From the website:
“REAL is both an exclusive executive summit, REAL TALK, & a world’s fair of cutting-edge 3D demos, REAL LIVE.

REAL is new and different: an immersive, hands-on, high-level gathering in a historic venue with a unique program.

REAL is real people, doing real-world work with reality tech.

REAL is Reality Computing.

WHO
REAL is 500+ leaders and innovators — professionals from across industry, investing, research, and media.

REAL brings together real work spanning disciplines from:
Architecture to Art,
Engineering to Entertainment,
Manufacturing to Media,
Heritage to Health, and
Sports to Science…
REAL is executives & engineers, developers & designers, inventors & investors, architects & artists, makers & meteorologists, surveyors & scientists, entrepreneurs & educators.

WHY
 From drones to autonomous cars, industrial robots to major engineering works, and game consoles to tomorrow’s mobile phones, 3D sensors are suddenly everywhere. And several decades after first grabbing headlines, VR and 3D printing are hot again, attracting billions in investment, and moving beyond early adopters to professionals. But it is the sum total, where sensing meets making, where big change is brewing.

While the ‘Internet of Things’ grabs headlines, a 3D revolution is quietly building.”

Although I only was there for one day, this was quite the event and I rank it among the best I have ever attended. Yes it had cool exhibitors and great speakers, but my high marks come from it bringing together communities that normally don’t mix, even though they are complementary and or share technologies. Most parts of the ‘3D life cycle’ were present.

Autodesk pretty much owns the 3D modeling tools space, so 3D creation from that standpoint was in the house if not directly represented on the expo floor. Most, if not all, of the 3D creation was from scanning and capture technologies and companies like Leica, Matterport, Occipital, and Floored.

Companies like Arup and Autodesk showed off interactive 3D and VR applications while immersive technology companies including IrisVR and Metaio dazzled folks with virtual and augmented reality demos.

A little light on the ‘Make’ side, the event did showcase some digital fabrication art installations with Fathom and a few other companies demonstrating how 3D and scanned data can be used for digital fabrication (mainly 3D printing).

Topping things off on the last day, Matt Sonic and the San Francisco Virtual Reality Meetup group had their eighth meeting at the close of the REAL event that included thought provoking presentations and VR devs showing off some VR demos (unfortunately none related to the theme of the conference).

This event was a great #1 and I can’t wait to participate in the whole event next year to see what 3D technologies they invite next. This is definitely an event that as it grows, the world of 3D is going to get very REAL.

source: the Verge

In fact, it has already started.  We have already seen 3D almost everything, and recently 3D candy. But lately we been seeing 3D chocolate, cake decoration and even an experimental pizza for NASA.  Not sure about that pizza though.  What is interesting about the 3D printed candy is that Designer and architect Liz Von Hasseln, the co-creator of ChefJet did not build a special 3D printer.  They tool a normal Cube 3D printer and with some modification, were able to create 3D candy.  The opened Sugar Lab where people could order 3D printed sweets and soon 3DSystems bought the company and turned their modified 3D Cube in the ChefJet and ChefJetPro.  But its not just sweets.

source: the Verge

Hershey and 3D Systems are teamed up to make 3D printed chocolates available to the public.  This is the same idea with the 3D sweets and opens the same possibilities.  Image amazing 3D chocolate sculptures at the next event you attend. We already do this for Easter and Christmas, why not less popular holidays?  Why not on cakes?  ( check out the image at the bottom ). So think about it.  How many cakes do you see when you go into the supermarket?  Quite a bit.  Each one is hand created.  Normally if you have a special event, you chose from a preset catalog of designs and have a message printed for you.  Instead, we have have various cake shapes, perhaps primitives that can be cut and combined in to more interesting ‘core’ cake shapes. And then you can create your own design from a collection of 3D objects, images and text.  You can create you own cake design on the fly.  You can take pre existing designs and modify it.  Given that we can 3D print candy, chocolate and I assume anything else that can go from liquid to solid, out cakes would not be limited to just icing.  Although I have to question if there is any value to pizza on a cake….  well actually it could be good.

source: the Verge

Source: The Verge

I grabbed the .stl 3d digital file from  makerbot thingverse. Credit C Perlman for this.  You can also buy one from his site.  So first step, downloading this .stl file.  Done.

