Slashdot Mirror
3D Printers
kkelly writes: "This weeks New Scientist has an interesting
article on 3-D Printers: 'THINK OF AN OBJECT and watch it appear before your eyes. All it takes is a click of a mouse, a flick of a switch and you can have almost anything, made to order. Researchers are on the point of creating a magic box that can bring the stuff of your imagination into the hard-edged material world.'"
Is it just me, or is New Scientist really good at blowing things out of proportion? They seemed to be pretty good with this article, but sometimes they take a tiny little concept and blow it out of proportion. (If you subscribe to the magazine, like me, you know what I mean.) At least, they're really good at attention-getting headlines. How respectable of a magazine is this? It seems to be sort of the TIME of science magazines. I enjoy reading it, but sometimes it's like they've taken the tiniest bit of evidence or new research and blown it in to a screaming magazine cover. Just a thought.
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
Greetings , I am new to this board but have been following it for about a month. This topic inspired me to register. There are currently about 4 major players in the " 3D " printing industry. I have researched these as I feel they will become a good investment eventually and have purchased a meager 10 shares in one of these called " TDSC " They have a good website that gives further information for anyone wanting to research this topic and can be found at: http://www.3dsystems.com/ Cheers ...
Dyslexics Untie!
... a Roland MDX-15 for $3000, which is capable of similar feats, although on a smaller (6" x 4") scale.
Like PCs, pagers, cell phones, etc, are useless for the common Joe.
Isn't it up to the market, and the common Joe to decide what is useful and not useful?
Just because *you* can't imagine how this can be used into your life, doesn't mean it's useless.
Say that the process is refined to the point that you can make your own circuit boards(!). That's just... aluminum tracings, plastic boards, copper contacts, etc. Perhaps you can also print onto this your own LEDs, which is more plastic and some silicon substrates... and then print your own resistors, which are just carbon particles... inductors, capacitors, hey, maybe even some simple transistors and microprocessors!
Want an MP3 player? Download the description file from Rio3k.com, print it out, pop in some batteries, print out a 128mb flashdisk, and play!
Or what if you wanted to modify the design? Or had the software to tie the MP3 player to a wireless transmitter? Why not roll out your own? Download the open source MP3 player and hack away!
There are things that can be done with this technology...
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
So your saying that just because 10% of the readership was arround when this was last posted, that the other 90% that have never heard of it should be deprived? That doesn't make sense.
/. readership isn't more in tune with the archives, the /. editorship just realizes that most of the people wern't arround that long, and wouldn't search for it(you dont go looking for things like this, you just see them and say "wow, cool")
The
Aren't there certain shapes that these printers couldn't manufacture? Since it prints from the "bottom up" so to speak, how would it create somthing that has a piece hanging from the top. In other words, how do you start printing an item that essentially "appears" when sliced from the bottom? Yes, I know you could print it upside-down, but what if there is something sticking out of top and bottom? All sides? Imagine printing a hollow sphere that had spikes sticking into the center (but not quite reaching it)...
How is this accomplished using this process?
Thanks,
JoeK
What Would Sutekh Do?
What can we build with no moving parts?
Hmmm.
How about a 128mb flash card?
How about a mp3 player?
How about a NIC?
How about a disposable digital camera?
How about a portable radio?
How about an mp3 player with ethernet port, a wireless headphone interface, with 128mb memory?
Think creatively. You don't need moving parts to be cool
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I once saw a "3D printer" for sale in an electronics magazine a few months back. Instead of creating the model out of a polymer/powder/etc. it would etch the design out of an aluminum/plastic block. It had its own scanner that would scan the model and send it to the PC in Truespace 4 format (it even included a copy of TS4). You could then alter the model and send it back to the "printer". Very cool indeed, and it had a price tag in the $2000 range. Anyone have any experience with one of these things?
Ok its neat that you get to print 3D objects. But there really isn't a use. For instance, lets say I want to print out a keyboard. All you would get is a stupid solid plastic keyboard. Its not like its going to print out the circuitry inside, or the screws holding it together, or anything making your printed copy remotley useful.
And if you can't use what you print out, what the heck is the point of an average person using this? Novelty?
"Hey guys check this out, I just printed out a solid plastic Porche! Nobody will tell that its fake!!"
The "printing up your own gun" thing is something that I've discussed with various information security people.
The conversation usually goes something like "what if people could download guns as easily as they could script-kiddie tools."
There was a Clint Eastwood movie where the uberbadguy made a compact plastic gun for the purpose of getting through a metal detector to shoot the president. I'm sure this is the wrong kind of plastic and all for gun-making (and heck, true plastic guns are complete science fiction for all I know) but the idea is intriging.
I don't think home-gun-printing would cause the level of trouble that we have with script kiddies, due mainly to the need to still shoot people in person. However, the FUD factor for people being able to print their own unlicensed, non-trackable guns would beat organized crime, child porgography, and terrorists hands-down.
This is great!! Al those lego pieces I'm missing, and now I canget them in any color I want!!
Anm
Nortel here in Calgary, AB uses this to create models of new products -- I've seen a plastic phone face for a Meridian (those pay phones with screens) that was done this way .. it lets them check out things like packaging and handling before the product is in production without giving everyone the more expensive working prototype -- yes it's actually cheaper too.
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Oh my goodness! You mean there's no such thing as a free lunch? Are you telling me everything in life has consequences? I can't believe it!
Does this mean there's no way to turn lead into gold? Is there no panacea? Is there no utopia?
Just don't tell me there are no absolutes! I couldn't stand it!
The amount of beauty required to launch 1 ship: 1 Millihelen
The local Oaks school has one of these (you go there the last 2 years of H-school if you want on the job training) for their Cad department.
It works basically by using a chunk of Plastic and melting it with a laser where it wants to shave of.
I also heard ( on Slashdot, I forget when)they wanted to put one of these in the space shuttle so they could make replacement parts in orbit.
I'd like a sawed-off Remington.
:)
The napster of the future - kids swapping CAD files of Glocks.
Ok, so there might be some technical limitations. But I think this technology could result in some major changes in society.
-lx
I would like a glass of Bajoran Tea with a slice of lemon. And Natalie Portman.
Dracos
"Time flies when you're procrastinating."
You know, I used to read glowing reports like this in Popular Science of new technologies and get really excited. Not anymore. Call me a tech cynic.
Every new technology may solve a few of today's problems, but inevitably brings with it a host of new problems. Now we can get cash at an ATM whenever we want (instead of waiting for weekdays like our parents did) but it costs $1.50 to access our own money. We can use cell phones to call our friends any time of the day, but it costs $30 per month and the phone could also be used to betray our location to someone else (or possibly give us brain tumors at the same time). Computers let us do many things--like write comments such as this one--but require maintenance that the average user doesn't have a clue about.
This 3D printer sounds great. But in conflict with the above comment, when the first consumer version is available I expect to pay $2,000 for the printer, $200 or more for a materials cartridge, $9.95 to Maytag for the "rights" to print an 85 cent part and two hours of my life to print it, not to mention software and hardware issues. So for a while, it just won't be worth it. When a new technology like this appears, count on a few things:
- It's always more expensive (new Pentium 4, anyone?)
- Hollywood always makes at least one worst-case scenario movie about it (The Net--thanks, Sandra)
- People always treat it differently from something which already exists but is the same concept (why is email privacy treated differently than snail mail privacy?)
- People assume that "this will change everything!" only to find that "everything" slowly incorporates the new into the old (e-commerce...is anyone actually making money or are they just burning through venture capital and announcing acquisitions through stock deals)
- New laws are drafted to deal with this new thing, when old laws could easily be expanded to incorporate it into them (was the DMCA actually necessary in the first place?--or could existing copyright laws have been reworked)
So call me jaded, but I've stopped living in the near future. Yes, the next kernel version is almost here. Yes, flat screen monitors are almost affordable. Yes, Bluetooth-enabled products are almost on the market.But almost doesn't count. It's not here yet. I'll live in today.
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Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Of course, it might destroy the demand for physical objects. Yes, services might still be worth money (entertainers, prostitutes, etc.), but other than that, the only thing you'll have to spend your money on will be... ENERGY! Because it's still needed to make all this "free" stuff. And even energy will probably be cheap as the Sahara is covered with mass-produced photovoltaic cells.
