Orange Peel

grabcad

I am currently an Industrial Designer in the Contract Furniture industry. Prior to this design competition, I previously saw a webinar regarding the ability to 3D print from KeyShot earlier this year, however at the time I only had access to KeyShot 9 and currently I still do not have access to a multijet printer. But I have worked with multijet printers in the past in another aspect of the design industry. Unfortunately at the time, parts could only be printed in the Vero Grey, Vero Black and Tango Clear finishes. During that time I designed handheld mobile communication devices. If I wanted to show various CMF’s (Color, Material, Finishes) then I would either rely on KeyShot renderings to interpret this or I would actually paint the models which required for the models to be printed in various parts to be finished and painted then assembled to be evaluated. Based on my previous experience in other industries of design, I think that depending on the scale of the products that you are designing as well as what you are trying to achieve with the prototypes, only certain industries are on the cusp of understanding the capabilities of what exists with this new 3D printing technology that is combined with KeyShot. I am currently not aware of any other 3D printing technologies that can be combined with the KeyShot workflow and achieve the same results. Personally I have been using KeyShot since version 3, however this is the first time that I am trying to 3D print a file using the color interpretations of the materials that I have applied to the product that I am working with in KeyShot. I think that the impact that this new capability of 3D printing from KeyShot will be powerful not only for design reviews in a typical design studio but also have an impact on what can be produced for focus groups and marketing studies. It would also be interesting to see if companies can take advantage of opportunities to 3D print more complex surface finishes such as knurled metal surfaces, wood grain finishes and fabric such as leather and other materials with displacement maps. These capabilities would really benefit the automotive and transportation industry, more specifically the interior design of vehicles where different trims can vary and the options need to be evaluated in design reviews. Currently at my place of work, we only have access to the Stratasys 5370 FDM printer that either prints in black or grey. The parts that we print are majority used to evaluate the fit and details of if a design solution will work from a mechanical standpoint. The parts are not used to evaluate look and material choices. The parts need to withstand some pounding and strength testing. From my experience with polyjet prints, they can be brittle and sensitive to heat and humidity, however the finish on the parts is much better than an FDM print and far less surface finishing involved. My bottle design for the contest is a glass bottle for an Orange Seltzer soft drink. The design is a combination of the twisted CAD sample and the spherical CAD sample provided by GrabCAD. The bottle top is a unique design in the sense that it has a leaf feature extending from the top to give the consumer more leverage to twist off the cap. The name of the drink is embossed in the glass along with orange slices added as a label on the upper part of the bottle.