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MIT Simplifies Design Process For 3D Printing
An anonymous reader writes: New software out of MIT and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel takes CAD files and automatically builds visual models that users can alter with simple, visual sliders. It works by computing myriad design variations before a user asks for them. When the CAD file is loaded, the software runs through a host of size variations on various properties of the object, evaluating whether the changes would work in a 3D printer, and doing the necessary math to plan tool routes. When a user moves one of the sliders, it switches the design along these pre-computer values. "The system automatically weeds out all the parameter values that lead to unprintable or unstable designs, so the sliders are restricted to valid designs. Moving one of the sliders — changing the height of the shoe's heel, say, or the width of the mug's base — sweeps through visual depictions of the associated geometries."
There are two big drawbacks: first, it requires a lot of up-front processing power to compute the variations on an object. Second, resolution for changes is fixed if you want quick results — changing the design for a pair of 3D-printed shoes from size 8 to size 9 might be instantaneous, but asking for a shoe that's a quarter of a millimeter longer than a size 8 would take several minutes to process. But for scrolling through the pre-computed design changes, the software can present "in real time what would take hours to calculate with a CAD program," and without the requisite experience with CAD.
There are two big drawbacks: first, it requires a lot of up-front processing power to compute the variations on an object. Second, resolution for changes is fixed if you want quick results — changing the design for a pair of 3D-printed shoes from size 8 to size 9 might be instantaneous, but asking for a shoe that's a quarter of a millimeter longer than a size 8 would take several minutes to process. But for scrolling through the pre-computed design changes, the software can present "in real time what would take hours to calculate with a CAD program," and without the requisite experience with CAD.
Outside of geek's feverish imaginations and performance-art university projects, are there any 3D printed shoes out there at all? That can even remotely considered shoes that you can wear outside?
What mickey mouse CAD program would take hours to resize a shoe? Assuming you've used variables and formulas in the right places, rebuilding should only take a few seconds.
Enough with the 3D printing crap. It is junk. No one needs more cheap plastic junk.
Is this a headline because it includes Israel or because it sucks up to MIT?
I really can't tell, because the technology is many years old and seems like actual engineering firms/design companies already have stuff to do exactly this. If they don't, they haven't been paying attention or hiring people with a clue.
Or you could just design it the way you want it in the first place
I taught myself the basics of 3d printing without prior experience. At first I beat my head against the big name CAD tools from companies like Autodesk and Adobe, as well as opensource ones like freeCAD. I didn't need to do fancy high-detail modeling (which is hit-or-miss anyway due to printer fidelity and general hiccups in hardware). Eventually I found a free tool online at Tinkercad.com. Shortly after I started using it, it was bought out by Autodesk however they've still kept it free. It doesn't have the super advanced power of other tools, but without that power I found myself not getting lost nearly as much.
So what they are trying to tell me is that this software, in computing the various options it is going to offer the user, somehow knows the settings to use for standard sizes of shoes but doesn't compute variations other than the standard sizes? And by implication it would know the standard sizes of other 3D objects too (such as caps), since it isn't being presented as shoe software. Isn't this a little far fetched for 3D design software that supposedly will be used much more often on models that don't have specific sizes than for things like shoes (which don't seem very realistic to print with current 3D printer technology anyway)?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
They made a list and have templates? In other words, they made a catalog? If you want to deviate from the catalog, good luck!
Honestly this doesn't sound very complex at all. It doesn't sound any more complex than having a file browser with a built in 3d renderer and having a single file for each template
This is what 3D printing needed. I've been saying for years that 3D printing will not take off big until the average person can take a generic blue print and modify it to there needs. Take the example of a screw. To be able to adjust the thread size, diameter, length with sliders from a single blue print is great. If the user had to download a file for each type of screw out there then 3D is dead. But to be able to adjust on the fly one blueprint to fit any need makes for a great outcome.
This may not be the final steps in ease of use. If it is than we're in trouble, but it's a great start.
The parent's optimism isn't naive, but open-minded.
In contrast, your mind seems to be welded firmly shut.
I bet that in the 80's and 90's (if you were even alive then), you were telling people not to be ridiculous about this "Internet" fad thing. After all, who the hell is going to want to interact with a computer all the time anyway? It'll never take off.
Automatic part arrangement has been done for 2D CNC laser and plasma cutting tables for decades.
I have been fighting CAD tools since 1995, from high end advanced surfacing software all the way through heavily parametric solids modeling software. Creating basic forms in CAD has some background in the traditional processes that predate computers. What I have also learned over the years is that these software tools that help to define physical geometry are sometimes limited by the math and some other constraints that they use to define the initial digital objects. I am not clear about how this new approach is in any way different. It seems to have the same limitations. There just seems to be a lot of buzz about old things described as fantastically new. CAD work is not easy for most people I've meet, even good CAD jockeys become stymied when faced with new problems. For some reason, it doesn't seem like things are going to get any easier anytime soon.
"their", dimwit. And what purpose does "adjusting" a screw have, unless you have a similar hole to begin with? What an absurd example. Assuming you could even print a screw at home.