Oh wait. Are you an actor, musician or prostitute? No? What will you do all day, now that you don't have to work? Hmm, I know, PLAY WITH UNLIMITED LEGO! (see my previous post)
Freedom: "I won't!"
If anything is going to push these to market, its going to be the Internet porn business. "Now available for download, $50.99, Sylvia Saint's Pelvis in Postscript-3D"
Talk about netsex.
Heh
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
here is a link from slashdot where the same thing is used to make robots.
I can just see it now. The old sit on the copier, or bare your chest over the Xerox machine is going to add a whole new dimension to office pranks!
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Today the AFAA (Action Figure Association of America) applied for a court injunction against the new 3-D printers that have become so popular. 'Until these printers can be prevented from creating copyrighted designs, they need to be kept out of consumer's hands,' said an AFAA spokesperson. Congress reacting quickly, after being handed huge bags with $ signs on them, quickly enacted, the Save the Children Act, which made it illegal for anyone outside of a corporation to own one of these printers. When asked why, a congressman said, "Um... Oh, I saw this movie once where this guy made a plastic gun, we have to think of the children!" This reporter is suspicious as it is well known that congressmen don't watch movies...
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I was watching the Discovery Channel one night, and they had a show about this stuff. Basically, you have a tank of clear polymer. Computer controlled lasers are used to fire beams at the polymer. When the laser beam hits the liquid, it solidifies. They construct items millimeter by millimeter. As one layer is solidified, the bottom of the vat drops down slightly, and the next layer is constructed.
I watched them build a little mini-model of the Space Shuttle using this. (They sped up the photography, and it was facinating to watch.)
Imagine having this hooked up to a computer. You can "print out" physical objects! Use their example, say, a spare part for your dishwasher. An 'L' pipe connector for instance. Your L connector break? Go to www.maytag.com, download the instructions for your 3D printer to construct a new part! Manufacturer's construction costs are eliminated!
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I've seen two different types: the really expensive ones and the really rough ones. Both are extremely cool geek toys.
I took a tour of Lockheed Martin's missile plant once, and they had a $500k stereolithography machine that produced high-quality 3D resin models by repeatedly tracing over a pool of liquid with a powerful laser. The liquid it used was $300 per gallon (or something ridiculous like that), but it produced excellent results. It could turn a CAD model into a very high precision plastic model in a few hours. This box looks roughly like a big popcorn machine. I wonder if it goes "Ding!" when the model is finished...
Georgia Tech's mechanical engineering department has a couple of much cheaper machines that use a special powder instead of a liquid. I think the basic principle is the same, but it's cheap enough to allow students free run of the lab (a couple of MechE's across the hall were geeking out with this machine a while back, and I saw some of their models). Unfortunately, the quality was not very good at all, and the models would crumble fairly easily. Fine for simple prototypes though, just probably not good for testing tightly interlocking parts. I think the cheaper machines are much faster as well.
-John
especially in that, given the different types of thes printers, some use metal, some use plastic, you could feasably use these to build induvidual parts of a more complex item, and then assemble said Item. Granted, you are going to be building any high end electronice with it, but look how these would affect the manufacturing sector. Use your High Impact Plastic printer to make lawn funiture, use the ceramic one to make your own fine china or just everyday cookware, ditto to the metal one. You could concievably use a large metal printer to build cars, although assembly woul be by hand and they would lack sophisticated electronics. Some of these things could easily be designed from scratch by the average user and wreack havoc on a lot of industries, where other industries that use more specialized componants, can sell said components along with the patterns needed to make the rest of the object. This,c oncievably, could be the next industrial revolution, but benefiting the consumer more and more, or it could be used by you average money hungry corporations to corner markets. Either way, it will be interesting to watch.
You say you want a revolution....
This could take napster and hotline to a new level. Why trade music and software when you can trade computers and instruments if this ever actually works it could really, really, change the world.
At the very least, you'd think that a computer of the 24th century could handle "hot Earl Grey tea." Sheesh.
MSK
2000 - (now)
2020 - Software can make replicate hardware.
2030 - Software gets artificial intelligence.
2050 - [KABOOM]
2199 - You get to meet Morphious
Now I can use this to print my very own Natalie Portman :)
(Moderate me down but if I hadn't said it someone else would have).
kc.
kc.
"You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel." - Homer J. Simpson
This'll be great!!!. We'll be able to send all sorts of stuff around places, starting with oranges, until the MCP gets his hooks into it. Just hope that Flynn and TRON are up to the challenge again.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Don't do that!
The last time Arthur asked the nutrimat for tea, it bogged down all the computers on the "Heart of Gold".
The army might be able to print a tank trak or cylinder head, but could they print a piston? The point being that the metallurgy of a piston is VERY different than a cylinder head or tank track.
Reproducing the shape and size of an object is not the same as reproducing the object (as Arthur Dent soon discovered about replicated tea). Things are made out of expensive/cheap/hard/soft/strong/weak materials, because it is a critical part of the design. Of course things could be redesigned to use the 128 materials that your printer contains.
On second thought, maybe I'm in the wrong industry...
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There is a darker side of this device. I could personally fabricate a gun with this. When I was 12, I had designed a machine gun, and had full plans for it layed out in my head, and if I had access to such a thing, I would have made it at the bat of an eye. Not to shoot anybody, just to make it, and be proud that I had designed something that worked. Just like kids writing virii, I designed weapons. And I wrote a trojan horse.
Unlike me, some people like to USE these weapons on people, and some kid will eventually make a gun, or worse, and use it on somebody. Then the printers will be recalled, and will have government-written proprietary drivers that will scan for possible gun pieces, bomb pieces, etc. Using your own drivers will be illegal. Worse, the printer might send everything you print to the government... say goodbye to printing your 3d kiddie porn... (mmm... ceramic and steel 8 yr. old...)
Will be nice, though, to be able to fabricate stuff easily when I'm designing something... Translucent plastics will be fun... *rolls eyes*
Let me be the first to say, 'Holodeck, here we come!'
I used to use Painter a lot (back when 2.0 was the cutting edge, and it was still "Fractal Design"), and about three years ago, I started on a project to create a 3D analog of the liquid media tools, using special input devices (paired gloves, using knuckle sensors, which I eventually plan to replace with some sort of positional sensor product) and a 3D "printer" that uses sugar and a seriously canibalized hp inkjet (approx. 300 dpi) to produce a layered approximation of 3D blocks. I've been playing with methods of layering doped silicon for a while, hoping to get a quartz block version of this medium, preferably at much higher resolutions. When I saw this article, that was my first thought. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, I doubt it would be feasible. Does anyone know of any technologies that might? I have a background in solid state physics and materials, but it hasn't ever led me to a solution...
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Well I suppose I could have worded it better but I didn't think anyone would care exactly how I worded it. I guess I could have said "As the article said this is an advanced step in a long process towards the goal of home fabrication of 3D objects from a descriptor file. As I remember the last time I heard about this was several years ago when Newsweek had an article on the process of printing 3D objects in plastics." Whew.. that's sort of spammy. ;>
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
/*
;^)
Hey, wait a second, shouldn't it be "Wine, Red, Cold," why in the heck does our "French" Captain Jean-Luc Picard seem so
British???
*/
The English Invasion of 2263?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Pretty neat.
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Cut here, Insert tab A into slot B. This is not new, I remember them from when i was a kid 30 years ago.
--- Always remember. 99.36% of all statistics are inaccurate.
Natalie Portman! But really, isn't this the same type thing that made the automated robots that walk accross desks? Remember that article? That used a similar machine i believe.
The difference between the old fashioned stereolithography and what the article is about is this: The article is based around pushing 3d printing for use in the home, not just engineering firms.
They talk about printing plastics, metals and ceramics, but they left out the most important two of all:
Latex and silicon!
(mumbling)She's my creation, is it real? Weird science, da da.....
I saw a thing on this on one of those TV tech shows on discovery that were popular a while back.. it was like 4 or 5 years ago, though, and never heard about it since. It basically hardned plastic as it raised up, and was to be used to easily fabricate parts to replace and brace bones.
It showed on the show a skull being made of plastic, raising inch by inch out of a bunch of liquid plastic. It was very interesting.
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ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
The differences are (a) they're working on "printing" things with combinations of different materials and (b) they're speculating that these "3D printers" might be able to be mass-produced for "ordinary consumers".
