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Columbia business captures new dimension in life's moments [The State (Columbia, S.C.)](State (Columbia, SC) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 19--COLUMBIA, S.C. -- From a butterfly to Barney, colorful children's drawings are spread out on a table at the downtown IT-oLogy office. Beside each stands the computer-generated 3D sculpture of the drawing. Columbia businessman John Carrington is ramping up resources at his IT-oLogy office to take 3D printing to the marketplace in a novel way -- from mall kiosks and retail stores to a 3D printing demonstration tour and online sales. Carrington, and his international business partner, Walter Alessandrini, recently launched 3D Print Holdings, which allows consumers to create drawings, upload them to their website, DoodleSculpt.com, then receive within 48 hours a one-of-a-kind sculpture of the drawing for a keepsake, display, gift or other use. The cost is $99, and Carrington has plans to roll out add-ons, such as keychains and charms. The company opened its first retail kiosk at Southpark Mall in Charlotte last month and is negotiating to have the service offered in retail locations in Charleston and Kiawah in June and in Columbia later this summer to "create a footprint outside of the Internet," Carrington said. The company also is negotiating with a national franchise to potentially roll out the service at 600 locations nationwide at the end of the year, said Carrington, the company's CEO. All of the sculptures would continue to be produced in Columbia. The technology presents endless possibilities for consumers, he said. "Our application of taking 2D images and turning them into 3D objects is very cutting edge even for this cutting-edge industry," Carrington said. "And South Carolina has an opportunity to be a really big player in 3D printing because the largest manufacturer of 3D printers in the world is headquartered in South Carolina." Rock Hill's 3D Systems bills itself as a leading, global provider of 3D content-to-print solutions, including personal, professional and production 3D printers, according to its website. Three-dimensional printing has been the focus of national media attention recently, but DoodleSculpt is the first of its kind, business-to-consumer 3D print company in South Carolina, Carrington said, and the company is getting oodles of positive attention. Invented in the 1980s, 3D printing came to the nation's news forefront in recent weeks when a Texas man reportedly constructed the first nearly all-plastic gun via a 3D printing machine that cost roughly $10,000, and upset congressional leaders. As a result, Congress introduced legislation to renew the Undetectable Firearms Act, which expires this year, and also bans plastic guns that cannot be detected by screens at locations such as airports. DoodleSculpt's lone 3D printer, about the size of a refrigerator, sells for six figures, Carrington said, and can produce 100 sculptures at a time from a 2D drawing. The company plans to buy more printers as it ramps up production, he said. "It's clearly the coming together of two extremely sophisticated technologies," said Alessandrini, whose career includes leading Union Switch & Signal, Pirelli Cables and Systems, North America, and Avanex. First, it's the 3D printing, which Alessandrini terms "revolutionary." Then, it's the computer graphic software that's necessary to extract from a flat picture and create a three-dimensional figure, he said. "These are the kinds of graphic software that the top makers of animation and major movies ... use," Alessandrini said. To understand the interest consumers may have in 3D printing, DoodleSculpt had 1,199 likes on its Facebook page mid-morning on Wednesday and was surging. The business this month hired five employees, including engineers and designers. "The response has been overwhelming," said Carrington. "I've been involved in e-commerce since college, for well over a decade, and it's all about user-engagement. It's very rare that you find this level of interest in something -- (where) people actually immediately just get it, and say, 'Ok, wow, this is great.'" Unlike machining parts for manufacturing purposes or sculpting for art, where a piece of material is chiseled or whittled down to a remaining form fit for a specific use, 3D printers take a fine or powdery ribbon of a composite material and build sculptures layer by layer. "Every imperfection that shows up in your child's art is gonna show up here, which, the imperfections are what make it perfect, right " said Carrington. When experimenting with the technology and its innumerable possible applications, Carrington said he saw a photograph of "The Hit," the sensational, helmet-removing tackle by USC defensive end Jadeveon Clowney against Michigan running back Vincent Smith in the Jan. 1 Outback Bowl. "I said, if I can do this, I've got a perfect subject in order to do it. I can't obviously sell this, (the photograph is copyrighted) but something like that would be absolutely perfect for this (technology). So, from a color photograph, Carrington produced a 3D sculpture of "The Hit," capturing the jolting tackle in sculpture for the action-packed moment it was in that game. "Now imagine that that's not even Jadeveon," said Carrington. "Imagine that's your son who's playing in his high school football game, or your kids playing whatever it is. "You're taking and capturing a moment in time in a special way." While people take more photographs now than perhaps ever before, fewer of them actually are printing those pictures, Carrington theorized, opting to keep the images forever stored in their mobile phones, iPads, or other electronic gadgets. "We think with things like this, you're taking really special moments and turning them into something that's truly unique that you can display in ways you couldn't before," Carrington said. ___ (c)2013 The State (Columbia, S.C.) Visit The State (Columbia, S.C.) at www.thestate.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |