Easy Manufacturing Designer Shoes Thanks To 3D Printing

Shoes are not a typical design project for engineers. But 3D printers show that just about anything is possible. In this example, it also shows how these printers free your mind to explore other ideas and possibilities.

Avant-garde shoe designer Marloes ten Bhömer has created an innovative 3D shoe featuring a modular design that allows for dismantling and reassembling, for the purpose of replacing parts.

The shoe was constructed utilizing Objet Ltd.'s technology, a leader in 3D printing and rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing.

ten Bhömer commented: “My work is very much about liberating design – I use new materials and methods because this helps to break away from conventional approaches.

“The rapid prototyping process stimulated the idea for this shoe, as the name suggests. I explored the technology and saw that rapid prototyping – adding materials in layers – rather than traditional shoe manufacturing methods – could help me create something entirely new within just a few hours.”

“Cost-wise it does make sense to use these printers, particularly for haute couture shoe design,” said ten Bhömer. “I can have prototypes printed in multiple materials with no expensive set-up costs and no minimum quantities. I also have great confidence in the quality of digital prototyping – with conventional shoe mould making, the heel is matched to its left or right counterpart by eye, so there’s always room for error and it can be a slow process. By making the moulds digitally you know the left and right shoes are an exact match and it’s also economical and easier to scale seven different sized pairs, as required for a commercial line of shoes, using specialist software and Objet 3D printing.”

The “Rapidprototypedshoe” features in an exhibition entitled ‘Power of Making’, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London from 6 September to 2 January 2012.

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