3D Printed Shoes
SideQuest 4/?: It was quite a cold winter night during the Australian Open finals. Djokovic and Alcaraz were playing at Rod Laver Arena. Djokovic is an amazing player, but somehow I found myself rooting for Alcaraz that night. It was me and a few of my friends there. We sat outside and had a really good time just enjoying the whole atmosphere. At some point, one of my friends casually mentioned that his birthday had been last week. That honestly took me by surprise. I felt a bit guilty for forgetting it. I wanted to make up for it by giving him something unique. Something that cannot really be made on a commercial basis. One of my first ideas was to 3D print a triple axis tourbillon and then assemble it. It sounded really cool at first, but the more I started exploring it, the deeper and more complicated it got. I went down that rabbit hole for a bit while checking out different 3D printer compatible files, but eventually I realised it was getting too complex. Another thing about him is that he is really into running. He regularly takes part in marathons. I could have just gifted him running shoes, but that did not feel right. The whole point was to give something custom made. That is when the idea of 3D printing a shoe came up. I looked at a few STL files online, but none of them really matched what I had in mind. So I decided to design one myself. I am not the best designer in the world, but I had a rough direction. I wanted something semi futuristic, a bit fractal oriented because the world is filled with math, and something that still connects to running.
My first concept was a Sierpinski snowflake design embedded into a running shoe ( Shoe image below ). It was also a slip on concept since I do not really like laces that much. It looked interesting, but there were quite a few problems. It was not really usable in the real world, the edges would be slightly sharp, and overall it did not serve the purpose.
So I had to simplify things. The second concept was about making it cleaner but still visually appealing. Since his name starts with B, I wanted that somewhere on the shoe. After a few design changes, this version actually looked quite catchy (Shoe image below). But the geometry still felt off. The patterns looked a bit random and did not really follow any structure.
Then it clicked. I thought about using hexagons. Repeated patterns always look good and they are used everywhere. Honeycombs are a classic example. A lot of systems also rely on repeated geometric patterns. So I reworked the design again and started placing hexagonal patterns across the shoe. This finally made everything feel more structured and intentional (Shoe image below).
At that point I felt like this design was actually suitable for 3D printing. But there were still a few hurdles. I was completely new to converting images into 3D models. Using something like Blender would take time and had a steep learning curve, so I explored some online tools instead. MakerLab had an inbuilt converter. It was not perfect, but it got the job done and it was free. Tripo3D gave really good results, but it has limited credits. Meshy AI probably gave the best outputs, but again there were restrictions, especially with the student plan. I initially used Tripo3D and got a really good model from it, including an STL file. After that, I mostly stuck with MakerLab since it was free.
Get Shashank’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Then came the printing part. Another limitation here was material. I did not have access to Thermoplastic Poly Urethane (TPU), which is flexible and actually suitable for wearable items. I only had Poly Lactic Acid (PLA), which is rigid. Still, I decided to go ahead and print it. It took a few hours, and in the end I treated it more like a showpiece because PLA is not really wearable.
Even then, seeing the final 3D printed shoe felt great. It came out in white ( Image below ), but you could always color it later if needed. If I ever get access to a TPU compatible printer, I would definitely try printing a proper wearable version.
It is also interesting to see that companies are exploring this space now. To the best of my knowledge, Adidas has already released 3D printed shoes. There is also a German company called Zellerfeld that focuses entirely on 3D printed footwear. Some of their designs are actually very impressive.
Date printed 11th February 2026
