Forget tinkering with plastic prototypes. Munich’s Next Gen Manufacturing conference today was a full-on industrial power play. The "who's who" of additive manufacturing (EOS, Siemens, Nikon SLM, Voxeljet, etc.) huddled with the people who build the really cool stuff: think BMW, Airbus, the European Space Agency, and even the German military. The mission? To quit talking and start building, collaborating on commercial-scale production to put Germany firmly back on the 3D printing throne.

A post on the Autodesk blog for Fusion has announced that, as part of ongoing UI roadmap, the software now offers themes including "dark blue" dark mode. You now have the retina-relieving option to toggle away from Fusion's bright default color scheme between Light Gray, Fusion Classic, and Dark Blue themes, as well as a device-matching selection that intelligently chooses based on your device preferences.

Fusion's classic color scheme will be phased out, but the light grey theme largely preserves its look.

In terms of looks, it's a closed-toe mule-style shoe that shows off the common lattice style that has come to define printed shoes. Contrasting Asics branding separates this $250 sandal from the rest, in my opinion. It's a style Asics has toyed with before, with various printed lattices present in some of the company's shoes since 2022  – a part of the growing story of fully 3D printed footwear.

blends sci-fi design with real-world sustainability — giving reforestation volunteers in Mongolia a sleek, solar-powered base to fight back against desertification. Sitting on the edge of the Tengger Desert and designed by DesignReserve, each of the nine sand-based modules was robotically printed in Wuxi, trucked across the country, and snapped together with no heavy machinery. There are no deep foundations since the Ark "floats" on pallets on the sand. The curvy, dune-like walls shrug off sandstorms and insulate inhabitants from extream weather.

Philipp Enderle quite literally scaled to victory with his ingenious Pocketholds, which are 3D printed replicas of real rock holds he created by scanning outdoor climbing routes via an app. Enderle’s system lets climbers recreate their favorite walls at home or in the gym. This application earned him the top prize at the fifth German 3D Printing Challenge, held at Neu-Ulm Univ. of Applied Sciences. Other winners included a 3D printed skateboard and a 3D printed indoor farming system.

In last week's poll I asked what matters most when buying filament, and the number one response by a large margin was "Quality - the most reliable performance". This pleasantly surprised me, as an assumption of mine had been that cost would win out.

Refocusing on quality, though, it begs a follow-up. What is quality? I qualified the response last week with "the most reliable performance" but that in and of itself is a pretty broad cover for different facets of "quality". So tell me, what most makes a filament "quality" to you?

Maslow, the open source large format belt-driven CNC project, has posted a fascinating development update to its blog, detailing behind-the-scenes work to simplify the Maslow4's cumbersome anchor point setup.

By reducing a messy six-dimensional calibration problem to a clean arc of possibilities, they’ve uncovered a surprising mathematical structure. It makes for pretty interesting reading; something to whittle away the last minutes of your Friday afternoon.