Paul Krush

I put a 166 free jewelry models out on my site.

I don’t need them any more. I want them to get used as we put a lot of effort in them. I have become far more interested in simpler models that can be created by consumers inside of a browser. For those of you who know me I am have been working on this stuff off and on for years. Manually designing models was more of a break while I was waiting for better software. Well the time has come. Adobe is releasing some very powerful tools that will let programmers design in 3D, in real time, right in browser. Basically think Matrix Builders in a pop up Flash advertisement that only requires a click to use and no user permission to install. Adobe Flash has a larger installed user base the Windows. I have been dreaming of this sense the summer 1996 sense seeing 3D with Java and VRML. The time has come for real time 3D in the browser!

Enjoy the models,

Paul Krush

Before writing software, I have to test my prospective user base for the crowdsourcing service bureau. I don’t want to put the cart before the horse like I have done in the past! There are so many great things I can do in software, but I have to make sure people are going to use them. It’s a little cocky of me saying I am going to start a new hobby, so I need to do some crawling before I code in the dark for months.

I have been selling on eBay for eight years. I am afraid I suffer from tunnel vision as I keep thinking eBay is the best method to get the word out. There are other ways to promote my site and find designers interested in using my methods (Duh!). I would like to have a local group that gets together to talk about their designs but for now the Internet is easier to find people.

I am going to offer free rings in the forums for people that want to test out making some very simple rings. I will let people email ether grayscale pictures or 2D Rhino files. I also am going to let people snail mail rings designed on paper. Alone I think automated paper to finished silver ring is pretty darn cool. It’s very simple to do.

At some point I will offer a free ring a day to the best design submitted to the database.

So I will make a submission rules web page and post to these forums:

Art Jewelry Magazine Forums
Orchid Forums on Ganoksin.com
Rhino3D CAD Software Forums

I plan on writing design tools that people can use within a web page to design rings. Now that real time 3D can be done in Flash, I am interested in starting with Flash with just images. I want to get my foot in before real time 3D flash takes off.

I think simple rings are a great starter product. These rings have no holes and a minimum thickness. This makes them very easy to manufacture; as easy as printing.

This type of design is called 2 1/2D because you can only change the flat profile of the design. The design is wrapped around a ring, but not designed in 3D. The design is represented by an image with the grayscale color being the height. So you will hear me say ways to manipulate an image, but really it’s changing the 2 1/2D information.

This is a rough list:
Centering of text on a ring.
Arraying artwork around the ring.
1D & 2D Arraying.
1D scale of the layout – stretch to array.
2D scale.
3D scale, the ring size, or thickness must change.
Pattern builder for the ring.
Booleans for the art work.
Art database.
Ring database.
Ring LxW look up calculator. Like a size 6 4mm layout fits on a size 8 4.5?mm layout.
Softening/blurring tools. Putting a chamfer on hard edges.
A cropping tool.
Import pictures tool.
Rail selection tool.
Height raise/lower tools, or darken and lighten the image.
Negative image tool.
Ring size calculator.
Font builder and font spacing tool (kerning maybe).
Vector curves – like adding a grove.
Basic setting tools for bezels and prongs.

I am thinking about these tools for simple rings, but they can be used for:
Bracelets, Links, solid or hinged.
Napkin rings
Huggie earrings.
Rondelles
Coin/medalian bezels
Flat metal strips for decoration.

Really these tools can be used for any 2 1/2D design work.

You can hardy call this crowdsourcing. Just to get our feet wet with some real products I’m doing some name/mothers rings on eBay. I’m trying to keep it simple. I always get to complex with my offerings.
$9.90 is a steal for these. If I had a system set up and were doing thousands a month it would be profitable. I bet these can be done for under $2(still in silver) in China. This is going to kill us customer service wise. My CNC mill can make 60 a day. I think about 10 orders a day would be our limit.

So next I am going to add in that people can submit 2D curves to design the ring themselves.
Here is the auction text:
This auction is for a 5mm wide silver ring that we custom make for you. You can choose any names, words, or phrase that will fit.

Please email me at paul@paulkrush.com if you have any questions.

This is an example of raised text.

This is an example of sunken text.

I wore both of these rings in these pictures. Your ring will of course be new, and custom just for you.

You can choose:
Ring sizes 3-14 in whole and half sizes.
Raised or sunken text.
Any names, words, or phrase that fits on the ring.  

The font will be in like in the two pictures below.

The ring you ordered might be displayed on the Internet in future.

[Click to see a super-sized picture]

[Click to see a super-sized picture]

[Click to see a super-sized picture]

[Click to see a super-sized picture]

[Click to see a super-sized picture]

[Click to see a super-sized picture]

[Click to see a super-sized picture]

Payment is by Paypal only.

This auction is our first offering in this process. We will be having better auction descriptions, FAQ’s and pictures soon. For now please ask questions.

Shipping & Handling is $3.50 and free for any additional rings. We ship via USPS First Class Mail and to the US only for this auction.

Please email me at paul@paulkrush.com if you have any questions.

After walking into the book store and seeing 14 magazines on beading and craft like jewelry and no information in the coin magazines about custom coins it’s clear that I picked something not popular. I ran 13 auctions on eBay for the coins with no real interest. eBay is so great for testing markets. I also forgot about a rule that Tom Peters is pushing. 50+ year old woman are the market.

I originally planned on doing a simple charm and that somehow evolved into a larger coin. The trouble with a smaller charm is there is not much room for design. For some odd reason I always want to make things 100 times more complex then they need to be.