One thing I could have done is opened this file in a 3D editor and made some modifications, however,

Next, I need to get this file to the printer.  The good people from Cubify brought 3 3D printers.  I put the .stl file on a usb stick and walked it over there.  They then opened their custom application and converted from .stl to .cube format used for their printers.  This file is the conversion from 3D to 2D layers building up into the 3D object.  Save.

Next we take the USB to the printer and the magic happens.   In this case it is a simple PLA plastic material coloured grey.  Perfect for the grey Pebble.

The total printing time was around 2 hours.  Not too bad.

And here is the final result!  I can take some soft sandpaper and smooth it out, or I could paint it which would do that same thing.  However, I like the raw layered look.  The whole process was extremely easy.  Not that I ever thought 3D printing was hard, but now that I have gone from file to finish, I want to print something else!

He also placed the .stl files on makerbot thingverse so you can grab and print yourself.  Sweet.

This make total sense.  Its not actuate enough to replace good old fashion measuring to be sure something is going to fix, but now you can look at colors, shapes and get an idea of how something will or will not fix. To make this really take off, they need to demo this in every IKEA across the nation.

Next step?  Step by step instructions on how to put those thing together.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDNzTasuYEw

Keep in mind this is a complete rewrite of libraries so that means you will have to rewrite your html5 page from the ground up.  But if you need performance, it might be worth it. Right now its focused on 3D, but I think this can be useful for any non document display.

Check out the video below.  This is going to be a coding effort we will want to watch in 2013.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBC20B5dsk

Also check out this snippet from the Sept newsletter.

Three-dimensional printing is, as the name implies, the production or “printing” of actual objects, such as parts for a small airplane, by using a machine that traces out layers of melted plastic in specific shapes until it builds up a piece exactly according to the size and dimensions specified in a computer-aided drawing produced by an engineer.

In this case, the engineers were Easter and Turman, working with insight from their adviser, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor David Sheffler, a U.Va. Engineering School alumnus and 20-year veteran of the aerospace industry.

It was a daunting project – producing a plane with a 6.5-foot wingspan, made from assembled “printed” parts. The students sometimes put in 80-hour workweeks, with many long nights in the lab.

“It was sort of a seat-of-the-pants thing at first – wham, bang,” Easter said. “But we kept banging away and became more confident as we kept designing and printing out new parts.”

Sheffler said he had confidence in them “the entire way.”

The way eventually led to assembly of the plane and four test flights in August and early September at Milton Airfield near Keswick. It achieved a cruising speed of 45 mph and is only the third 3-D printed plane known to have been built and flown.

Okay so their Youtube channel is a trip to the future, but back to the point. An impressive display of a detailed interactive 3D scene on a mobile device via a browser on open and standards based web technologies. Well done team IGD.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcMRkyoHKeA

The lenticular lens is non adhesive but comes with an optional adhesive, meaning you need to figure out some other way to hold the film in place if you do not want to make it permanent.   I however, do not want it permanently attached.  I cannot imagine I’m going to be viewing 3D video and games all the time, so being able to take the overlay on and off easily will be highly desirable.

At the booth, I only saw video but its not hard to image that you can do great 3D gaming with this solution as well.  They are going to release an SKD this summer, so I can see some indie developers jumping on this to be one of the first to have 3D gaming on the iphone or ipad.  Beta tester please!

Now the bad news.  Its not available in the US yet.  I’m going to order one from Japan and try to play with it as soon as I can.  There is no word as to when they can find a US partner to import the filter, but one would think that should be pretty easy. Its just a thin sheet a material after all.  The software to convert the video is Free.

But, back to the good news.  Its not just for the iphone!   This will also work on PC’s as well. (Nothing about Macs) so if you order the correct size for your screen, you can download their windows app and get the same performance.

Now before you go out and order one, keep in mind they do not accept refunds or exchanges.  Basically, if you mess up and get the incorrect size, you are on your own.  However, I watched it working myself and for $30, was convinced.

Now Check the Vid..