Tag Archives: future

3D printing

Future of 3D printing – part 3

July 19, 2011 –
In my previous posts on the future of 3D printing I talked about the impact on manufacturing and development of the industry. In this post I am going to talk about the next steps of 3D printing as a technology.

Digital materials
I want to talk about digital materials first. This technology is researched by Hod Lipson from Cornell University. The theory is to assemble parts by stacking extremely small grains of materials and cure them. It is inspired by how biology creates complex structures like DNA or proteins.

Each grain is put on a grid next to another grain based on a digital model. It allows for mixing materials by selecting the appropriate grains from a bucket. This allows for a large variety of materials to be used to build the part something currently technologies cannot do. But it becomes extra interesting when grains of different materials are mixed in a specific pattern. It allows for the creation of completely new materials with very unique properties which do not exist today.

Another reason why I am bullish on this technology is that it is very digital instead of the current 3D technologies which are more analog. Going from digital to digital gives much more control on the output, allows for more manipulation of the 3D models and is easier to automate reliably. Just look at television which went from completely analog to fully digital today. But the same applies for music players (MP3 players) or computer storage (SSD).
Please also read the excellent web page about digital materials at Cornell

Voxelization of 3D models
The other major step I see is the voxelization of 3D models. It is actually related to digital materials. Hod actually calls the grains voxel but I refrained from using that term in that part of post to avoid any confusion.

With voxelization of input I mean that the input is changed from polygons to voxels. 3D models today are mostly described in files using polygons. These polygons describe the contour or shape of the 3D model in a similar way vectors describe drawings. The benefits for describing 3D models are that the current computer technology can easily handle them. The required file size and memory in a computer is small in comparison to voxels. The problem is with resolution. Polygons are only an approximation of the contour of a shape. Very high details require huge amounts of polygons and are still only an approximation of the actual desired shape. It does not describe how a 3D model actually is build since it is only focus on contours or shapes. When multiple material printing becomes more prevalent it becomes cumbersome to keep on using polygon based files.

The solution is to use voxels. Voxels are 3D pixels and can be compared to pixels of a photograph – but then with 3 coordinates instead of 2. The 3D model is described as discrete blocks. Using that model it is possible to create much more complex 3D models than with polygons and it enables designers to actually specify how a 3D model is build physically.

Another benefit of voxel-based 3D models is that they are easier to reliably manipulate and process by computer software. You can compare it to processing of photos using Photoshop.
The problem with voxels is that they require 100x to 1000x times more data to describe a model. With current computer technology this is not very practical. Luckily Moore’s law comes to the rescue – which states computing power will double every 18 months.

To me both digital materials and voxelization of input will lead to major breakthroughs in 3D printing. Both technologies are still very much in research. Voxelized 3D models are using in some very very high end applications like MRI scanners. It is in my mind also closer to reality than digital materials.

 

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3D printing

Future of 3D printing – part 2

July 16, 2011 –

In my previous post about Future of 3D printing I wrote about the bigger effects of 3D printing on manufacturing. In this post I would like to go into the revolution of 3D printing itself as a technology.

3D printing is a reality since 1986. Most people who hear about 3D printing today are amazed that the technology is this old. Of course the technology has improved over the years and 3D printers of today are very much different than those of the past.

In the last two decades the 3D printing technology have diversified in different directions. Each technology has its specific use cases. Still the total market is tiny if you look at the potential. I define the total market as the combined manufacturing sectors.

Although nobody can look in the future my take is that 3D printing revolution is already starting. The analogy with the computing world is striking. In the seventies there were essentially two computing platforms; mainframes and hobby computers. It took until the beginning of the 80s when the personal computer came to the world which made the computer a household item.

3D printing is currently in the seventies where there again two platforms; high-end industrial 3D printers and relatively cheap hobby printers. If I extend the analogy it will take another decade before everybody has a 3D printer in its home.

