5 ms·

3D Printing Survey Hints To The Third Industrial Revolution

38 points by RaduTyrsina 14y ago

vibrunazo 14y ago
On the materials graph, I was surprised to see "biomaterials", so I looked it up. I had no idea 3d printing was being used to build human organs. This is amazing :S "As of 2012 3D printing technology was being studied by biotechnology firms and academia for possible use in tissue engineering applications where organs and body parts are built using inkjet techniques. Layers of living cells are deposited onto a gel medium and slowly built up to form three dimensional structures. Several terms have been used to refer to this field of research: organ printing, bio-printing, and computer-aided tissue engineering, among others.[21] 3D printing can produce a personalized hip replacement in one pass, with the ball permanently inside the socket; at available printing resolutions the unit does not require polishing." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing
- iceron 14y ago
  Yep, here is a video from a NOVA special - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJPBuBEJ50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJPBuBEJ50
- RaduTyrsina 14y ago
  Wow, this is truly impressive!
shashashasha 14y ago
They're even thinking about 3d printing on large scales. Here's 3d printing concrete for buildings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro And on the consumer side, you're definitely seeing more and more products based around mass customization and 3d printing. See Nervous System (n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com) and all the excitement around the Makerbot. My girlfriend and I actually recently launched a sideproject around this, http://meshu.io http://meshu.io, letting people enter in locations to generate custom jewelry that can then be printed into silver or plastic, using Shapeways.com as our 3d printer.
- gcb 14y ago
  have you ever seen a building construction? it's pretty much 'manual 3d printing' they form some crude walls with cheap wood, and pour lots and lots of concrete, and the bigger challenge for bigger building is that you have to pour one level at a time in one shot. and if you pour too much it gets too hot while it dries and the concrete gets flaky.
- RaduTyrsina 14y ago
  Impressive, what is the feedback so far? I don't think the shapes are very jewelry-like :)
  - shashashasha 14y ago
    Feedback has been awesome! Lots of people are putting in special places (where I've traveled with my wife, where I've lived in America, special places for my boyfriend and I) and are either making them as mementos or gifts. Genuinely curious, what do you think jewelry-like shapes look like?
    - RaduTyrsina 14y ago
      :) Maybe that's just me and my european thinking that jewelry should have more "curves" and round shapes. I'd like to know more about your project, I'll contact you via your website!
      - shashashasha 14y ago
        I think there's an interesting trend around faceted jewelry / forms in a bunch of different fields right now, which is maybe a separate discussion: http://pinterest.com/search/boards/?q=faceted http://pinterest.com/search/boards/?q=faceted
- VMG 14y ago
  I was reading your description and had the vision of a randomly generated 3d fractal-like sculpture based on your current location. Then again, why base it on your location? Generate a hash from the combined names of you and your partner and create a 3d sculpture from that. I might be just rambling here but I certainly can see how 3d printing is creating new businesses.
dhughes 14y ago
When reading that I felt like I was back in the early 1990s when "desktop publishing" was the big thing and people bragged about having colour or high resolution printers. It's going to be interesting to see how this evolves, will we all have buckets of printing sand next to our computers for our 3D printers?
- simcop2387 14y ago
  Odds are it looks like it'll be either a spool of printing cable (PLA, ABS, Nylon, etc.) that you'll print with, or it'll be like you buy motor oil (UV Reactive polymers). These are FDM (reprap and the like) and SLA [1] techniques for 3D printing. So far the SLS (using a powder or sand) seems to be stuck in the very high commercial range though it can be the most useful, it requires far less fiddling with to get things to print out regardless of their shape like a reprap does, and can get very good material reuse like SLA does since unused material is just kept in the same state. It can also do one of the more fun things, combine SLS and an inkjet printer and you can color the object you're printing just like a normal printer [2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP25fKsN0Io http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP25fKsN0Io
mkl 14y ago
If anyone else is wondering what the second one was, "It is considered to have begun with Bessemer steel in the 1860s and culminated in mass production and the production line." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution
jrockway 14y ago
I think CNC milling was already the third industrial revolution. 3D printing has some interesting applications, but the generic use case of "I want to play with this widget I drew with my CAD program" has been solved for decades. http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/guerrilla_cnc1.shtml http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/guerrilla_cnc1.shtml
- brianobush 14y ago
  Agreed, but I think the idea of a CNC mill or 3d printer available the masses at a low cost of entry is the revolution. Though revolution is a bit strong.
- kaib 14y ago
  This is incorrect for a few reasons. 1. Limitations on geometry. CNC milling has a much smaller set of allowed geometry than 3D printing. More crucially, the limitations of 3D printing are closer to the limitations of what a stable physical object has (no things hanging in the air). As an example, sharp inner corner are impossible to do on a CNC mill, interior details inside cavities that are smaller than the toolhead are impossible etc. 2. Tooling cost. A lot of the cost of CNC milling comes from the tooling cost, basically the work and expertise required to set up a milling operation is considerable. Many times the setup causes the original design to change in subtle and unexpected ways (how do you hold the part between milling passes?). 3D printing has no such issues, if the geometry is valid it is as easy to print as any other valid geometry. 3. CAD software. Because of 1 and 2 it's much easier to make a CAD software that targets 3D printing exclusively. There is an emerging "hobby CAD" category aimed at all the new users having access to 3D printing. This is a meta observation that "I drew in my CAD program" is often the hardest problem to solve. Here is a simple example. This was designed in roughly 30 minutes and printed out in various materials by clicking a UI button. I would be hard pressed to CNC mill this part even if I could change features like the eye sockets and mouth internal: https://tinkercad.com/things/3XaRYyuG2hd https://tinkercad.com/things/3XaRYyuG2hd Background, I've done a fair amount of CNC milling and 3D printing. I'm the co-founder of Tinkercad mentioned above. I'm very familiar with Michal's work from when I worked at Google.
  - 14y ago
pazimzadeh 14y ago
I can't wait until 3D printers can print 3D printers.
- cheeze 14y ago
  They are working on it :) http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap
- hk_kh 14y ago
  You can print molds for some parts, though.
hosh 14y ago
This article does not go deep enough. If you want to know what society might be like with this techonology: - Read Neal Stephenson Diamond Age - Read Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga - Watch Star Trek: Next Generation (replicator technology) This isn't the "third" industrial revolution. This is a continuation of the Information Revolution. 3D printing isn't really about being able to print things from your home. It's about Software Eating Things.
- hosh 14y ago
  And one more: someone has already experimenting with printable circuitry. We are already seeing DMCA takedowns of blueprints for 3D printable things. SOPA/PIPA are merely previews of what's to come.
- hosh 14y ago
  This is out of date -- here are some of the things that have been going on in the past five years: http://www.quora.com/Maker-Revolution/The-Diamond-Age-Redux http://www.quora.com/Maker-Revolution/The-Diamond-Age-Redux
  - knewter 14y ago
    Ha, I was halfway into that before realizing this was you hosh :) Nice collection. The Diamond Age has long been one of my favorite books (of course, it was the first one I re-read when I got an e-reader)
keymone 14y ago
a #D printer printing a 3D printer will be 4th industrial revolution, i tell you.

