Materialise/Impressio
When Materialise unveiled its latest eyewear collaboration with Impressio in Paris, the frames, distinguished by their bold water-inspired silhouette, and opaque, acetate-like finish, were poised to represent not only the possibilities of modern manufacture, but the epitome of what the Belgian additive manufacturing company describes as ‘a movement of digital artisanship.’
But as Alireza Parandian, Head of Global Business Strategy, Wearables at Materialise tells TCT shortly after: “These are not only frames with special shapes and characteristics – they’re also just normal frames with better attributes for the economy and sustainability.”
The eyewear sector, Parandian says, has embraced AM over the last decade. Modelled by collaborations with companies like Hoet and Yuniku, which have brought novel customisation experiences to consumers at retail, and luxury brands like Porsche and McLaren who have leveraged the technology for celebratory collections, Materialise has produced several hundred thousand frames for around 80 different brands. Championing the potential for mass personalisation, eyewear products have been largely enabled by laser sintering, augmented by new materials developments across metals and polymers, including those designed to reduce its carbon footprint.
But over the last five years, the team has been exploring different processes and materials to deliver eyewear that more closely resembles the look and feel of traditional frames, with all the benefits that a digital supply chain and design for AM can afford.
“It's about learning about each other's realities,” Parandian explained of Materialise’s latest ‘co-creation’ with Luxembourg-based Impressio. “When we talk about a new material, a new process, we definitely come to the table with all kinds of limitations that it has and all kinds of opportunities that we can explore together. Impressio came with multiple design ideas to help us not only bring about a product that looks beautiful and extends the idea of something wearable to something that is sculptural, but also, in the process, kind of cover up for imperfections or thicknesses that are required in order to make sure you have mechanical stability. In these co-creations, you have to put all of those things on the table. It requires a lot of experience on our side and courage on the side of our partner.”
“This innovation is based on a novel material that transitions from an opaque to a translucent finish, revealing all the curves and volumes in the light, with shades of ocean blue, bottle green, or ruby red,” Guillaume Boisson, co-founder of the Impressio Collection told TCT. “The Aqua model, born from this collaboration, stands out for its fluid design, reminiscent of water droplets suspended in mid-air. This perfect marriage of cutting-edge
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
technology and creative freedom promises to redefine design standards in the world of eyewear.”
‘Be like water’ was the concept. The volumetric design mimics the movement of water falling and bursting onto a surface, brought to life with transparency and three vibrant colour-ways. To get there, the team began working with DLP, benchmarking almost 50 different materials against the gold standard of mechanical stability, thermal stability, and crucially, medical regulations.
“That's exactly where deep knowledge in 3D printing comes in – engineering knowledge, being solution-minded, trying out different things and not accepting a ‘no’, which is a culture here at Materialise,” Parandian explained. “This was truly a sculptural piece. We needed to take that and look at how engineering could support this. It wasn't easy.”
With unique design freedoms come unique challenges. While AM allowed the team to create a lightweight, seamless product, married with the more traditional aspects of eyewear-making, the use of resin-based technology meant considerations around support removal and post-processing had to be made to achieve a glossy, retail-standard finish.
“Software is the unsung hero of 3D printing,” Parandian said. “If you really are looking for the moon shots, you have to think about freedom of design to its highest degree, where personalisation and customisation is bringing so much added value that it can have transformational effect.”
With the frames as its showpiece at this year’s Parisian optical event SILMO, Materialise is signalling to the industry, where it has spent the last ten years optimising and investing in not only AM-enabled consumer products but also software-enabled consumer experiences, it is open for collaboration.
“We want to be the innovator you can count on,” Parandian said. “It's really important to give room and freedom to our partners to come up with ideas, and what we're trying to do and assess every time, together with our partners, is where is the market fit? Is it feasible in terms of economic aspects? Is it viable in terms of all their requirements? Our vision with this was, we wanted to come and show what differentiating possibilities 3D printing can offer to the industry. And that was not just [about] translucency but to go beyond what acetate makes possible – to go beyond what is possible.”
