Weekly 3D, VR And 3D Printing News: The Week Of 05.18-05.25

A new software release, a 3D printed motorcycle and a VR movie about visiting Pluto walk into a bar...

Houdini 15.5 Released!

Houdini 15.5 has been released and this modeling/rendering/whatever else you need soft has never been stronger! Loads of new topography building tools, beveling and polygon splitting utilities, displacement mapping in viewport, tri-planar texture projection (with loading by axis) – the list goes on and on! The modeling tools basically saw a rewrite from the ground up. Crowd tools have been improved with added functionality, VR Lens camera is added to let you inspect how your stuff will look in VR, and third party rendering support has also been introduced. It‘s an exciting time for all Houdini users out there!

3D Printed Motorcycle?!

3D printers are not only for printing miniatures and, in the dreams of cyberpunks everywhere, organs. You can use it to print something cool, too. Airbus subsidiary APWorks used 3D printing to create the “Light Rider”, probably the world’s first 3D printed motorcycle. It weights 77 pounds and goes from 0 to 50 miles in several seconds. The secret is in the material that used melted aluminum particles to make the light weight frame. And the bike looks so freaky on purpose: the algorithm used in the designed employed bionic structures and natural growth patterns to come up with the lightweight frame.

Facebook Investing In VR

Facebook had bought Oculus way back in 2014, and now the VR operations are expanding in Europe. London seems to becoming the European hub for their operations, with the office located there increasing in staff in the last six months – at least that‘s what the LinkedIn snoopers would want you to believe. Mike LeBeau is heading the Oculus team on this side of the pond, and he‘s famous for being the Google engineer who founded the company‘s voice search program.

Speaking of sound, Facebook just bought a UK-based start up Two Big Ears, which was oriented towards spatial audio. This Edinburgh, Scotland team has set up to help companies deal with the integration of “spatial audio” – the recreation of sound as it acts in three-dimensional space via speakers, amplifiers and various software.

Google Will Build Its Own Daydream Headsets

Everyone was waiting for Google to announce that they’re entering the VR headset market. But what they heard during the I/O conference was that Google is making an another mobile VR reference, this time in the shape of Daydream. Unlike Cardboard, it’s a fully realized VR headset, with a controller to boot! Well, people needn’t despair too much, since Google later announced that it will also be building its own Daydream sets, so the customers will not be left with the products of third party companies. Expect them to roll out in fall to follow the new Android N.

Exploring Pluto With New York Times

The New York Times has premiered ‘Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart,’ a 7-minute VR movie about exploring the surface of this planetoid. It’s a first for New York Times, since it was built completely by the cooperation of their science desk and graphics department. It is based on the data gathered by the last year’s New Horizon flyover. The movie was presented at the Seattle Film Festival, which features many futuristic filming models, including 360 cameras. You can view this movie by downloading the NYT VR app.

3D Printing Metal Midair

Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering has unveiled a new pen that can 3D print solid metal structures midair with no supports. It uses silver nanoparticle ink and a laser beam that solidifies the ink as it is extruded out of the pen. The most complex part of the exercise was to calculate the distance between the laser and the ink so that it wouldn’t solidify in the pen. It is hoped that this 3D printing pen will help wearable electronics market as well as finding medical applications where thin, bent metal shapes are required.