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Firstly lets explain what is meant by 3D printing, well in a nut shell it is a way of fabricating objects designed on computer, for for instance if you created a mug utilizing computer aided design, within a few hours you could have the real thing sitting in front of you. It is possible to watch your very creations come to life in true Star Trek fashion, before your very eyes.
To go into more detail, currently printers are fairly slow, limited and not tremendously precise. A home 3D printer will typically set up back about ten thousand pounds, but this is cheap considering the first commercially accessible printers cost at least ten times that amount. 3D printers presently are capable of fabricating objects using silicon and certain types of metal, other substances that have been tested are plaster, play-doh and even chocolate!
Desktop 3d printing Now Available
A home 3D printer is about the size of a Microwave and connects directly to a desktop computer running software that controls its work. It then creates objects layer-by-layer by squeezing material from a mechanically-controlled squirt. Unluckily printers are somewhat limited in the sense they still generate a fairly rough end product and the time scale it takes to print an object is considerable.
Inspite of all the technical involvements, there are great possibilities for the future of 3D printing. All ground breaking technology starts somewhere, for example in the case of the PC, mainframes had existed for years, but personal computing only took off in the late seventies. A inexpensive self-assembly computer called the Altair 8800, launched in 1975, sparked the rapid development of personal computing. In similar circumstances self assembly 3D printers hope to spark the same fast development in rapid prototyping.
There are a number of different 3D printers available on the market today, all with slightly different advantages, disadvantages, characteristics and features. Some interesting projects include an open source 3D printer which has successfully been used to fabricate better parts to replace existing parts on the printer itself. The final goal of 3d printers is to perfectly replicate themselves, allowing much more cost efficient manufacturing.
The future for 3d printing solutions seems very promising, it is the fastest growing part of the rapid-prototyping industry with revenues this year expected to be approximately a billion US dollars. Many industries are showing huge amounts of interest and are seem great potential in different applications where they could utilize three dimensional printing. The US army have experimented using rapid prototyping to create parts for broken tanks, guns and other hardware in combat situations. Businesses believe a rapid prototyping machine could prove invaluable in showing factories how to assemble parts remotely, for instance in China. Even NASA has requested a high resolution machine to manufacture crucial parts in space.
In conclusion what is stopping you being part of a truly revolutionary technology, which could become one of the major breakthroughs of the twenty first century? 3D printing has merely been science fiction until recently, where it is now most certainly science fact. What can we expect to see in the not so far away future? Well one definitive goal is printable organic parts, for example replacement organs, identical skin grafts and even limbs, to combat victims of illness, disease and war.
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Tags: 3D, 3D Design, 3D Printing, Design, printing
Posted in Technology · January 23rd, 2010 · Comments (0)
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