38 points by RaduTyrsina 14y ago

On the materials graph, I was surprised to see "biomaterials", so I looked it up. I had no idea 3d printing was being used to build human organs. This is amazing :S "As of 2012 3D printing technology was being studied by biotechnology firms and academia for possible use in tissue engineering applications where organs and body parts are built using inkjet techniques. Layers of living cells are deposited onto a gel medium and slowly built up to form three dimensional structures. Several terms have been used to refer to this field of research: organ printing, bio-printing, and computer-aided tissue engineering, among others.[21] 3D printing can produce a personalized hip replacement in one pass, with the ball permanently inside the socket; at available printing resolutions the unit does not require polishing." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing

iceron 14y ago
Yep, here is a video from a NOVA special - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJPBuBEJ50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJPBuBEJ50
RaduTyrsina 14y ago
Wow, this is truly impressive!

shashashasha 14y ago

They're even thinking about 3d printing on large scales. Here's 3d printing concrete for buildings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro And on the consumer side, you're definitely seeing more and more products based around mass customization and 3d printing. See Nervous System (n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com) and all the excitement around the Makerbot. My girlfriend and I actually recently launched a sideproject around this, http://meshu.io http://meshu.io, letting people enter in locations to generate custom jewelry that can then be printed into silver or plastic, using Shapeways.com as our 3d printer.