We could make replicas of the :Cue:Cat so they'd have something legitimate to sue people about!
'Cuz if it does, sign me up!
The article talks about devices that are closer to a laser printer or inkjet printer, in technology, than the MDX15, which just happens to be a very nice, very advanced milling machine.
It's still about $10k for something that can 'print' 3d objects.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
We are only now re-discovering technology that the ancients (people in the early 1990's) were already well aware of.
/. readership more in tune with the archives than the /. editorship?
Seriously, I remember reading about this same technology in 1994 (in plastic). Furthermore, we've seen stories like this before on Slashdot (in paper). In fact, the paper one had a website where you could order the object you wanted and have it shipped to you.
Why is the
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
I'd agree. Intel, AMD, etc work on getting the resolution down and making it cheaper to produce the chips and make their profits off of it during the process and then sell the production units to others and turn into raw materials and blueprint providers. It could happen. Woo the future of Tech companies is in mining. Let me call my broker! :)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Hello all, I'm new to this site and I'm also President of ToyBuilders.com the website mentioned in the New Scientist article. First let me say that articles usually never get all of the fact exactly right and so it goes with this one. We were not aware of the article until last night when someone sent a email indicating it existed. We describe 5 technologies on our website that cover most of what is commercially available in the US there are several others in Japan, Israel and other countries. We talk about the 5 technologies that we have immediate access to and those technologies that meet our safety requirements regarding material safety. Onto the business of Star Trek like replicators.... These technologies have been around for roughly 11 years and I have been in the Rapid Prototyping business for nearly that long as well. The stereolithography process has been around the longest and it uses a UV curable liquid polymer as its build material. Others use nylon, metal, wax, paper, polycarbonate and sand. There are new materials being introduced every day and with the introduction of the more reasonably priced machines we decided it was time to introduce the general public to the limitless possibilities that these machines posses. While initially it seems that the material price is expensive ($380 per gallon) look at it on a part by part basis! The sample part on our website would cost the consumer about $20. Lets keep in mind that these machines will build literally anything you can imagine and yes you can build moving parts, complex shapes that can not be made using any other method. We have even take CT and MRI data and converted it a solid model that can be made on these machines. There are no limitations! We were concern if the general public would have any interest in this stuff and I must say in the 2 months the site has been up we have had well over 300,000 hits with no advertising and about a 0.5% purchase thru rate! Not bad! I'll leave it here and would love to here any comments you folks have. I was glad to hear about this site and glad to be a member. Karl R. Denton President ToyBuilders.com
Three years ago I saw a presentation on this technology at an ASM conference and one of the biggest applications was something that is not mentioned in the New Scientist article: Surgery.
It seems that surgeons, working as they do in a confined space covered with blood, use touch more than sight to figure out what they're doing and translating CAT scans to touch is non-intuitive. Moreover, for reconstructive surgery reorganizing three-dimensional tissue in the mind's eye can be complicated.
A number of medical centers have been working on using 3D printing to build models from CAT scans to assist surgeons in identifying tumors and for use as templates in reconstructive surgery. In the talk I saw, there were slides from the reconstrution of a baby girl's skull to correct a severe congenital abnormality. It was reported that instead of the usual three operations, the use of computer-generated templates, which were used in the OR to guide cutting and rebuilding the skull, allowed the surgeons to do everything in a single operation.
Another medical application that was discussed (relevant since the speaker came from Dayton and worked with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) was the idea of rebuilding spinal vertibrae for pilots who punched their ejection seats without first ejecting the canopy.
I went to a PennTech openhouse last year, and they had a similar thing. It used plastics, and all the CAD people could "print" out their 3-d objects. You could watch the thing at work, and it was really neat...it took a coupla hours per piece, but when it came out, it was an exact plastic replica of what was on the computer screen. It was pretty cool.
The anti-salmon
Someone needs to obtain the "digital rights" to the "Plaster Caster's" work. Women could just download Jimi Hendrix's dick and print it up.
c ynthiapc/index1.html
http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/07/12/
I installed a 3D printer for a client about two years ago. It was cool, but nothing like what they are describing in this article. It used these little white plastic wafers. It melted them and then sprayed (for lack of a better word) out of the printer's nozzle to create the image you had in CAD. It also made braces, as the model needed them. For example if you wanted to print out a model of the Eiffel tower it would make braces on the sides so that top didn't fall over while it was cooling. The problem is that the braces cool just as fast as the rest of the model so taking them off without screwing the whole thing up is almost a science in itself. This is cool tech, but when I saw it two years ago it just wasn't very practical. Maybe they are to the point where you can do cool things like print out a new cell phone cover.... but I doubt it.
sweet jesus, that's a wonderful idea... but only if printing is cheap... however, anyone who has purchased legos recently will know that they get more expensive by the minute! the plastic used to make them today must be rare!
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
The movie in question is "In the Line of Fire" and the über-bad guy is played by the master John Malkovich. A great action flick that doesn't make a joke of its viewer's wits and has a great cast. All hail IMDb!
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Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
I've attended a workshop some time ago where one of the guys talking was Mr. Andrew Lippan (sp?) from the MIT Media Lab.
There he showed some pictures of one printer they were testing at the ML. The pictures showed some vegetables (a pickle, as far as I remember) and fruits (an apple) with text printed on them. The printer was capable to print things on non-flat objects...
Anyone has links to it??? It sure is interesting... :-)
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Marcelo Vanzin
Marcelo Vanzin
Dig around at your local second-hand book store in the SF section. There's an author named George O. Smith did a collection of short stories called "The Complete Venus Equilateral". One of the story sequences had to do with the cultural ramifications of replicators. Very well thought-out, excellent reading. Three of the stories in the sequence cover
a) the legal/technical aspects of the new technology (the DeCSS/Napster defense teams should read this one),
b) what happens when the replicator gets immediately marketed w/o easing it into the culture, and
c) what goes on after the widget is finally integrated into the culture.
It's a lot like what's going on now with the Internet...
"Joe Bob says - Check it out!"
My god, you made me hate you and love you at the same time. In fact, the reference to the Dudleys almost made up for your link.
If you would have said, "Waaaasssuuuuuuuuuuuuup!" I probably would have felt indebted to you.
Bite my yammer.
Maybe you did read the article. It's pretty easy to see why it sounded like you didn't. [shrug] "It's only a message board ... Don't take it so seriously."
I thought it just worked 'vertical line by line' scanning it along x and y and then moving it along z.
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ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
This *has* been around for quite some time. It generally is used for 3D modeling where creating a simple, one-piece model would be much easier and cheaper to produce this way than to employ more traditional model making facilities. I think maybe this could be used to make some very interesting *solid* objects very easily.
;p
Hopefully, one day soon it will become a little bit more advanced. We're still quite far from generating objects from a nice pool of "garbage matter" such as the Star Trek replication technology.
I wouldn't mind getting one of these things and making a nice large (say 30 feet tall) Tux model to display. Now wouldn't *that* be a crazy Christmas present for Linus.
wolf31o2 Developer, Gentoo Linux Games Team
Just like printers created a revolution in desktop publishing, this could revolutionize sculpture. Just think of the whacked out stuff you could make with this tech! All the insane 3d puzzles I've dreamed of will be brought to life...
When I was making an effort to get into the special efects industry, I remember some places having 3D printers of sorts. They were big tanks (like taller than a person and wide... wider than arms spread), and then there were two lasers on two sides of it. They could then feed the computer that was attached to it a 3D model, it would then move the lasers around and where they converged would leave the liquid there as a hard thing. It was really expensive to use, and very few places used it b/c there was still much time required afterwards to get it perfect (when the lasers converged, they'd form a hard spot, but there was noise in the system, so instead of a point, you'd get a star and after those add up you get lots of little bumps and stuff).- ------
very cool to see a human being built before your eyes though - but usually it was smaller things built. slow too.
all the benefits, slow, expensive, and not all that good. (I should add the requisite Slashdot MS bashing here - but I'll leave it up to you)
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Good one, dude.
they already have these. they are called "replicators". they are used to make "tea. early grey. hot."
all joking aside, this would actually be pretty much useless for the common joe. why? say you need a... light bulb. "polymer goop" is neither glass nor metal, two substances you need to make a light bulb. it can't be auto magically transformed into it either. so unless you're a mega rich guy or a corporation, and can have big vats of polymer gooped aluminum" i don't see where this will help anybody...
