Welcome back to the VoxelMatters Podcast—where we shine a light on the people, the technologies, and the big ideas driving the world of additive manufacturing forward. I’m your host, Davide Sher, and today, we’re diving into a story that truly glows with innovation.

Imagine a world where your lighting fixture isn’t mass-produced in a distant factory, shipped halfway around the world, and sitting in a warehouse for months before reaching you—but instead, is 3D printed on demand, near you, for you, and made largely from recycled materials.

That world isn’t coming—it’s already here.

In this exclusive episode, we sit down with Bart Maeyens, Leader of 3D Printing at Signify—the company you might remember as Philips Lighting—to explore how Signify has turned the dream of distributed manufacturing into a global reality.

With over 3.5 million 3D printed luminaires produced across five continents, Signify isn’t just rethinking how we light our homes, workplaces, and cities—it’s reimagining how products are designed, made, and delivered. From the company’s myCreation platform, which lets customers design custom fixtures online, to its automated global printing network that sends digital files to the nearest production hub, this is a masterclass in sustainability and smart manufacturing.

Bart takes us behind the scenes of this transformation—from the early question that started it all, “Can we actually leverage 3D printing to volume?”, to the moment Signify realized that additive could do more than prototype—it could produce.

We’ll explore how the company is using waste materials to create beautiful, functional lighting, how its circular manufacturing model is reducing CO₂ by up to 30%, and why Bart believes we’re entering a decade where “the global economy won’t be as global”—a decade where local, digital production just makes sense.

And of course, we’ll talk about what’s next: the upcoming “Titan” platform that’s set to redefine the boundaries of design and performance in 3D printed lighting.

So grab your headphones, adjust your brightness settings, and get ready to see how Signify is illuminating the future—one layer at a time.

Get ready for an electrifying start to the new season of the VoxelMatters Podcast!

In 2024, we're diving headfirst into the boundless world of additive manufacturing, exploring an array of applications spanning industries, materials, and parts.

To kick off this journey, we've got an extraordinary story to share with you. Brace yourselves for a game-changing narrative about a company that's not just redesigning parts for AM but reimagining them – through code!

Meet LEAP 71, the pioneers of a revolutionary computational engineering approach to part design. They aren't just transforming the way we create some of the world's most cutting-edge products; they're also shaping the future of 3D printing, making it an indispensable cornerstone of tomorrow's manufacturing.

LEAP 71 has wowed us with their mind-boggling creations, working with industry giants like AMCM and the Fraunhofer Institute. While we've heard about parametric and generational design for at least a decade, LEAP 71 has taken a quantum "leap" beyond existing 3D design software.

In this episode, we sit down with the masterminds behind LEAP 71, who also happen to constitute the company’s entire workforce: Josephine Lissner and Lin Kayser. Together, we unravel how they're harnessing software algorithms to craft the next era of exceptionally complex physical products.

Some might not have realized it yet, but creating 3D models—whether for virtual worlds like gaming or for physical use in 3D printing—has recently become a heck of a lot more accessible. This shift is driven by a new wave of AI applications, like Tripo 3D, that can transform text prompts or 2D images into fully developed 3D models.

VAST, the company behind Tripo, emerged from an open-source collaboration among AI and 3D engineers blending virtual and physical 3D worlds.

In this episode of the VoxelMatters Podcast, Founder Simon Song tells us how he is making 3D printing truly ubiquitous.