3D printers are also disruptive in another sense and that is digitization of manufacturing. Of course a lot of manufacturing is has been digitized already – at least in the sense of CAM. But 3D printing goes direct from design to manufacturing. It is as simple as clicking 3D print in your favorite 3D software package. No special manufacturing or equipment expertise is necessary. I know I am over simplifying but it is not far from reality today.
The effect of this that the role of factories and the way manufacturing is going to change. This change has a very important effect because it actually allows much more freedom in where and how products are produced. 3D printers are more or less standardized equipment and when you have created your 3D representation of your product you can print it in your office or mass-produce it in your factory. It is essentially the same thing. You can even change manufacturing locations based on demand. It will create a huge archive of 3D models which can be produced today, but also tomorrow, or in a decade from now. Just imagine the potential when you can just as easily produce a Ferrari of today as a T-Ford from 1908 because the digitized design is available.

So the question is what will you print when you have a 3D printer at home?

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3D printing

Future of 3D printing

July 15, 2011 –

3D printing has all the signs of being a genuine disruptive technology. 30.000 feet high there are four major areas where I see 3D printing has impact:

  1. Personalized products and personal fabrication
  2. Reduction design-to-manufacturing cycle
  3. Bring back manufacturing to the Western world
  4. Manufacture parts which were not possible before

Personalized products and personal fabrication

3D printing makes it possible to do one-off unique parts production. Because of this it is possible to personalize products based on taste or function (think clothes). Embedded in this is also the option to make your own things. Just think hobbyist who want to create stuff for their hobby like model train models which are not sold by any of the major manufacturers.

Reduction design-to-manufacturing cycle

Mass produced products contain mass produced parts. These parts are produced in very high volume to make them cheap. To change the design of such products takes at least the cycle to retrofit existing production lines. The time to do this can take weeks to months.
Using 3D printing it is possible to make immediate changes and put them in production. The cycle is then reduced to left-over stock but could be brought down to days.

Bring back manufacturing back to the Western world

Manufacturing has mostly migrated away to low-income countries. Since 3D printing is a mostly automated production process there is no need for low income machine workers to make the production cost efficient.

Manufacture parts which were not possible before

3D printing allows for manufacturing parts which were not possible before. The most practical application I have seen up until now are ceramic filters and special molds for iron/steel casting processes. I think this area is currently very much under valued because a lot of engineers / designers are not ware of the capabilities yet.

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Internet

Internet wants to be free

June 20, 2010 –

StarBucks announced this week they will start offering free internet in their coffeeplaces later this year. McDonalds already offers free internet in their restaurants. Several hotel chains offer free in-room internet. Internet access is used as an incentive to bring in customers.

Internet access at home is very affordable nowadays. This is also part of the reason why those $10/hour WIFI networks simply do not work anymore. People are not prepared to pay for internet access. It is as cheap as electricity. Know a hotel where you have to pay for your electricity usage?

The major challenge is how the economics around internet access will work out. I see 3 relevant parties on the internet:

  1. content provider
  2. network provider
  3. site provider (physical location of internet access)

The telco’s should better be prepared to become the electricity companies of the 21st century. Their role will be relegated to building and maintaining the network. Content will move more and more outside the reach of the network providers. As long as net neutrality is kept intact there is nothing they can do about it.
The site provider owns the physical location of the internet access point. They pay for making the access point to the internet available.

Value is only created on either end of the internet connection — either by the content provider and the site provider. For most site providers the internet access is a service they provide to their customers. But like StarBucks there is much more opportunity to make money from internet access. StarBucks offers a physical location enabling to mix online and offline marketing. Via affiliate marketing StarBucks can get extra revenue from their internet access point.

Internet wants to be free. In the near future the internet will be available everywhere without or for very low costs. Google gladly wants to pay to get people on the internet. They have to because that is how they make their money. More people on the internet are more people which use their service and see the ads. Google is a content provider and they are not the only one. Amazon, Facebook and all the other major destinations are content providers too and without internet users they cannot make money

The next 5 years will be very interesting. Question is will it be a rocky road — like with the music / movie companies — or will the companies part of the internet ecosystem adapt?

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