When I got home today I tried to tell my mom about 3-D printers and how cool they were and what the implications of the technology are. She didn't believe me! So I got online and looked up the article to show her. When she saw that it was indeed on the web, and on Slashdot none the less, she finally belived. GO SLASHDOT!
Just imagine, having to wait a few minutes while you compile your motherboard.
-Milinar
p.s. anyone else thinking "The Diamond Age"?
I've heard quite a bit about 3-D printers, but I've never seen an online image of what they can do. Anybody know where some good pictures are of the output of these puppies?
what do you think of my new version of amazed?
Doesn't sony suck?
I see my karma going down
'cause all the Slashdot mods are assholes
and I'm a troll.
The penis birds should suck it down
but when I come they never swallow
And I'm a troll
Yeah, if I make it, I'd be amazed
Just to get the first post
Yeah, Katz is gay, and I'd be amazed
Just to see that he ate cock
And if I make it, I'm still a troll
Look how low my karma stays
If Malda came
then I'd really be amazed.
And when you know you can't fellate
Another karma whore, your balls ache
But no one cares
And when you know you don't belong,
'cause you run Windows on a Compaq,
The laughter blares
This will never happen, ever. If it does it will ruin the economy because no one will buy anything except this printer. After everyone bought this printer what would be the use of working for 5 days a week, 8 hours a day...All you would need to buy is food really, maybe gas...the rest you could make, clothes, cd's, etc etc. Granted, I am not saying this is a bad thing, far from...I am just saying I can not see the government allowing it is all. Hahaha maybe Star Trek isn't so far away really...=)
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
Reminds me of the matter compilers from Stephenson's "The Diamond Age". Granted these are nanites that assemble raw materials into food, clothing, etc and keeping up with the Jones was about having a 'bigger' MC than your neighbor. Still makes me think that Star Trek is the basis for most innovations these days. "Sci-Fi is the fuel for engineers imagination"
Now that would suck!
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
...to simply download a file off the net and print a copy of the new metallica cd?!
The composite materials to make a CD aren't quite there yet, but the resolution of this technology is probably good enough to make the groove in a record.
I've actually seen a machine in action that can produce models of CAD-designed objects in a very cost-effective manner. I can't remember the name of the thing, but it was actually called a printer. You would put a grainy sort of substance in it and it would basically go through and add layers based on the CAD design. IIRC it was accurate to around 1/64 inch. At the time we were doing models of a CAD-designed PDA, and a model could be produced for just a couple of dollars.
Of course they also had the machine over in the manufacturing building that they wouldn't let the undergrads near... it used lasers and was exponentially more expensive.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
A somewhat related topic...here is a Wired article about 3D LCD's, pretty cool if you ask me.
Note: This wasn't cool enough to make the main page so I thought I would share it here.
> What's needed for this to happen is a "killer
:)
> application"--one that will turn 3D printers
> into something that everyone wants to buy.
Uhh, what's the same "killer app" for everything else computer related in the past?
Pr0n!
That's right... print out your own model of Laetitia Casta or your own John Holmes. In the privacy of your own home, you won't even need to take those "embarassing" trips to that shady store downtown.
These things will sell like hotcakes.
-Chris
So, now I can duplicate my 'do not duplicate' keys without having to use a triangle file?!
--
God, I've been watching The Matrix too much.
Self-assembling machines: the way to go (out with a bang)?
--
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
This setup is slightly different than the standard 3d pringing setup.
While basically the same, it adds the ability to color your print. The developers, if you read the article, had an epiphany-changing colors is not technologically different than changing materials, say soft plastics, hard plastics, ceramics, etc.
It's just a function of chemistry, reactions, computation, storage, etc.
And if, 5 years ago, people were paying 2k+ for computers, it stands to reason, due to inflation and all, that people would be willing to pay 3k+ or so for their PCs today. However, since PCs are actually cheaper, that leaves room for nifty Digicams, wide format color inkjet printers, etc.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
At my college we have had a rapid prototyping center years, isn't anything new. Sure new advances are making it more and more useful, but the article still failed to mention two things.
One is the time required to make the object. Sure it is faster then regular manufacturing, but it isn't anything like a few minutes, more like a few hours. Second is the strength and durability of the objects. Most Rapid Prototyping machines either use plastic which is hardened by a laser, or a powder which is glued together. The objects however aren't that strong, accidently bump it, or rub it wrong and pieces will fall off.
Sure Rapid Prototyping makes manufacturing and design a whole heck of a lot simplier but it is still years away from being in the normal joe's office.
Can't help but agree with everyone that this is nothing new. Although I do think that these small improvements over time will lead to something usefull, I don't think the technology that these different company's are focusing on(layering) will lead to our wish list item. The Star Trek replicator. Does anyone have any knowledge of any projects that are making an effort directed at complex objects, such as a piece of fruit? I obviously don't mean this directly, but technology that's able to catalyze chemical reactions a little more complex than the ones just causing heat? This on a miniature scale of course.
Now I can print all the multicolor Legos I want!
Where's the submit button??
For many years people or companies with the desire and money (and we're not talking million$ either) could go and buy a rapid prototyping machine. You can get really expensive (thermoset polymers) all the way down to really cheap (layered wax deposition) and anywhere in between (glued layers of paper) and get what you want. Heck, someone I did a job for wanted me to model a new alarm fob case for him because his old one broke, and he was going to run it on the company machine.
Just to be sure, it's "No news is good news", not "Old news is good news", right? Hello?
Mr. Ska
My lord. I have seen vaporware before, but i'll be damned when this finally happens. i am not saying that it's an imposibility, but think of what it would do to our world as we know it.
who would control access to one of these machines? could consumers buy them?
good thing i will never see it in my life time.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
One of these would have made that CAD class I took in High School so much more interesting. Beats the hell out of that C&C Mill we were using.
-subtraho
How pricey/out there is it to have a stereolithography scanner? What if you had the printer, but wanted to make duplicates of your just-made scanner or hard-to-find toys? I remember seeing a laser that moved around Robert Patrick's head in the making of T2.
It's pretty interesting technology... Current stage is pretty far from what the article indicates. Most of the processes take a lot post-processing work. Stereolithography, for example, requires a 24 hour curing period after the part gets constructed with resin. Then to get the part looking like a real product, you have to sand, and sand, and sand, and buff, and paint. (it doesn't come out looking like an iMac). The grandma glasses that was mentioned in the article... heheh. No comment, maybe someday.
I hear that one good application is on closed environments such as ships. If a part breaks while on a mission, you can use such a device to fabricate the part (that you'd grab from an already modeled 3d database) rather than having to carry a room full of spare parts.
Another plus not mentioned in the article is that conventional manufacturing techniques limit the shape of the part - the mold has to eventually break away from the part. Rapid Prototyping techniques can create very unconventional shapes.
Imagine a garage that is a 3d printer. Print up a new car every day... I know, a little far fetched, but it's getting closer to what we really want - nano-assemblers.
We all know about nano thanks to Hemos. But isn't this 3d printing technology just a few layers above the Holy Grail(tm) of technology?
Another user already mentioned that we are now putting the ability to create technology into every person's desk. With nano-tech this would be even more so true.
Nanos will just have to dig into the ground and extract all elements required for building the car of your dreams, if the resources do not exist in your neighbourhood bedrock, you can 'recycle' your old car/bike/metallic/carbonic objects to generate the newer model you just downloaded from: Haxor's 3d Skematix (DeCSS'd ofcourse)
Other quickies for nano:
- Free food (don't ask where the source molecules come from though)
- New computer every morning.
- Upgrade hardware as easy as software!
- Like that new Cellphone, leech it!
- Need wireless web? Create Transcievers for all your friends...
- Need a bigger HD? Download new firmware.
- Need a bigger monitor? Increase the size of your wall...
- Need a new leg... well you get the point...
Ah the future does look bright indeed.