At this point I am thinking about starting with rings. Mothers/name rings are very common, and very simple. They can just be text, but can be more. They carry more meaning, and I think will be more viral. One down side to the rings is ring size.

A name pendant or small charm would be more simple and more popular, but I think there is more money in the rings. The rings can evolve into very expensive items. I have sold $2000+ simple platinum names rings. Even though it’s 2 1/2D there can be many designs for the rings from just a simple ring to signet rings, family crest seal rings and class rings. I think I can work with just the simple designs for the rest of the year.

As soon as I start writting a FAQ I think I am not going to do coins! I’m sure some of this will carry over to jewelry.
What’s with all the “Greek” language on your site?

Sorry for all the technical jargon; it’s meant to attract technical people. At some point I will help others create consumer friendly front-end web sites. Creating Internet configuration tools is something I have done in the past, so I wanted to start attracting 3D CAD designers and get the manufacturing up and running. By the way what I mean by configuration tools are web pages that help you design a coin. You know, choose a style, pick a center logo, enter text for various places, and so on. Simple tools that most people could figure out how to use. See RingHunt.com, this is my work. I plan on using Flash, or Rhino 3D running on the server in the future. Opps, there I go with that tech talk again.

What do you do with this wax you have on the eBay auction?

When I say wax, it’s just that. It’s harder than candle wax, but it’s not the end product, as it’s kind of ugly. In metal the coin will look much nicer. So if you want a metal coin you still need to get it cast using a lost wax casting process. Having a jewelry casting house cast this in silver will run about $35. A jewelry store would charge $50-$300. In quantity you should be able to get this cast overseas for less then a dollar in bronze. I have heard prices of $3-4 for bronze in the states, but I don’t have the sources. BTW, some people just want the wax so they can get a version of their 3D file they can hold in their hands. It’s great for testing proposes.

Can I send a jpg or bmp?

Yes, but you have to understand what I am going to do with it. Pictures for me serve a very limited use. You can’t take a 2D picture of a coin and easily make another coin. A designer has to spend many hours to recreate the 3D information to design the coin.

To get technical, what you can do is use the grayscale color information in the picture to communicate the height of the surface of the coin. This is called height field from bitmap modeling. Artcam is a popular CAD software package that is based on this idea. For example let say you send a pure white picture with the words “HELLO WORLD” in pure black in the middle. The black text would be raised up .5mm, and the white would be flat. A medium gray would be raised .25mm. There are 256 different levels of grayscale in a picture. I plan on providing a lot of examples of height field from bitmap modeling.

Can I send a 2D CAD file?

Yes, but I have to come up with requirements for this. You would have to send me something very basic at first.

What software can I use to design a 3D file?

There are many different types of software to do this. I don’t have a great answer at the moment. I like Rhino, but it costs like $800. You can download a version at Rhino3D.com that will let you save 25 times. There also is a free program at MOI3D.com, but it does not do text. Artcam is one of best programs for doing flat work like this, but it’s pricey.

What if can’t give you a 3D file?

Do you know anyone that is technical and can design a file for you? This would be a rather fun project being involved in one of the first crowdsourcing service bureaus online. I do know some designers that can create a file for you. It’s not cheap. As I get rolling I am hoping some designers that use the site are also looking for paying jobs. It’s one of my core goals to introduce my customers to each other.

I think I see the Holy Grail for products designed by the consumer in an Internet browser forming. Adobe will be releasing ActionScript 3.0 for Flash 9 sometime in 2007. It’s currently in alpha. This release is orders of magnitude faster than previous versions. This release combined with faster computers is going to put us over the top for real time 3D in the browser. These 3D tools will work in almost all computer browsers without having to install them. The tools can just pop up, just like flash ads do at this point.

ActionScript 3.0 is not about 3D, but a powerful virtual terminal that runs in the browser. This lets people write 3D engines that use ActionScript. See Papervison3d.org and Kirupa.com.

Right now there are a lot of tricks you can do in 2D, but real time 3D in a browser that works on almost all desktops without installing anything is very hard. I see a small ad in a page expanding much bigger with a full-blown tool set popping up. In the past I thought Java would be the answer, but this was never able to achieve critical mass. Microsoft wanted to make darn sure that Java in the browser was not a way to replace desktop applications, and did what it could to kill Java. A server based CAD engine could work, but this lets the CPU power of the client go to waste. I have thought about running Rhino on a server outputting models and renders.

Flash is not just for computers; it works or soon will on kiosks, palmtops, handhelds, and large cell phones. The same tools that let consumers design products over the Internet can be used at a local level. Just like a person at Walgreens can print photos from a kiosk, a person can use a kiosk to make a custom gold pendant in a jewelry store. Sure this can be done with desktop software now, but kiosks would be easier to manage using these Internet tools. Also people could use their own devices in the store to run the store’s machines. This would truly be user manufacturing like Frank Piller is talking about.

I’m not sure where I am going to take this. I think it would be wise to let these 3D engines get developed for another 6-12 months or so to see what happens. I need to explore the world of 2D and Flash first. At least I now have more motivation to learn Flash. I am most interested in designs that are flat with 2 1/2D profiles. This limits the options and makes it easier for people to design there own pieces. With 2 1/2D you can use images to represent profile information. This is why I think a coin is perfect starter mass customization product. It’s just 2D printing with one more piece of information, height.

So can something like ActionScript 3.0 be the grease that really gets mass customization rolling? For simple custom jewelry I say yes.