3D PRINTER MAKER Stratasys has today launched what it claims is the first multi-material full colour 3D printer, the Objet500 Connex3, in the UK. The color 3D printer, which was first unveiled in January, is designed to drastically change design, engineer and manufacturing processes and was showed off today at the Deveop3d Live conference at Warwick University by Industrial Plastic Fabrications (IPF), the 3D printing services company responsible for being the first to bring the Objet500 Connex3 to Blighty. Revealed at the Solidworks World 2014 convention in San Diego in January, the Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer uses coloured plastic in the more traditional inkjet form of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. It is the only 3D Printer that enables colour 3D printing with virtually unlimited combinations of rigid, flexible, and transparent materials as well as digital materials - in a single print run. The 3D printer is also makes possible functionally complex models with desirable mechanical properties such as tensile strength, elongation at break, and multiple hardness values. For example, the printer is able to print 3D glasses using an "opaque Veroyellow" material for the frame, a rubber-like black "Tangoblackplus" material and a translucent yellow tint for the lenses, all in one print job with no assembly required. This means that you could design a new pair of swim goggles, for example, and once you have an initial design, you could print a pair of the goggles in colour, including the tinted lenses, plus flexible parts without needing to print other parts and assemble them later. ยต