Randomly generated 3D spaceships to print on your 3D printer, generated with WebGL

Dolf sez, "Dolf Veenvliet aka macouno of Entoforms fame has been working on some fun tools to generate 3D forms. Under the ShapeWright moniker Dolf has produced a random space ship generator entitled shipWright that generates unique configurations of space ships ready for 3D printing (and freely downloadable). You can also have a personalized Space Ship generated by your name, or whatever text you enter into the build system."

This is pretty cutting-edge browser stuff. To get Firefox to try it, I had to force WebGL on -- type about:config into your location bar, then search for "webgl.force-enabled" and set it to "true."

(Thanks, Dolf!)

ShapeWright [ship.shapewright.com]

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: 3d • 3d printing • happy mutants • maker • science fiction • web theory

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I printed one of these using the text “CBC Radio” on my MakerBot: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11986
vagabond2

Syd Mead, reduced to algorithm…
bkad

This is awesome! And it works in the normal non-beta version of chrome without intervention, so you may not even need to monkey around with plugins and command flags if you happen to use that browser.
http://www.wholemap.com/blog seemsArtless

‘Cutting edge’ really? Cool, as it ran perfectly in Firefox 7 on my Samsung Galaxy S II, but didn’t run at all on the stock Android browser.
http://www.epinardscaramel.com TokenFrenchDude

This would have been great in Spore.
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

The output is in VRML, but you can convert it to other formats – using tools such as the open-source Blender – for import to 3D modeling/rendering programs as well.

Instant space fleet!
bbonyx

Am I the only one who thought of the Nostoromo (specifically the landing portion) when seeing the sample above?
cymk

Sweet link, thanks Cory. This is all sorts of awesome.