This year Materialise organized the inaugural edition of the Materialise Pyramid Awards to celebrate the 15th anniversary of its Magics software. All Magics and 3-matic users were invited to submit a case describing their most innovative and creative use of the software. In total 16 papers were submitted for evaluation in both the Magics and 3-matic category. "We are very pleased with the quality of the papers that were sent in", says Wim Michiels, Vice-President for Materialise Software. "It has been great to find out that our customers apply Materialise' software solutions in such diverse, innovative ways."

The jury, made up of a Materialise representative as well as independent representatives from academia and the AM industry, evaluated each paper on four criteria. Economic potential, degree of specialization, degree of innovation and relevance of the use of Magics or 3-matic were all taken into account to score the papers.

All six winners were announced at the end of the first conference day of the Materialise Innovation Forum on September 17th, 2008, in Leuven, Belgium. Most winners also attended this two day conference on software solutions for AM and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) professionals, and were called on stage to be congratulated in person. Each winner received his prize and a custom-made trophy which represented the three dimensional pyramid that is used as a logo for the awards. Both first place winners received a painted stereolithography model, while the runners-up received a smaller, laser sintered model.

The winners in the 3-matic category are:

• 1st Place / 2,000 Euro: Ares Lagae, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium "The Usage of 3-matic in Ray Tracing Research"
• 2nd Place / 1,000 Euro: Michael Grasseau and Elsie Phé, INRIA, France "3-matic Applications in Computational Bio-mechanics"
• 3rd Place / .MGX Design Lamp: Pluton Chen, Shanghai Union Technology, China "Quick Reproduction of Impeller"

The winners in the Magics category are:

• 1st Place / 2,000 Euro: Ajay Purohit, Tata Motors, India "Partial Cubing Models Using Rapid Prototyping and Magics as a Software"
• 2nd Place / 1,000 Euro: Maurizio Romeo, ProtoCast, Italy "Honeycomb Structures"
• 3rd Place / .MGX Design Lamp: Saima Elahi, Entire Imaging Solutions, Canada "The Falling Waterhouse"

In 2009, Materialise will organize the second edition of the Materialise Pyramid Awards. An application form and all practical details can be found at www.materialise.com/pyramidawards.

About Materialise
With its headquarters in Leuven, Belgium and branches all over the world, the Materialise Group is best known for its activities in the field of rapid industrial and medical prototyping. Apart from having the largest capacity of rapid prototyping equipment in Europe, Materialise enjoys a worldwide reputation as provider of innovative software solutions. As such, Materialise has acquired the position of market leader for 3D printing and Digital CAD software in addition to being a major player in medical and dental image processing and surgery simulation. Its medical and dental products are used worldwide by renowned hospitals, research institutes and clinicians. The group has several subsidiaries in Europe, Asia and the USA, and employs over 700 people in its 4 divisions.

More information on www.materialise.com.