3D printing has become increasingly sophisticated, particularly among printers targeted at manufacturers rather than home users, with the ability to combine multiple material thicknesses and colours in one print.

Global 3D printing heavyweight Stratasys has pulled out all the stops at this year’s Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) conference in Los Angeles in order to demonstrate just how intricate 3D printed objects can now be.

The company has enlisted the help of internationally recognised designers from a range of fields to create objects that demonstrate this, and the results are pretty spectacular:

Although it looks like an alien egg, this creation is known as the Durotaxis Chair, and is designed by noted industrial designer Alvin Huang. It sounds pretty comfy too, as it functions as a rocking chair with both upright and lounge configurations. The more you look at this design, the more impressive it becomes – it combines different colour gradients and different thickness gradients to give the final finish, giving an oddly fluid finish to the final creation.

“In some parts my chair is thicker and more rigid, but thinner and softer where it needs to be; this makes for an optimal relationship between form and performance,” said Huang. “Without multi-material 3D printing, the gradient distribution of material properties and performance would be impossible.”

Bespoke and mass-production furniture is an area that Stratasys is keen to see growth in, and they haven’t been shy in pursuing heavy-hitters to achieve this.

Zaha Hadid, perhaps the world’s most famous living architect, contributed this chair, which was designed to show off the company’s Objet500 Connex3 printer. Although printed in one unit, the chair features a range of colours and material opacities – a feat that would be extremely difficult to replicate using other methods.

Elsewhere the luxury fashion market is being seen as a key focus for 3D printing, thanks to its ability to create highly intricate, bespoke products. The Molecule shoe seen above is by disruptive accessories designer Francis Bitonti.

“For me, using 3D printing in my work is not a choice, it is part of a design philosophy that is emerging as a new industrial revolution,” said Bitonti. “As an architect and fashion designer, I was inspired to create something that encapsulates the point where we become connected to our environment, for example the part of a building where it hits the ground, as our foot does in a shoe – this is where the story of an object is told.”

Jewellery has been a key area for 3D printing, and this necklace from Jenny Wu’s Lace collection is no different. Printing using industrial-standard FDM technology, using thermoplastic that is melted to a liquid state before it is printed in layers, the necklace demonstrates the complex shapes that can be achieved with 3D printing.

“I enjoy the possibilities that FDM 3D printing technology offers, as the strength of the materials enable me to directly manufacture jewelry pieces as opposed to just prototype,” said Wu.

3D printing is also going beyond these areas, as shown by The Polymo by Jose Sanchez. This is more of an exploration of the possibilities than a functional object, but it’s extremely impressive nonetheless, combining hundreds of independent units within the structure, all of which were printed at once.

“Inspired by games such as Minecraft, where players can build incredible creations within a game environment, 3D printed assembly means that it is possible to combine hundreds of independent units into one,” said Sanchez.

“This removes the constraints of traditional manufacturing and what kind of connections the unit could have, allowing a richer space of possibilities and the ability to work with strong, flexible and precise materials.”

Images courtesy of Stratasys.