Cd
--
This
quite right... as other posts have noted, mechanical strength of rapid-prototyped parts is a big problem too. the new scientist article mentions that this kind of particle by particle assembly may lead to stronger materials than you would get by casting or forging, but controlling the size and shape of the individual crystal grains in an object is far beyond the current capabilities of any of these technologies.
also, having handled some parts produced by relatively sophisticated 3-d inkjet printers, I can say that the results are in pressive, but the surface quality is poor; until someone comes up with a way to print smooth, hard surfaces, moving parts will be out of the question.
a further disadvantage, at least in plastic parts, is that by printing the material from individual droplets of material or some kind of powder in a resin matrix, you lose the benifits of having long chain polymer molecules extending throughout your part... these long chains play a large part in making plastic strong and flexible.
right now, rapid-prototyping technology is probably more useful for the rapid production of molds to cast other parts with, so then high precision machining procedures can be used to get your final result. I imagine many of the technical obstacles to producing useful objects will be circumvented with new techniques in the coming years, but it will be a long time before everyday, durable objects are made this way.
-------------------- the list is long. dirac angestung gesept
My wife is a graphic designer and used to do alot of work for Zcorp. We have a couple of their demo items. A chain and a 6-cylinder engine block made out of their materials. It's extremely cool stuff.
:)
I've jonesed for one of their printers for a while now.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
"Toy manufacturers will put their file of Mickey Mouse on the Internet and people will simply pay to download it," says Chris Ryall of Warwick University.
/.?
Famous last words. Sound familiar to anyone? I remember talking about this years ago, when a friend was talking about car manufacturers using this technology.
The only problem was how to make money off of it? That didn't stop Diamond from coming out with the Rio, even though they knew no money was going to be made from MP3's, they must have been counting on it.
It will be very hard to tell what eventual application this will start up.....did you ever think 7 years ago that the Internet was going to be used for stock trading? Or as an election tool? Or better yet, for
I need me one of those Escheresque boxes with the mucked up perspective.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
First Thoughts on 3D Printing:
1. Download once, Print many or Download once, Print once.
a. How long until the download once, print once code is reverse engeneered?
b. Napster for objects? You think the Music industry is pissed, just wait
2. Weapons (Guns, Bombs, etc); Can I just print up a non-regestered gun, shoot my wife and then get rid of it?
3. Retail Market? If you don't have to go to Folleys or JCPenny for clothes,
what do all of the people who depend on that do for a job?
4. Organic Material
a. How can we use this for creating food?...Stop sending $0.17 a week to some
other country, send a printer
b. Anyone see 5th Element?
c. Anthrax
5. How much are the printer "cartriges" going to cost?
Fear leads to anger, Anger leads to hate, Hate leads to suffering. -Yoda
Something like this would require major changes to our society. Think about it, cloning of ANY object, everyone now has unrestricted access to guns, drugs, anything. When going to the shops to buy something, no longer will you buy two of anything, just one and then unlimited clones. No more assembly required for goods... design it in CAD, print it in 3D. Money is of no value, nothing is. No more hunger. It would change the world completely. Most likely noone would work, cos theres nothing to work for, but if noone works we will lose alot of things like entertainment (new movies & games) which can't be cloned.
The output is more for looking at than using for anything, but it's still pretty cool how detailed it can be.
>Ian Campbell of Nottingham University agrees.
.. and think of
..
>"You could end up with very low-cost 3D-sculpting
>systems that a kid could sit and play about with,
>creating any shape they wanted to," he says.
my first thought here was 'clay'
the advantages -- it offers real-time modelling
capabilities, plus it's non-polluting (well,
compared to polymers) and dirt cheap! (pun
intended)
(and completely off-topic: anyone ever read james
joyce's short story of the same name? I was such
a numbskull. "..but why is it named CLAY?"
wow, I'm ashamed to admit that.. )
buck
"Where's that Lego brick... where is it? I saw it here a few seconds ago. Oh, crap! I used it already. There must be another... somewhere... Oh, forget it. I'll just print me a new one."
White wine is served cold. Red wine is served at room temperature.
no,no, NO!!!!! ALL fine wines are served at cellar temperature, some reds are brought up (clarets especially) a bit early to loose the chill, but a good pinot should not be 70 degrees or so! As for white wine, the best white wines have almost no taste if the are too cold.
Course, we are talking FINE wines here!
back to topic....I liked the story of how this company got started.
Going on means going far
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
We would design a spacecraft, drawing it all up in 3D in CAD, then transmit the CATIA file over to the stereolith dept, who would process it over night to create the spacecraft.
There were some little drawbacks and quirks. The plastic is a bit flimsy, so in order to have arms (such as the ones that deploy the solar array wings) someone needs to edit the 3D CAD file to remove those bits, and after the model is created, to put metal wires in and glue things together.
In fact, in the hands of a good plastic model builder with a few week's time, some pretty incredible results can be achieved. One spacecraft we designed had a really tricky maneuver and deployment sequence, and our model maker took time to put in the rotational mechanics so that we could use the model to play around with how this would work. (Sometimes when you can play with a real toy you can figure stuff out in a LOT less time than if it was only in your head or a whiteboard.)
considering that it runs on highly refined raw materials (crude oil -> polymers, ore -> metals, etc) I seriously doubt capitalism has anything to fear from this type of device. Especially when you consider that you need to further break any items back down if the raw material is not to remain inert. If there's an oil crunch worthy of the national reserves right now, just think how scarce the stuff would be when everyone starts to demand it so they can make their own Natalie Portman dolls.
I do not have a signature
BTW: if anyone needs a list of her existing ummm... specimens, a listing of names and dates is posted (no details on length or girth). She has 'members' from : Dead Kennedys, Revolting Cocks (figures), Pop Will Eat Itself, and the Ruttles.
"The girl makes Godot look punctual." -- Buffy
I read an article in Discover (no idea what issue) about a paper-based 3-d assembling thingie, it glued layers of paper together one by one, with a laser cutting the outline of each sheet. The end 3d model looked like a lightly roasted wood version of whatever you were making.
All sights are set on one glittering goal
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
This technology might seem cool, and it does sound fairly cutting-edge.. but it doesn't even scratch the surface of what is possible if you're using nanotechnology. We're talking about putting materials together atom-by-atom. Think about it for a second... doesn't this give you a tad more flexibility than (pardon the gross oversimplification) shooting a laser into some goo, and making a solid mold out of it? Nano makes this technology seem primitive by comparison. Now if (when) they make a 3D "printer" utilizing nanotechnology, well that be worth the attention. No, I'm not suggesting these research teams drop everything... but they are still using what Drexler calls "bulk technology." As far as the social ramifications (genie machines), that presents another discussion altogether...
"World domination...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero outside?" -Linus Torvalds
As for making nukes, you'd need an ink containing fissionable isotopes. Such material is already tightly controlled, and isn't the sort of material you'd like to have around your house.
Making drugs? There's a big difference between spitting ink+poweders to build stuff on a macroscopic scale, and putting atoms just where you want to. That's been done recently, gluing a couple of atoms together at a very low temperature (to keep the atoms from bouncing away before you can put them together). That's not in the near future, it's still easier to do it in Pyrex.
While I'm not a mechanical engineer, my girlfriend is, and some of the things you can do with modern CnC equipment and injection molding gear is incredible. The costs of this equipment are coming down dramatically, especially if you just want to manufacture small items.
While the machine can't build other machines - yet - the capability to design things and assemble them later is most definately here, although the price is currently prohibitive. We're planning to get a small CnC machine when she graduates in hopes of recovering some of the cost for the equipment by doing custom work locally for people. CAD is amazing stuff if you're artistically gifted - I'm not - but I can write code to make the machine dance, heh heh.
Don't rule this technology out. It'll never be cheaper than good 'ol mass production techniques, but it can't be beat for custom items and prototyping. The university builds complex robots with simple parts made from equipment like this all the time.
..don't panic
So if I can download a computer and print it out that means we can swap computer plans on Techster (Napster for components you spaz) and never hafta pay some shmuck for the computer. Or even better we can make an entirely GPL'd computer. We're getting into nanotech-age issues here. How do you think laws such as the DMCA will effect us now?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I didn't even realize that these things were this close to production. I had figured that they were under development. Now all of us that read the Diamond Age and though cool can daydream a little closer to reality now.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I have had the oportunity to play with and enable one of these Printers at my place of employment. It is quite a cool toy, but that is all it really is. We have printed out many "wrenches" (3d test file that came with machine) but have yet to make any reall parts. Why you ask? Well the people who bought a $300,000 Stereolithography printer a few years back to print up these parts are upset because they are afraid of loosing funding to this newer cheaper, faster model. Hmmm sounds like so many other things discussed here at slashdot oh well ... The more things change the more they stay the same.
one of us buys one, and replicates the damn thing for everybody else. Seems like a cool toy, but not a very big moneymaker;-)
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I think I remember seeing that too a long time ago. I think they wanted to make a fax machine from this, so you could 'fax' your newest mouse prototype from your test lab to QA, instantly.
