At Javelin 3D (and formerly as Lone Peak Engineering), we have been fortunate over the years to work on some outstanding projects. From non-profit organizations such as the Maitreya Project to support from the SBIR Program, we have had great sponsors and clients.
Highlights of some of our past projects are provided below.. If you would like additional information about any of these projects, please contact us. Also - be sure to check out our meetings and presentations schedule on the R&D page.
The Big Buddha
Imagine a statue, made out of bronze, more than three times taller than the Statue of Liberty, designed to last 1000 years. That is what Javelin was asked to do by the Maitreya Project in the summer of 1998. Shown above is the 20 foot conceptual model on display in California. This model was built by Javelin using a variety of rapid prototyping techniques.
The Maitreya Project, an international Buddhist organization, plans to build a 500 foot representation of the Maitreya Buddha in Bodhgaya, India, a Buddhist holy place located in northeast India, just south of Nepal. The statue will replace Japan’s 394 foot high Ushiku Buddha as the largest statue on earth. A hand-sculpted version of the statue was created by commissioned artists. The next step in the project required a scale-up for architectural perspective purposes. A 4-foot hand-sculpted statue was sent to Javelin’s facility so that the original artwork could be captured digitally and a 5:1 scale-up produced. The approach involved using a proprietary foam prototoying system with a 4 foot by 5 foot build envelope.
Accurately and rapidly reproducing the original statue pushed the limits of Rapid Prototyping technology. While the original intent of the work conducted in Salt Lake City was to create a computerized version of the hand-sculpted statue’s geometry and then to use the computer file to build actual scaled-up (or down) representations using rapid prototyping equipment to verify the file, the project grew to encompass much more than that. A complete paper describing this project can be found in the Downloads section as: Largescale.pdf
Dinosaur Reverse Engineering
One of our very first reverse engineering projects we tackled in 1995 involved capturing the 3D geometry of an Allosaurus skull. We used a medical CT scanner to capture image data. The CT data was reconstructed using our, at that time, under development 3D reconstruction program - Velocity2. The STL model was generated. Imagine the expression on people's face when this model went through the CT scanner! The 3D data was used to cast the skull in metal by Emerald Casting and for several years it was on display in downtown Salt Lake City. This project is discussed in a paper that can be downloaded: Scandata.pdf
Government SBIR Projects
Javelin has been fortunate to be the reciepient of several government Small Business Innovative Research Awards. These awards have involved work with state of the art nanophase materials, rapid prototyping of titanium components, development of bio-ceramic materials for RP, creation of a Solid Oxide Compressor (no moving parts) and even harnessing hydrogen sulfide gas evolved from power plant waste pond micro organisms. If you are interested in technical ceramics you will find in the downloads section a presentation about our work with the LOM system. The file is large (10MB) and does not run the movies as including the movies would make it too large for easy downloading. Another ceramic RP paper can be found on the download site that is only 2MB in size.
While we no longer actively work in the area of ceramic RP - the parts produced this way and shown in the presentation are fully-functional. In the current economic environment there is a limited commercial market for technical ceramics and additional development costs would be required to produce a state-of-the-art Ceramic LOM machine.
Software Development
In the mid 90's we decided to team with Minnesota Datametrics for the purpose of developing a software package for medical scan data rapid prototyping. Dr. Charles Knox of Minnesota Datametrics, Alair Emory and Scott McMillin of Lone Peak Engineering (now Javelin 3D) formed a third entity, Image3 for the sole purpose of code development. That effort has led to various versions of the Velocity2 software package that is sold by Javelin 3D.
Working with Artists
One of the great things about rapid prototyping technology is that it introduces you to a wide range of innovators. When Javelin purchased its first rapid prototyping system, we never expected to get involved with art projects. One of the first artists that we worked with was Bathsheba Grossman (www.bathsheba.com). This picture shows two of the ZCorp printed models that we made for her several years ago. Bathsheba was probably one of the first people to pursue investment casting of these starch-based models for art forms. Bathsheba's website contains an interesting comment on the interface between art and technology - "...... I use a lot of technology. 3D printing in metal is the main way that I work, and I also do a lot with subsurface laser damage in glass. This isn't because I love gadgets; it's much more trouble and expense to use new media instead of the more mature techniques that most sculptors enjoy. I do it because the shapes I have in mind aren't moldable, and I want to make a lot of them. Those two constraints, taken together, turn out to be remarkably constraining: ordinary sculpture technology just does not do the job."
The One That Got Away
Our basic policy for design projects has been to base effort on a firm-fixed price bid and not to take a % of eventual sales position in lieu of payment. While that approach has ensured that we get paid on fairly regular basis, this project was one that we should have taken the % deal up front. The product is called the Smoothie Blender and has been on the market for a few years now. The company that invented it, Back-to-Basics, is a local Utah group that was really small when they contacted us about taking a foam mockup that they had hand-carved and creating the 2D CAD drawings and 3D file. While we were asked to do the design work for a % of the eventual product sales, we "unwisely" stuck to our firm-priced bid. Two of our engineers stayed up all-night to finish the product design CAD work to meet the client's deadline. A few months later, one of our engineers was flying to a business meeting, and, when she opened the airline sponsored catalog that you see on all the planes, low-behold, there was the Smoothie Blender fresh from manufacture in China. The next thing we know the blender was being sold in Costco. The Wall Street Journal even reviewed it and to add insult to injury (at least for us) Oprah picked a red version of the blender as one of her top 10 Valentine Days gifts for that year.