More interesting news regarding 3D printing from NASA. NASA had tested 3D printing in zero-g environments in the past and now they are looking at printing parts for rockets. Images of the launch can be found at jurvetson's flicker page .

3D print technology has taken on a new direction, freehand style with the 3D Doodler Pen.
Still it is not a good replacement to precision of a good 3D printer.

India successfully launched their new missile and the news agencies have successful exploited my animation of the missile, thus why I have started incorporating my logo on all images and video. I figured if they were going to take the imagery, it might as well have my logo on it for ownership (no less advertising). Though one news agency did request permission to use the animation, many others such as this video have incorporated it in the news casts. It is funny to see how creative they become to try to edit the logo out at times.

In anticipation of a launch new North Korean rocket, I have posted the Unha-3 Space Launch Vehicle , with Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite.

 

 

 

This is very interesting that NASA is looking at sending a 3D printer to the space station for building spare parts, equipments and tools. It makes sense for it is a lot cheaper to email a CAD file then it is to send parts on a rocket to the station.

 

 

For the second time in a week we (in the Baltimore area) are getting slammed by a blizzard dumping another 24+ inches of snow in the area. The crazy part is we are expecting another snow storm on Monday! This is crazy! We already broke the record for most snow fall in a season. I am running out of places to place all this snow and soon will have to build tunnels to just get around.

 

 

"The five foot piles of snow in my back yard"

NASA is posting 3D models and planetary body texture maps free for downloading. Be sure you review the usage guidelines if you use any of the resources in your projects.

 

Check out thier Multimedia 3D Resource here.

 

What do you get when you combine a military test and a unaware general public? A frenzy of UFO reports, sparking hysteria of an alien invasion. Though it is not all too uncommon for at least one report of an UFO to be made during a military test event, many in Norway were given a spectacular light show early this morning when a new developmental Bulava missile fired from a Russian nuclear submarine went a wry during the third staging of the missile. This failure caused the third stage to cone or spiral out of control producing the spectacular glowing fireball in the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just finished rebuilding and updating the Agni series of ballistic missile models which are currently operational or in development by India. I returned to the original models and recreated the texture maps to 2048x2048 resolution and better refined some of the model geometry. This update includes the recently posted developmental Agni-V ICBM.

Although the launch was not a complete success, failing to deploy the satellite into a low Earth orbit, South Korea has become the latest country with the capability to launch rockets into space. Models of the Naro launch pad and Korean Space Launch Vehicle are availble individually and as a collection here at T3DS.

 

 

As mentioned in the past with Caligari closing shop on TrueSpace due to Microsoft cut backs, a developer of plugins for the software is issuing it's goodbyes. Primitive Itch (http://www.primitiveitch.com/) is offering free downloads of its Primal Particles, Motion Studio and ShaderLab plugins. No telling how much longer the site will be up for these downloads.

I have rather mixed emotions about the attached video I found where the creator basically copied many of my model file images to create his video, but it is additional advertisement for the work I have posted here as well as for The 3D studio site.

 

 

Has anyone else experienced this in thier travels across through the internet?

Many of you may have taken advantage of the free download of Caligari's TrueSpace in the past since Microsoft aquired the rights to the software. But coming soon as early as May 22nd, services and support may be coming to an end as the software comes under the Microsoft investment chopping block. In a letter issued by Founder Roman Ormandy (http://www.caligari.com/News/news_200905/LetterFromTheFounder.html) this may be your last chance to visit the site and download your free copy of TrueSpace 7.6 as well as tutorials and certain plugins.

And so another free service is going by the wayside later this year. It was nice to have the free web space to post images and models plus use as a linking source back to The3DStudio. After 15+ years of service, may we bid farewell to the site as Yahoo pitches thier web hosting services.