Stratasys Direct Manufacturing recently opened a PolyJet™ Design and Print Centre at their location in Eden Prairie, Minn. The expanded facility is the largest on-demand PolyJet print bureau in North America and centralizes Stratasys Direct’s PolyJet capacity and expertise into one location. The PolyJet Design Centre features more than 16 state-of-the-art PolyJet 3D printers, including two J55 Prime™ printers.
As part of the facility opening, Stratasys Direct also unveiled its new multicolor workflow that is designed to streamline and shorten the design-to-print process for PolyJet 3D printing. Previously, customers needed to submit individual files for each colour, material, texture, and geometry. With the new workflow, customers can now design multi-colour, multi-part designs in a single 3MF file format, which contains all the model information -- textures, materials, colours, and mesh. This new workflow significantly streamlines the design and iteration process, enabling customers to save time on prototype versions and final production, ensuring parts get to market faster.
The new workflow coupled with the recent introduction of the Stratasys J55 Prime to the PolyJet centre, gives designers and engineers easy access to 3D printers that can create full-colour designs that integrate tactile, textual, and sensory elements for functional prototyping. Now, designers and engineers can go beyond their existing design possibilities and take their ideas from concept to reality quicker and in a more realistic style.
Derek Rund, Lead Senior Industrial Designer for Kinetic Vision, a product design firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio, says "Using the new simplified 3MF workflow enables us to bypass a handful of software applications allowing us to export printable files that include colourful graphics, complex textures, and multiple opacities in one step."
Since 2014, Stratasys Direct has served thousands of customers and industries by utilising a broad range of additive and conventional manufacturing technologies to produce rapid prototypes and end-use production parts. To learn more about Stratasys Direct, visit www.stratasysdirect.com.
