Developments in the field seem to be coming pretty rapidly these days, so I thought it’d be nice to have a single thread dedicated to advances in the tech. (To give you an idea an idea of how fast the tech is advancing, the oldest of these articles are from January of this year.)
Let’s start with things on the consumer front:
Makerbot, the folks behind one of the home 3D printers has come up with a cheap 3D Digitizer.]
Of course, one of the things you'll need for your 3D printer is plastic. Here's one fellow's solution to that problem.]One has to ask: Why buy the pellets, when you can just recycle the plastic you already have?]Another one, which, like a doctor, allows you to "bury" your mistakes.]So you've got a 3D printer. What do you do with all of your 1-, 2- and 3.0's that you had to print out before perfecting your desired gewgaw? Those rolls of ABS filament you used to make them are affordable, but not cheap. Thanks to German programmer and inventor Marcus Thymark, you may soon be able to grind your old projects up and re-extrude them into fresh filament, ready for another go-round.Then there's the 3D printing "pen," which at $75, is too awesome for words.](Currently, funding has reached $2.1 million, beating their goal of $30K by a wide margin.) BBC piece on 3D printed gun parts.] The video is less about the technology, and more about the legality, but you do get to some 3D printed gun parts, to get an idea of what's possible. Sort of half commercial, half consumer, UC Berkley has come up with a vending machine which produces 3D printed items.]One the medical front, we've got, a man who had a large portion of his skull replaced with a 3D printed implant.]Developers build a $150 3D prosthetic hand for a child.]Doctors use 3D printed replicas of body parts to help prepare for surgery.]3D printed meat still needs work.]I've tasted it as have my colleagues. We've only been able to have small bites since we're still working on getting the process right. I cooked some pieces in olive oil and ate some with and without salt and pepper. Not bad. The taste is good but not yet fully like meat. We have yet to get the fat content right and other elements that influence taste. This process will be iterative and involve us working closely with our consulting chefs.We're now also able to build 3D printers that work on the nanoscale!]There's now also a tradeshow for industrial metal 3D printers.] MIT has now developed 3D printed objects which can assemble themselves.]At the TED conference in Los Angeles, architect and computer scientist Skylar Tibbits showed how the process allows objects to self-assemble. It could be used to install objects in hard-to-reach places such as underground water pipes, he suggested. It might also herald an age of self-assembling furniture, said experts.(No word on if it'll call IKEA and complain that it failed to print out all the parts for your new futon.) That's it for now. Feel free to add any articles on the subject you might find. I think its clear, though, that we are living in the future! :cool: