3D printing

Very cool.. I actually referenced this technology in a thread about creating jobs.

It's stuff like this that will make "cheap labor" overseas irrelevent. This and AI developments like IBMs "Watson", and nanotech, and bio-tech, ect will lead the US back out in front of a new type of manufacturing that doesn't need to be overseas..

HOWEVER -- the little video glossed over some details of the design process. It's NOT as easy as scanning a wrench and duplicating it.. There was at least an hour of frantic editing, dimensioning and design annotations before the machine started printing..
 
An old pal (so old he went into retirement) sent me that via e-mail last week.

It is VERY cool.

I should'a shared it here my own self. Glad O.R. did it.
 
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Very cool.. I actually referenced this technology in a thread about creating jobs.

It's stuff like this that will make "cheap labor" overseas irrelevent. This and AI developments like IBMs "Watson", and nanotech, and bio-tech, ect will lead the US back out in front of a new type of manufacturing that doesn't need to be overseas..

HOWEVER -- the little video glossed over some details of the design process. It's NOT as easy as scanning a wrench and duplicating it.. There was at least an hour of frantic editing, dimensioning and design annotations before the machine started printing..

I can easily believe that. Still, it is an amazing process, with huge potential.

Here is a site that you might be interested in;

Anders Transhuman Page
 
Uncle Ferd wantin' a 3-D hammock to take naps in...
:cool:
Rethinking Objects, Form Key to 3D Printing Revolution
March 11, 2013 — 3D printing has already changed the game for manufacturing specialized products such as medical devices but the real revolution will come when designers start to rethink the shapes of objects.
3D printing removes the limitations of the manufacturing process from the equation, which means whatever can be designed on a computer can be turned into an object, specialists say. To really start using the technology to its full potential, designers and engineers need to imagine new products. "You are almost unlimited as to the type of geometric complexity," said Terry Wohlers, an independent analyst who advises companies on the 3D printing sector. Belgium-based company Materialise, a pioneer in the process, has a display of a foldable chair printed from one continuous piece of plastic - and made with the hinges already joined together, for example. "You can do shapes and forms that otherwise would be very expensive to do with traditional manufacturing, or would require many parts that then are later assembled," Wohlers said.

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A 3D table lamp called the Lotus.MGX, designed by Janne Kyttanen, is seen at the Belgian company Materialise, the biggest 3D printer in Europe, in Leuven, January 24, 2013.

The 3D process has been used to build prototypes for 25 years, but only now is making its way into regular production. Companies such as General Electric Co plan to use 3D printing to build lightweight aircraft parts, while dentists use it to create crowns in the space of an hour rather than two weeks. 3D printers have made working guns and are being tested to see if they can make houses on the moon using lunar soil. Scientists hope they may one day print human organs after researchers successfully printed tissue using human stem cells. U.S. President Barack Obama even highlighted the technology in this year's State of the Union address as an example of innovation that can create jobs.

But Materialise CEO Wilfried Vancraen, recently voted the most influential person in the 3D printing sector by readers of TCT Magazine, a publication devoted to the industry, says the process is too slow and too expensive to replace most mass-market manufacturing - at least as we now know it. "3D printing is not suited to making most of the products that we use today. You cannot print a Stradivarius just as you can't print an iPad," he said. "What we have seen is that just replacing a product by a 3D-printed product, for instance in the spare part application, is in many cases even not feasible, and in no cases really economical."

Robot Designers
 

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