Writing a recent post about 3D Food Printing, made it apparent that I had not written here, as I thought I had, about 3D Printing in general.
As with most emerging technologies, you can probably get the quickest and broadest sense of the technology with a few Google searches.
Just to whet your appetitie for that search session, then, this post is a quick intro to the field.
To start, Wikipedia's first paragraph is:
- 3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive manufacturing technologies. 3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts and assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process. Advanced 3D printing technologies yield models that can serve as product prototypes.
There are many approaches to implementing this technology, each with strengths for different applications.
I first heard of 3D printing as a hobbyist activity that used a form of "ink-jet" technology. Like an ink-jet printer, containers hold different liquids that are deposited according to rules developers assemble into 3D printer codes. The liquids are generally melted forms of plastics, metals, or other material. In several passes, like an inkjet nozzle passing over paper, the 3D printer lays down different parts of the desired object. It can take several passes to completely "print" an object. The objects can be quite complex, including moving parts and gears, levers, and hubs.
Blew my mind. See it in action to "print" a working flute.
Lately a lot of progress has been made forming objects out of powdered materials. And it has move far beyond the hobbyist level in just a few short years. See an example that creates a working gear with ball bearings.
It's real and it's accelerating in capabilities and availability. Like we said in the 3D Food printer post, where this can lead, particularly the open-source versions, is very promising for currently low-tech small economy environments.
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