Rapid prototyping??? Been around for years, however the costs seem to be comming down.
In school a couple years ago, we were working on a portible rapid prototyping machine that could be used in all weather conditions. The idea was that a computer was carried around with a CAD catalog of parts for tanks and other equipment. Instead of carrying several tons of spare parts for a military campeign, someone could just fill the machine with epoxy, and in a couple minuites, have whatever part needed. Other aplications were space, as you can imagine such a machine could reduce payload weights tremendously. However getting the machine to work in microgravity seemed to be a rather large block when using liquids in a gravity dependant process.
bort
(a million things to say, and two minuites to say it in, sorry about not proofreading this.
'THINK OF AN OBJECT and watch it appear before your eyes.'
I want a new convertable, a new house, a couple of those Alpha boxen running linux clustered together connected to a 56 inch screen.
And when I get pissed at Katz for his articles of wisdom, I want an AK-47, and Jon Katz himself.
Mmmmmmmmm, think of the possibilities. And the pr0n, oooooooooh sweet pr0n.
A couple of years ago at the Radiological Society of North America convention, I ran into a company called Z Corp that was marketing a 3D printer that squirted an epoxy-type liquid onto a layer of resin powder in ink-jet fashion. The printer was fed data from a 3D model generated by their software, which could take input from a series of 2D images (such as what you'd get from a CT or MRI scan). At the time they were looking at expanding their market to reconstructive surgery and other fields where they could use medical images. The printing process was kind of slow though. A full-sized head model took about 4-6 hours to "print".
Pretty nifty stuff.
imabug
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"
Steel tank treads seem a long way off.
If you just want to make metal parts, any good computer-controlled multi-axis milling machine can do the job. Works fine. If you have the right CAD sofware, you can mail in a file and get a part back from your local CNC machine shop. You get a much broader choice of materials, too.
there's no way to magically insert 'space' between 2 parts unless you can somehow levitate one of the parts. it might be possible by laying down a layer of acid-soluble material between the two separate pieces though, and then dissolving this later later.
but hey, we're talkin about plans that can be sent over the internet... once one person comes up with schematics for a device, it could be spread everywhere in mere days... i can't wait to see the copyright suits that are filed once something like this comes out though! oh lordy!
-
Casting Pour hot liquid into mould; wait for it to solidify. Most machined parts start
from a casting that's close to the final part.
-
Injection moulding Force hot liquid into 3D mould. Usually used on plastics.
-
Blowing Use air to force semiliquid material into mould. Usually used on glass or plastic, but aluminum cans are blown.
-
Forging Use big hammer to force heat-softened material into die. Usually used on metals.
-
Stamping Use big hammer to force cold material into die. Usually used on sheet metals, but also works on wire. Often, a series of stamping dies are used for progressive stamping. That's how little stuff like screws and connector pins are often made.
-
Die rolling Roll round chunk of material between two dies moving in opposite directions.
Used to make better screws, round parts.
During the first half of the 20th century, processes were developed to do all of these operations at high speed in huge volume at very low cost. This is why manufactured stuff is cheap.You can also make just about anything those processes can make with a good multi-axis CNC milling machine. But it will cost a lot more than a part produced in volume, and will take minutes to hours per part. And the second one won't be much cheaper than the first. Machining something out of a solid block of plastic or metal is usually done only for prototypes, tooling, and the occasional urgently needed repair part.
This is the basic problem with on-demand manufacturing. It works fine, but it's slow, tying up expensive machinery for hours to make a small part.
These new processes have much the same problem; they're slow. It takes a long time to build up a solid object layer by layer. There are special situations when it's worth it, but it's not a production technology.
Interestingly, the same economics applies to IC fabrication. ICs are normally fabricated by photolithography, using masks. It's possible to make ICs by directly writing the wafer with an electron beam under computer control. Works fine. Allows smaller line sizes than optical systems. Experimental ICs have been made that way since the late 1970s. But it's too slow for volume production.
...to simply download a file off the net and print a copy of the new metallica cd?!
-HobophobE
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
I want a printer like the one in the 5th Element that printed out Leeloo Mina Lekatariba Laminatcha Ekbat D Sebat =)
One 3D printer was the polymer style. These produce some rather resiliant models but take considerably longer to produce. The group I supported used these models for parts they were expecting to travel to other centers with (presentations, comparisons, etc) or if they thought this was pretty close to "done". One of the coolest demos I saw using this was a ship in a bottle - the bottle being latticework so you could see the inside ship's details.
A later printer I helped set up for the group was basically a wax-jet printer. A table was moved about as a jet squirted shots of a plastic-like wax; slowly building a model. Gaps in the model were filled with very thin support columns which were easily cleaned away once the model was finnished. One engineer used this to generate molds for resin heart pump test parts. This enabled him to make small changes, generate a physical part quickly, and then test the performance of the part. He was thrilled.
Like others have pointed out, this technology has been around for awhile. But its still interesting.
I remember seeing something very similar several years ago that printed 3D objects using plastics. I think I saw it in Newsweek or something way back when. :)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
On discovery or something. I don't remember too many details, I just remember that it used lasers to solidify liquid polymer goop.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Was it a "rapid prototyper"?
That sounds right. I think I remember it being called a Z-CORP something or other. But maybe I'm making it up.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
The medical community has been experimenting with laser-epoxy 3D printers to make molds for bone plates. They model the needed shape on a computer, and the printer is a plate of epoxy fluid that gets hardened by heat and rises to the surface. They trace along the edges with a laser and the thing rises slowly out of the pool. Then they use that as a mold for the real plate which will be made out of surgical steel or something like that. This is not to say that the skull plate that the average /. troll has as a result of the prerequisite brain-damaging injury is made that way, but it has been in at least limited use outside of laboratories for a little while.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
I've seen 3D printing in comercial industry for over 5 years now. The tech is of course neat, but I question if it would reach the level of interest needed to actually hit those prices.
It's not like this is 95, and the average computer was $2000+. People are used to paying under a grand for a computer setup. It seems like buying a printer that is twice the cost of the computer itself isn't going to fly. Get it down to $500, then we'll talk.
BZZT!
White wine is served cold. Red wine is served at room temperature.
psxndc
And no, you don't have to post this comment twice ;-)
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Web scanned 3d porn whenever i want.
I am Jacks complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
Finally I'll be able to get a nice Menger sponge for the bath!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Already we have a crapped out Star Wars franchise, impossible looking digital effects in every second film, (think Lost in Space with those helmets which morphed out of nowhere.) We have dumb-ass FPS games which teach people bad physics, (Quake II, where every slanted surface meant you slid! Carmack might be able to think, breath and shit algorithms, but he and his crew of code-dozers have clearly never walked outdoors. They certainly look pasty enough.)
Every second ad on the subway uses a lame Photoshop filter, or employs stupid looking effects which graphic artists from even ten years ago would never have screwed up.
Printing agencies scan everything these days, forcing me to use Photo-fsking-shop to create tone depth in images. No more the days of analog photography! All my work has become ephemeral. Original art, what little there remains, is confined to fitting into pre-fab scanner bed sizes if I realistically want to remain in the game. Quick! Everybody standardize. Everybody into one of three box sizes! Everybody work less on each project in order to turn out more, in order to remain competetive!
And some asshole with a computer knows where I am, what I buy, and makes money off me every time I turn around.
So yeah. This rocks. Let's scan the whole damned world and be done with it. Let's reduce it to the moronic dream land of the lowest common denominator. I want to see more sickly over-sexed content, less work, knowledge, and responsibility required to create more useless crap. I want a world where kids never have to learn how to use their hands. Let's see just how dumb they all turn out to be. Already kids are turning into overweight prune people thanks to fsking Sony.
Remember when kids played with toys like Leggo, train sets, and model kits and -shock- bicycles and soccer balls? (Tomorrow's kids will think that Carmack and Lost in Space physics are real. Yippee! Let's see how long the world lasts under their rein! It's already run by evil assholes. Let's see what happens when they become morons as well!)
