There is the technological achievement that not too many years ago most concrete came in trucks and was wheelbarrowed by hand and leg into forms. Then came the

There is the technological achievement that not too many years ago most concrete came in trucks and was wheelbarrowed by hand and leg into forms. Then came the era of boom trucks where a crane like machine squirts out of a hose into prepared form. The logical extension is getting rid of the prepared forms. That's what this technology demonstrator shows. I agree the "any shape" aspect is key in that they're probably going to do more engineering and repair work than anything else. So dig up a sidewalk for a repair they'll print in place a new sidewalk faster than someone can build a sidewalk form, minimal as that is, after all a sidewalk is pretty small compared to an entire house LOL. Or your cellphone tower taken out by tornado they'll print a foundation for a backup tower as fast as rebar can get tossed in, sit a couple hours, toss a tower on the foundation, and you're back on the air. Or exotic repairs to civil engineering accidents, maybe that dam in CA needs a herd of 3-d printers to make a new spillway faster than they could even construct the forms. This also might come in handy with tunnel boring machines, rather than making pre-made panels fit, you could print panels to fit the as dug hole, which is interesting to think about. The CivEng side of the conversation with the concrete factory probably sounds like: There's some damage, we're not even sure how bad it is yet, no obviously we haven't built a form we haven't even hauled out the big rubble yet the crane just got started, OK send out your 3d printer to patch, we should be done demolishing and hauling out the broken chunks by the time your truck arrives. Even better if they can print nicely enough to make it residential grade appearance, perhaps they can patch things to look nice, not merely be physically strong enough.