Personal 3D Printer wins Popular Mechanics Award & Global Media Award at SEMA Show

MINNEAPOLIS–(3DNewsWire.com)–Dimension 3D Printing, a brand of Stratasys Inc. (NASDAQ: SSYS), today announced its uPrint™ Personal 3D Printer received two editorial awards at the annual SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturing Association) show last month in Las Vegas. SEMA is a national automotive after-market trade association.

uPrint won Popular Mechanics’ annual “SEMA Editor’s Choice Award,” an honor judged by the magazine’s auto editors and given to companies introducing the most innovative new products at SEMA. Each year at the show, Popular Mechanics auto editors assess new products and make their top picks in 12 categories. “Despite the economic downturn, this year’s show was full of innovation,” Popular Mechanics wrote.

Regarding uPrint, they wrote, “Around here, if it’s good enough for Jay Leno, it’s good enough for [Popular Mechanics]. Jay and all the guys at Jay’s Big Dog Garage have been using their $30,000 Dimension 3D printer for about a year and have created some amazing parts for Jay’s classic cars — completely from scratch and in house. Now Dimension has a more affordable version that could help schools and small businesses learn the art of rapid prototyping.”

In addition to the Popular Mechanics award, uPrint won SEMA’s Global Media Award given to companies displaying the best new products at the show, as judged by a panel of journalists from 16 countries. The award goes to those products deemed most likely to succeed commercially and to be of most interest to the panel’s readers.

The awards come on the heels of uPrint’s 1000^th sale in October. uPrint, the newest addition to Dimension’s industry-leading line of 3D printers, was launched at the end of January. In less than 9 months, the company sold its 1000^th system.

“We continue to believe a significant untapped market exists for 3D printing that will be developed by making our products more affordable,” said Stratasys VP Jon Cobb. “These sales figures, coupled with a September product award from Design News magazine and coverage in mainstream media outlets including Popular Mechanics and Men’s Journal, demonstrate the market’s desire for a low-cost, fully functional printer.”

uPrint’s awards and strong sales numbers are supported by positive customer feedback. “For us, uPrint enables the fabrication of custom centrifuge rotors for as little as $80, whereas a comparable commercial product would likely cost thousands of dollars,” said Joe DeRisi, professor and vice-chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California San Francisco. “uPrint is a powerful way to assist us with visualization of molecular models, and our team continues to find novel, unexpected uses for the printer.”

For Shawn Ferguson, president of New York-based contract manufacturer Indian Springs Manufacturing, uPrint provided savings of 70 percent in production costs on a quick turnaround replacement part. “When uPrint came out, we jumped at it because we liked the size, speed, model quality and especially the lower price point. uPrint is the perfect fit for a shop of this size,” said Ferguson.

Dimension, a brand of 3D printers by Stratasys, offers computer-aided-design (CAD) users a low-cost, networked alternative for building functional 3D models from the desktop. The printers build models layer-by-layer using ABS plastic, one of the most widely used thermoplastics in today’s injection-molded products. Dimension 3D printers allow users to evaluate design concepts and test models for functionality, form and fit. Online at: www.DimensionPrinting.com

Stratasys, Inc., Minneapolis, manufactures additive fabrication machines for prototyping and manufacturing plastic parts under the brands Fortus 3D Production Systems and Dimension 3D Printers. The company also operates RedEye On Demand, an online service for part prototyping and production. According to Wohlers Report 2009, Stratasys supplied 43 percent of all additive fabrication systems installed worldwide in 2008, making it the unit market leader for the seventh consecutive year. Stratasys patented and owns the process known as FDM^®. The process creates functional prototypes and manufactured goods directly from any 3D CAD program, using high-performance industrial thermoplastics. The company holds more than 250 granted or pending additive fabrication patents globally. Stratasys products are used in the aerospace, defense, automotive, medical, business & industrial equipment, education, architecture, and consumer-product industries.

Online at: www.Stratasys.com

uPrint is a trademark, and Dimension, Stratasys, and FDM are registered trademarks of Stratasys, Inc.

Attention Editors: If you wish to publish reader contact information, please use: info@dimensionprinting.com, 952-937-3000, 1-866-721-9244, www.dimensionprinting.com.

Source: BusinessWire