I hate digital. I hate computers, and I hate the net. It sucks away health and soul, and I've become mired in it like everybody else. Perhaps one day I will screw up the courage to toss my evil computer out the window and I will be (partly) free, and nobody will have to listen to my rantings on-line ever again. The prune people will be able to digitally converge into one giant uber-prune in peace!
-Fantastic Lad! The most cynical Lad of them all!
I like the idea of 3d printing, but doubt I'll get to use it in the near future
first of all our culture as we know it will need to change the way we do business,
the copyright and patent laws are hindering productivity, many advances technolgy(people ave to re-invent or borrow a wheel in order to create something new) and the sharing of information (its ok to say "duh". the laws need to be changed so that the creators of something can get credit and some kind of fair compensation for making or working on what ever they have made or worked on with out , and yet allow the information to be shared and equal access to the shared information, (course then we run into quetsions like who pays them and how much is fair, but since our society is procrastinating from making everything open source we won't have to worry about them quite yet.)
In most objects, you're not going to be using a great variety of different materials, and those you use are going to be arranged in (usually) fairly logical patterns. You've got a lump of aluminum over here, a strip of some polymer over there, etc. You usually wouldn't want a voxel of aluminum here, the next one is iron, the next one is plastic, randomly dispersed. (Unless the voxel resolution was very coarse.)
So, like with some 2-D graphical formats, adjacent voxels of the same color, material, etc., could get encoded together. To represent a 200x200x200 cube of aluminum, you don't need to specify each of the 8 million voxels; rather, a handful of coordinates will suffice. Obviously, this is a degenerate case, but even in more "real" cases, this would provide dramatic improvements over what they seemed to be discussing in that part of the story.
It also seems like some sort of "polyhedronal" (like polygonal, except in 3d) encoding, like is used by many video accelerators, might also provide some benefit.
Of course, this all seems too obvious for the companies working on this not to have thought of, so I'll just go back to my corner now...
Offspring rocks!
only to find that replacement material cartridges cost $3995.00. :))
And it only runs on Windows...
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
and with that perspective point, I guess we are there. I think there was a spinoff called (or it was a spin off of) Beyond 2000, and we are there too. But I still can't by a washing machine that doesn't need soap.
My parents went to toybuilders.com and all I got was this lousy blob of 3D printed plastic.
It might as well be said. "Imagine one of these making a Beowulf cluster!"
You may now return to the normal excited chatter.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
The surface detail has improved over the years greatly, but they are limited by many factors, complex undercuts, for example are very hard to get to turn out right. Multi angle bevels often turn to rounds or single bevels. Whatever you do dont try to show surface textures (my boss made me once...bad idea). Tolerances have improved too, but the more complex the object/shape the looser your tolerance requirements have to be.
Having said that these are great for rapid proto of things like cases and other parts, but it's definately prototyping. Lots of up front model planning time is needed. I have often made a copy of the model in question and eliminated non-essential detail to use with the printers. Carefull trimming after print, of flash type material, and some creative assembly, and there is something useable. Usefull, coming along slowly, but A LONG LONG way from what the article is talking about.
this will do wonders in the pr0n industry
Runnin' On Empty
A lot of people are saying that this is somehow new or different than the 3-D printing technology we've already heard about.
It's not.
I saw this years and years ago in Wired in the Fetish section, back when Wired was somewhat fun to read. Yes, it scanned, assembled, and built the parts, and colored them too.
The difference is, now it's cheaper. Well, so is the computer on my desktop; I could have gotten the same computing power back then, but it would have cost exponentially more.
But apparently both of these are news on slashdot: "Old tech cheaper now"=="Moore's Law Still Sorta Works", and whatnot...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I saw that same TV special just a couple months ago...the skull was actually formed while the liquid was down in the chamber. There were two lasers that fired into the chamber. At points where the lasers met, the plastic would harden. *Then* the hardened object would be raised up from the liquid.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
This takes piracy to a whole new level.
"HE PIRATED MY LIGHTSWITCH PLATE."
Or if a company used these things to make spare parts, and charged for the instructions....what's to stop you from giving those instructions to someone who needs it? We'll have a whole new DeCSS-like fiasco, but with hardware. Scary.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Where as now it is easy to rip off a friends copy of say, Microsoft Office, people will now be able to pirate anything that they can lay their hands on the digital/physical print file for.
We could for instance, print out new Cue:Cats! Kinda puts a whole new meaning on the stealing of their IP.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Why is that computer so stupid that every time Jean Luc Picard want's a cup of tea, he has to say "tea, earl grey, hot"? "Tea, earl grey" should default to hot. And, when the computer recognizes Jean Luc's voice, "tea" should default to "tea, earl grey" which defaults to "hot".
Dosn't anyone at Starfleet know anything about inheritance?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Think of all the extra garbage we will have laying around after millions of people keep printing out crap that they don't really want, they just like to see it being made.
I watched an engineering model being built using the older technology where the model dipped into the polymer, got zapped, dipped, etc. etc. I've also seen some of the really weird stuff done with massive numbers of paper "cutouts" pasted together. Great if you want to see if a part will fit but not something you'd actually be able to use in the real world.
Auto manufacturers and others who use castings must love this stuff. Make a CAD model and have it printed out for say flow bench testing before actually spending big bux for a test casting. Heck, make the molds from the plastic!
The one big issue I noticed about this process though was that it was DIRT SLOW! It was also very size limited - at least the resin model I saw was. Want a 2inch toy? No problem, wait a few hours. You'd be old and gray before you could turn out a chess set I swear. Obviously the technology has progressed and I think the idea of using inkjet technology is pretty novel but at what rate can it build an object up? If it's a micron at a time you could be waiting a good long time to build somehing like a cylinder head out of something substantial. I note that they gave no speed benchmarks and that while they mentioned things like axles they didn't give dimensions. I suppose multiple heads would help with the speed issue if you had enough CPU power to run them all.
Hrm, I wonder if we'll have to heat treat things like axles and heads when they're built? Won't this end up being more resource wasteful in the end that massive dedicated manufacturing? As an Automotive nut I can see the advantages of being able to build complex structures in an axle or a cylinder head but.... I do think toys will be the best first outlet for this but they'll have to figure out a way to beat Joe Offshore laborer before it'll be terribly viable IMO.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Even in couple of years you won't be able to print a 4004 microporcessor which used a 10um manufacturing process.
Let the imagination run wild, but watch out, the universe has a thing about breaking the laws of physics.
In "The Diamond" age they had their MCs (Matter Compilers). :)
Just can't wait until we get to the rapid prototyping in 3d at the molecular level. Talk about some fun designing.
My father works in this field and one of the coming things they are trying for is this same technique with metal so they can design and try parts before the CNC machining takes place. Would definately speed up the prototyping stage
Just hate to have a "jet" getting plugged, like on your cheap bubble-jets, be responsible for the Concorde coming down.
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
The concept of 3D matter replication is one that has been on my mind for quite some time, and I see it as being a major stepping stone in the advancement (or at least change) of our society as we know it. It will certainly allow a HUGE increase in the amount of flexibility designers have in terms of that they can produce, and the amount of time that it will take to have a tangible working model of an idea in their hands. In particular, as an electronics buff, I am exicted about the possibilities this has for producing very small and efficient electronic components. The article in question seems to indicate that the capability already exists for a machine that can "print" electronics... resistors, capacitors... integrated circuits and printed circuits. It would certainly be an amazing experience for our children to design electronics, not by having to buy packages of broken components from RadioShock(TM) and burn themselves while inhaling solder fumes... Just pirate a copy of "CircuitCAD 2050" and lay out your logic circuits, print out a circuit sheet, and a little plastic project box and you're set. Not to mention the entire concept of open electronics design... hundreds of people building upon the ideas of other people will incredibly accellerate the development of electronic gadgets and computer technology to a point currently unimaginable. It would be much more interesting and satisfying to be able to work with electronics when you know you can actually instantly print out your design, and have it work almost instantly... not to mention the ability of the average techie to develop sophisticated microelectronics without expensive lab equipment. Just my recent thoughts...
