pretty sure my five-year old self still lurks somewhere in the recesses of my brain. And I'm pretty sure that when he saw that video, he nearly fainted from giddiness.

Get Crafty with Printing

While not as space-aged as machines that create 3D models, papercrafts (a.k.a. paper models) enjoy a great deal of popularity around the world.

A papercraft cat (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Canon’s Creative Park site features templated designs for such papercrafts. The Canon site offers free PDF downloads of designs for papercraft animals, buildings, vehicles, and toys, as well as scrapbooks, greeting cards, calendars, and the like. While the Canon site is aimed at the home inkjet market, perhaps commercial printers can draw inspiration from the wide world of papercraft.

With a little imagination, one can see how printers might expand beyond the typical business cards and photo books to provide web2print applications that allow end-users to create and order personalized papercrafts. Take a look at the papercraft cat pictured above and then replace the generic face with the familiar face of the family feline. You get the idea.

Here’s another idea: If you’re a printer trying to embed yourself in the local community, how about a promotion or contest in which people create and submit designs for paper models of famous area buildings. If you get enough submissions, you could set up a whole window display of the local “paper” community.

For more papercraft craziness, you can head over to PaperForest and Paperkraft.net. There are some astoundingly talented paper artists out there.

And, finally, here's a short movie I found while searching Paperkraft.net. It's called The Seed. Written and directed by Johnny Kelly, it blends traditional animation with stop-motion papercraft animation. Not only does it subtly suggest the value of mixed-media, but it also delivers an important message about sustainability (I think?). Enjoy!