Shapeways, a 3D printing service and marketplace, announced the company is teaming up with Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS) to make full-color, multi-material 3D printing more accessible to designers and creators. These new manufacturing services are based on the full-color, multi-material Stratasys J7503D printer. The Stratasys J750 enables designers and engineers to build realistic prototypes with streamlined design-to-prototype workflows – decreasing both time-to-market and time-to-revenue.

The Stratasys J750 3D Printer offers more than 500,000 color combinations, accurate color-matching, transparent to opaque color gradients, and advanced clear material with texture bringing  to life even the finest, most delicate details. The PolyJet-driven system creates parts that look, feel, and operate like finished products. Eliminating requirements for painting, assembly or heavy post-processing, the Stratasys J750 shrinks production cycles thanks to reliable and consistent printing – part-after-part.

Shapeways is positioned to wrap an entire workflow around Stratasys’ innovation. This includes helping design printable objects that fully use the printer’s capability, running the printers at scale, and delivering finished products that are ready to use or sell.

Biologic Models is one of the first Shapeways customers to have access to the Stratasys J750 printer. The company visualizes protein data and 3D prints it as highly detailed models that are millions of times larger than the protein’s actual size. These multi-colored models help explain the nature of health and disease taking place on the molecular landscape and are a useful visual aid for educators explaining the properties of a specific protein.

“J750 is the best of both manufacturing worlds, full-color 3D printing combined with high-quality transparent plastics. This is exactly what my customers want,” says Casey Steffen, Founder and Director of Operations of Biologic Models. “Transparency and color coding are necessary features to create the highest quality and most durable models. The J750 tackles these design and manufacturing challenges head on.”

Shapeways announced the agreement at the 2018 TCT Show in Birmingham, England. Beta customers will be able to access the service before the end of the year, with a full launch expected in 2019.

Shapeways
www.shapeways.com

Stratasys
www.stratasys.com