New App Lets Users Design and 3D-Print iPhone Cases

3DPCase’s “Geography” template lets you print a 3D-terrain map of any location on your iPhone case. Image: Sculpteo

Companies are using 3D printing to crank out everything from Disney princesses to games to gun parts. But even with simplified hardware like the Makerbot, 3D printing has been limited to those who have piles of cash or who can maneuver the complexities of 3D design software.

That’s changing. App-based 3D-printing services are streamlining the design process and opening it up to smartphone-enabled consumers (see Autodesk’s 123D series). The latest example: 3DPCase, an app from French 3D-printing company Sculpteo that lets users design their own iPhone cases.

Here’s how it works: Users chose from one of five available templates — there are more in the works — and customize the design by tweaking the shape, switching the colors, or adding images and text. The entire process can take less than a minute, and the finished cases typically ship within two days for European customers and four days for North American orders. Prices start at $14.99.

Various design firms helped create the templates, such as the Society for Printable Geography, who designed the concept for the terrain map “Geography” case.

All cases are printed using a nylon extrusion process — not unlike what you’d find with a typical MakerBot. But while you can find many DIY case designs on online 3D-object repositories Thingiverse and Shapeways, the design time and material cost for those are often greater than using 3DPCase.

For example, Ryan King, a UK-based designer, designed and printed his own iPhone case using a commercial 3D printer. The final result, which he posted on Thingiverse, looks very similar to a design users can get with 3DPCase. But King spent two hours designing it using two different software applications — Google SketchUp and Netfab Basic — plus digital calipers, then paid $24 to have it printed.

Clément Moreau, CEO and co-founder of Sculpteo, says his company is trying to make 3D printing more accessible to the average user by reducing the time and energy needed to create a 3D design.

“This application really shows that 3-D printing will change the way we build objects in the future,” Moreau says.

3DPCase is already up and running for iPhone 4 and 4S cases, and Sculpteo will start taking orders for iPhone 5 cases on September 12.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/09/app-brings-3-d-printing-to-iphone-cases/

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