"there's no way to magically insert 'space' between 2 parts unless you can somehow levitate one of the parts"
Howabout laying down a few unfused/unglued layers of the substrate between the sub-components in question. this should 'levitate' things quite well, as long as there is space for the powder to flow out after the your done it should be feasable as long as the parts don't sink down throught the packed powder to fast.
Mycroft
Or perhaps I should say "very few moving parts". Contrary to the implication of the article, even simple machines are mostly beyond the scope of this technology. It's main application is creating solid plastic, single piece objects. While there isn't, strictly speaking, a reason that this object could construct certain varieties of joints, etc. they would have to be reasonably loose (to avoid fusing them into one object) and unlubricated. More likely, componants of simple manchines could be fabricated for later assembly.
This technology has actually been around for some time, and, don't get me wrong, it's very cool, but this is a huge cry from arbitrary fabrication of objects.
So we aren't quite at Star Trek Replicator level yet.
--
Behold the Power of Cheese!
Is this how computers will reproduce and take over the world?
I reserve the right to be wrong.
I love these devices, though usually you can't use them for much of use being that the objects are 3D representations, not 3D tools. Things that should bounce and such won't of course... and things can break, but it is great for making new toys. We had one for making 3D models of building sites. We also took to making spheres with smaller spheres inside of them, and no seams on the outside!
Eh...
a really, REALLY trippy bong.
... that there's one step to holograms... :()
(I forgot what to say
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
This could revolutionise the physical world as much as it has in software.
j
After I read this, my first thought was "this is going to take photocopying your backside as a joke to a whole new level."
However, in all seriousness, even with some of the jokes her about 3D porn, there are going to be uses for this technology that we'll have to strain to imagine, and implications we're not forseeing. A few thoughts:
1) I use Bryce and Poser for 3D images, mainly for fun. I could now make dioramas, and it's not incocievable I could eventually make home made action figures and other elements as gifts.
2) What will this do to intellectual property and other property concepts? Couldn't I just scan in some copyrighted mechanical widget and then people could print it out? How many industries will be impacted by the ability to print out material at home?
3) We're making technology that produces technology. Could we create systems where you can actually "print" a new peripheral for your system and then install it? Ala the Infinite Improbability Drive, will I some day print out a new 3D Printer??
We used the 3D world to make computing, and now computing is making objects. The results will be interesting to watch.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I'm just wondering, with all the mp3 hoopla, what's going to happen when this fantastic new 3d printer comes out?
Just think, the day something gets invented, you could recreate it right there in your home. And, oh my, what if you could download files that contain the blueprints for making guns or drugs or nuclear weapons?
Just a thought. If this things ever gets online, it will revolutionize the way things are done. The implications of a printer than can create anything given the raw elements to do so are amazing.
-------------------------------------------------
I write software for these systems - (former employee, now consultant). It was fun to run a test overnight, come to work in the morning and have 14 little resin models of the starship enterprise waiting for you. The algorithms are fun - similar requirements to computer graphics, but interestingly different (I got about 5 patents for 3DSystems, back when I was young and naive and didn't understand that software patents are evil...). Good times, nice high end SGI boxes to play with (my Linux box has only just caught up with the system I was using 7 years ago - coppermine,GeForce, SuSE 7.0, and open source OpenInventor feels very similar to R10,000 with high-impact graphics card, but that was $50,000 worth not $2000) - fun job, but California is too damn sunny for my tastes, and Dilbert was too accurate to be funny back then.
You could use it for everything from building someone's skull from an MRI scan - so the brain surgeon would know whay to do, to building models of the internals of Cruise missile warheads (single material, no moving parts though - a bit like the T1000 (terminator 2) but much slower), to Hawaii Barbie...
There are several types of machine, accuracy tends to be about 5/1000 of an inch (injket based models do about 300dpi, but downfacing surfaces are shitty) takes about 10 hours for average part.
It would be cool to use similar process on a larger scale for building office blocks.
It was fun to find VRML models on the net, run a little conversion program and print them out. Another neat trick is to get yourself scanned and make a personal voodoo doll, but the software to fix the model is kinda tricky.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
...to self replicating machines...
Sure, she'll be inanimate, but you could make her to the demensions that you wish. That girl you always had a crush on in school...but were afraid to ask out, because she just doesn't understand your binary and hexidecimal love letters? Screw it...you can build her now. And then tell everyone you're dating the ever popular Susie Cream Cheese.
It's all good!
Discover ran this story about a similar technology that "prints" ice sculptures, the idea being to provide real, temporary prototypes of a CAD design. Probably much cheaper that other technologies, and probably much closer to real world use. Discover also provides thie link which provided more detail on the process.
-- "I will never let my schooling get in the way of my education." --Mark Twain
Biomodel.com has been doing this for a while now. For a price (and CAT-scan data) they'll make you a paperweight of your own skull!
Check it out!
**>>BELCH
From reading the article, I got the impression the the money in this technology would be in the voxel files. Now, since we are dealing with hard goods in electronic form, they will near-instantly be pirated. Just search your favorite file-sharing program for the blueprints to that new motherboard and processor you've been wanting, and viola! Before lunch, you have a start on a brand new computer! Print a few 128MB memory chips and a new graphics card (3 models to choose from!) and all you have to do is move your old drive into it. Instant gaming machine! Then, you just download your favorite pirated games to play on your brand new pirated machine! Save on your cable modem installation: reserve a night to download the modem, so you don't have to buy it from the cable company! Print a new DVD player, to play your DeCSS-cracked DVDs on. The possibilities are endless. First to make the technology available will get sued off their butts. Not because they're distributing pirated goods, but because they are an instrument in pirating. Never mind the ISP or the file exchange program. They'll want those evil printers banned from use. I feel pity for the first company to unleash them. Of course, this isn't to say I don't want one. I need one!
-- Chris
$email=~s/[^a-zA-Z0-9@.]//g;
These are real 3D printers. Milling machines! They cut/scan Glass, metal, wood, clay etc.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Could a 3D printer print out a 3D printer?
July 2003 - Washster.com set up, from which files for spare parts for many popular washing machines may be downloaded.
August 2003 - Washster gets a Cease and Desist letter from the Washing Machine Manufactures Association of America.
Dont get me wrong, with a library of carefully modeled and tested files for the various parts someone needs, it does approach what the article is talking about. Of course we are still talking about limited size, one plastic material only, blah blah blah....and of course It requires the library of part files. Field modifications to an existing part, or generation of unique parts would require some pretty specialized skills in modeling to do a decent job.
The polymer goop stuff is available; the article talks about systems where multiple types of goops and mixes and stuff is put together. This is news, because there isn't anything that does this right now.
It's the difference between... a black and white inkjet, and a 4 color inkjet. While technically the same process, a new procedure and setup is needed to deal with the additional colors and overhead.
In this case, instead of colors, you get metals, cermaics, different types of plastics, and colors
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I'm sure if I bought one I'd never get to use it. I'd be too busy going out and buying more plastic dust and goo for my wife to waste printing new decorating designs. "This one! No... that doesn't look right at all, how 'bout THIS one!? No... that doesn't look good either!"
Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out how to grind the growing pile back down into dust and feed it back into the printer...
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Wouldn't you be able to create models with moving parts if one of the materials you used disintigrated or evaporated after several hours? When that part of the model is gone, the remaining parts would be free to move on their own.
Technoli
So this would be usefull for porn sites right??
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
It would be fun to make an email trojan or virus that made people's 3D printers make models of interesting body parts.
-Splat
On a related toy-printing note, the Toybuilders.com link in the article is pretty interesting. I wonder if they'd print me off a full size broadsword in unbreakable epoxy?
(I was going to make the obligatory comment about "RealDolls for the instant-gratification set", but it's probably been said).
Freedom: "I won't!"
You can just think of an object and it will magically appear?? Calm down kids there are no 3D mind readers coming out anytime soon so don't delete that CAD software just yet.
No, but this can.
OK, how long before something like this turns to sex?
Junior's mom walks in, while he's frantically trying to stuff something under the bed. She reaches past him under the bed, pulls something out, and screams.
"Tea, Earl Grey, hot!"
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
You aren't disagreeing with me, right? You do say
"the people who were paying $2k five years ago are now spending $3k now - on computers + good stuff."
So that means there is still a market for people who would buy a 'cheap' rapid prototyper, wide format printers, digicams, camcorders, etc.
That's all I ever said, I think.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed