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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.
Heh, really. at least flip flops for the beach. Probably the biggest holdup is the 'ink'.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Enough with the 3D printing crap. It is junk. No one needs more cheap plastic junk.
With flexible and rubbery filament you can probably do something relatively decent right now with a standard extrusion-based 3D printer.
If you step up to something like the HP Multi Jet Fusion or Objet 3D printers, they can use a lot of different materials/composites in the same print, which could lead to products never before possible. Maybe in a few years or decades, what you call "shoes" will be viewed as prehistoric manufacturing.
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
Who 3D prints a shoe? Honestly!
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.
Who 3D prints a shoe? Honestly!
Right now? Only experimenters and hipsters. In the future? Everybody. 3d printing is only getting better, and most shoes in the world are probably made out of an assortment of plastics already — certainly most shoes in the states are. Your stockinged foot gets laser-scanned and an ideally fitted pair of shoes is printed in your chosen style, colors, and choice of features. What's not to like, eventually?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Automatic part arrangement has been done for 2D CNC laser and plasma cutting tables for decades.
Why would custom-printed shoes not fit you? The whole point is manufacturing customized items!
Yes, on the first try. It's called 3D scanning. If you can't be bothered to search on your own, I can't help you. The technology does exist, today.
I have huge feet, square toes, and a high arch. I seriously can not find any off-the-shelf shoe that doesn't fail my feet in at least one significant way. I mostly wear Tevas. I had some DMX cross-trainers that I liked a lot once, but that style was here and gone and once you get up to about size 15 or so (I wear 16s) actually finding stock is much like winning the lottery, except then you get to pay over a hundred bucks for a pair of shoes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"