Slashdot Mirror
New Technology Could Lead To 3D Printers
nomoreself writes "PhysicsWeb reports that a team of scientists in Jerusalem has come up with a method for creating self-assembling 3-dimensional models from a single sheet of paper. The 'chemical origami' is created by etching a pattern of monomer onto the paper and then heating it. The chemical's reaction to the heat causes bends of varying degree in the paper, molding the sheet into the patterned model. A professor in the US with no apparent ties to the study says in the article that the technique could be used to create self-assembling prototypes, or even a printer that prints 3D objects."
This'll really help me finish the rest of these 10,000 paper cranes!
Call me when they have a 2D printer (for easy storage) or a 4D printer for all your hypercube needs.
thought this might be good for porn - then started thinking about paper cuts.
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Geez Slashdot, get with the times. I saw my first 3d printer (that prints solid objects, not paper) prototype 5 years ago. My housemate's architect boyfriend brought home a bunch of 3D models he printed out at work in their model shop.
My printer is already 3 dimensional.
In fact, here's the complete text of the article, since it's so short:
Um, wtf, mate?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
But can It print with UV light, then be erased at will?
pubesecks
it not on google yet....
l2beaplayer. Cry more, noob.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
They could be somewhat more fun if the photocopier were to print out 3D pictures of the secretary's arse, in full colour.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
"Drugs are bad, mmmm'kay?"
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
If you've ever seen any of the figurines that they've been churning out for Spore, those are done with an in-house 3D printer. They sometimes send figures to people of the creatures they designed in the Creature Editor at their trade show appearances.
3D object printed becomes 3D printer for infinite recursiveness! If these printers came with automatic paper feed, then the world will be finished in weeks, hundreds of self replicating 3D printers converting the Earth into an infinite series of... 3D printers!
It's like Skynet and grey goo all rolled into one
I spend most of my time in bed, darling.
Is for these printers to be able to print printers that can print printers themselves. Once we have recursive printers, I'll be happy.
put little busts on your desktop? in full color?
take a look at the ability of
http://zcorp.com/products/printersdetail.asp?ID=2
or this
http://flickr.com/photos/garyfixler/31107069/
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
N-isopropylacrylamide is the main compound here. Anyone who has run an acrylamide gel knows that this stuff (and its derivatives) can be very dangerous (note the NFPA label)!
But does it run lunix.???///1/1/
That's rough. But if you knew doormats don't get laid, why'd you help her?
Also, I hate to be presumtuous, but is she good-looking and vacuous? Don't chase women like that, they're bitchy. Go after the smart and the nice ones, and don't judge based on looks (unless you can't get your arms around her - that's a self-control problem). I'm not saying you personally are hypocritical, but I find most ugly men want women to ignore looks, so that they can bang hot chicks. Doesn't make much sense.
Well, have I sufficiently pissed you off with my unsolicited advice? Wonderful! Now go get some hydrocodone, it'll make you happy. But don't get addicted. And stop worrying about women, most of them suck anyway.
3d printing is going to really breath life into tabletop gaming!
Think about the hassle of maintaing a Warhammer 40,000 army, versus just printing out the pieces you need when you need them, then recycling them into the "toner cartridge" when you're done.
Oh wait we already have those.
Despite the bad description of why this is important it actually is pretty interesting. This sort of approach is much more efficient for creating 2d sheets with varied 3d geometry than traditional 3d printing which would have to build them up layer by layer and might not even have sufficient structural stability to make the object if it's too bendy.
What would really make this technique useful is if there was some way to combine it with more traditional 3d printing technologies. For instance if you could start with a nice curved surface like this and add layers that would be really cool. However, there are such serious problems with doing this that I think it is unlikely.
Frankly, while interesting I suspect this is just a sidelight in the development of 3d printing technology. What I want to know is why it is taking so long. When will we all have our own 3d printers? When can we shut down those vast numbers of assembly lines that make nothing but strangely shaped 3d objects?
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
This article loses a lot of it's emphasis with out a sample for us to look at.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
3d printers could lead to completely unmanageable documents.
http://www.davinci-development.dk/prototyper/sls-f lash.htm
that's what I was thinking -- you can already get (and have been able for 20+ yrs.) "3d" printers that let you do quick prototyping. I've seen models that are even fairly small that can sit on your desk, and use plastic resins (that is, much more useful than paper).
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Not only that, but you're severely limited in the geometry that you can produce if all you can do is fold paper
There might be a use for self-folding paper *pseudo* 3D printer like this, but I can't think of one of the top of my head
Also, it's not exactly "paper" they're printing on:
"We used N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPA) gels to construct sheets with inducible non-Euclidean gtar. The gels are produced by mixing NIPA monomers with bisacrylamide (BIS) (6% by weight of NIPA) cross-linker in water. The addition of catalysts initiates polymerization of a cross-linked elastic hydrogel [Supporting Online Material (SOM) text]. This gel undergoes a sharp, reversible, volume reduction transition at Tc = 33C (19), above which its equilibrium volume decreases considerably. Calibration experiments (fig. S1) using various homogeneous (each of a different fixed NIPA concentration) gel discs provide the relation between the monomer concentration and {eta}, the shrinkage ratio of the "activated" gel. These measurements show that dilute gels shrink a lot, whereas gels with high monomer concentrations undergo moderate shrinking."
Dude, get out into the world. You've got like 1500 comments posted, and you are now drunk posting. Seems you are addicted to Slashdot or something.
Instead of drinking alone, posting about how the world hates you - at least wander down to the pub to get tanked. There's probably more women there...
Actually, it's 4D, you fogot time :-P
Well it's still not Bubblegum crisis's instantly expanding plastic penises that can knock out tanks.
Wasn't that "Dominion Tank Police", or did Bubblegum Crisis also use erectacocky?
(Yes, there appears to be two entries on IMDb. Also, the edited-for-television version excludes the phallus and drops the name "erectacocky".)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?