May 26, 2015 | By Alec
While 3D printed fashion accessories have been around for a while, 3D printed glasses – which need to be absolutely perfect fitting – are somewhat rarer to come across, especially as a marketable product. Well it looks like that is now changing, as German fashionable eyewear manufacturers ic! berlin have launched a full line of 3D printed eyewear called “plotic” earlier this year.
Now those eyewear fashionistas among you will need no further comment, but ic! berlin have built up a reputation for making very unusual and fashionable eyewear in a large variety of shapes, colors and materials (including steel and acetate). In that respect, it should be hardly surprising that they have now also gotten their hands on Selective Laser Sintering technology, though they have reportedly been experimenting with the technology for several years already.
However, as you can easily see in the photos the results are definitely wort hit. The plotic line consists of two plotic sunglasses, as well as two plotic/metal hybrid glasses that feature a half ring design. All glasses are available in one of eight colors, so there are plenty of opportunities for perfecting your own style.
As the company’s head designer Julius Iversen explained, their eyewear are 3D printed in Polyamid PA220 material. ‘This material is hypoallergenic, water and food safe and has a molecular structure similar to natural silk. PA220 is perfectly suited to make ic! berlin eyewear: _it is incredibly strong and tough _it is 30% lighter than cellulose acetate _it allows many possibilities in post-production treatments (i.e. barrel polishing, dying, metallization, flocking),’ he said.
And his the experience of ic! berlin, 3D printing technology has opened up entire new avenues of design potential. ‘Plotic allows us to create any geometric shape imaginable and frees us from the constraints of traditional manufacturing processes; shapes that were impossible to cut from a sheet of raw material – such as our new plotic-metal hybrids – can now be printed from a digital file,’ Iversen adds. ‘With [3D printing technology] we are able to install silicone nose pads into a “shell” frame; this would have been impossible with traditional materials. Wearer comfort is increased, and the frame can be quickly and easily adapted with either of our two nose pad designs, ensuring the perfect fit no matter how big your nose is.’
But aside from those additional design options, these new designer eyewear options just look fantastic as well. They were first unveiled earlier this year at the popular Opti 2015 eyewear convention in Munich, and by the sound of it we can expect a lot more 3D printed creations by these German eyewear experts: ‘With plotic the future is wide open, and we’re just getting started…’ they say.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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Which 3D printer used?
Nikki wrote at 6/9/2015 10:55:51 PM:
I'm a huge ic! berlin fan. I have so many of them and can say that I like them better than Mykita. Mykita is just pretentious - I love the fact that ic! berlin doesn't try too hard to get in the fashion scene. ic! berlin forever! <3
Markus wrote at 5/26/2015 2:27:11 PM:
Hey, did you guys ever check https://mykita.com/en/mylon ?? these have been around for 3+ years and look better in terms of material finish imho.