gcb 14y ago
have you ever seen a building construction? it's pretty much 'manual 3d printing' they form some crude walls with cheap wood, and pour lots and lots of concrete, and the bigger challenge for bigger building is that you have to pour one level at a time in one shot. and if you pour too much it gets too hot while it dries and the concrete gets flaky.
RaduTyrsina 14y ago
Impressive, what is the feedback so far? I don't think the shapes are very jewelry-like :)
- shashashasha 14y ago
  Feedback has been awesome! Lots of people are putting in special places (where I've traveled with my wife, where I've lived in America, special places for my boyfriend and I) and are either making them as mementos or gifts. Genuinely curious, what do you think jewelry-like shapes look like?
  - RaduTyrsina 14y ago
    :) Maybe that's just me and my european thinking that jewelry should have more "curves" and round shapes. I'd like to know more about your project, I'll contact you via your website!
    - shashashasha 14y ago
      I think there's an interesting trend around faceted jewelry / forms in a bunch of different fields right now, which is maybe a separate discussion: http://pinterest.com/search/boards/?q=faceted http://pinterest.com/search/boards/?q=faceted
VMG 14y ago
I was reading your description and had the vision of a randomly generated 3d fractal-like sculpture based on your current location. Then again, why base it on your location? Generate a hash from the combined names of you and your partner and create a 3d sculpture from that. I might be just rambling here but I certainly can see how 3d printing is creating new businesses.

dhughes 14y ago

When reading that I felt like I was back in the early 1990s when "desktop publishing" was the big thing and people bragged about having colour or high resolution printers. It's going to be interesting to see how this evolves, will we all have buckets of printing sand next to our computers for our 3D printers?

simcop2387 14y ago
Odds are it looks like it'll be either a spool of printing cable (PLA, ABS, Nylon, etc.) that you'll print with, or it'll be like you buy motor oil (UV Reactive polymers). These are FDM (reprap and the like) and SLA [1] techniques for 3D printing. So far the SLS (using a powder or sand) seems to be stuck in the very high commercial range though it can be the most useful, it requires far less fiddling with to get things to print out regardless of their shape like a reprap does, and can get very good material reuse like SLA does since unused material is just kept in the same state. It can also do one of the more fun things, combine SLS and an inkjet printer and you can color the object you're printing just like a normal printer [2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP25fKsN0Io http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP25fKsN0Io

mkl 14y ago

If anyone else is wondering what the second one was, "It is considered to have begun with Bessemer steel in the 1860s and culminated in mass production and the production line." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution

jrockway 14y ago

I think CNC milling was already the third industrial revolution. 3D printing has some interesting applications, but the generic use case of "I want to play with this widget I drew with my CAD program" has been solved for decades. http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/guerrilla_cnc1.shtml http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/guerrilla_cnc1.shtml

brianobush 14y ago
Agreed, but I think the idea of a CNC mill or 3d printer available the masses at a low cost of entry is the revolution. Though revolution is a bit strong.
kaib 14y ago
This is incorrect for a few reasons. 1. Limitations on geometry. CNC milling has a much smaller set of allowed geometry than 3D printing. More crucially, the limitations of 3D printing are closer to the limitations of what a stable physical object has (no things hanging in the air). As an example, sharp inner corner are impossible to do on a CNC mill, interior details inside cavities that are smaller than the toolhead are impossible etc. 2. Tooling cost. A lot of the cost of CNC milling comes from the tooling cost, basically the work and expertise required to set up a milling operation is considerable. Many times the setup causes the original design to change in subtle and unexpected ways (how do you hold the part between milling passes?). 3D printing has no such issues, if the geometry is valid it is as easy to print as any other valid geometry. 3. CAD software. Because of 1 and 2 it's much easier to make a CAD software that targets 3D printing exclusively. There is an emerging "hobby CAD" category aimed at all the new users having access to 3D printing. This is a meta observation that "I drew in my CAD program" is often the hardest problem to solve. Here is a simple example. This was designed in roughly 30 minutes and printed out in various materials by clicking a UI button. I would be hard pressed to CNC mill this part even if I could change features like the eye sockets and mouth internal: https://tinkercad.com/things/3XaRYyuG2hd https://tinkercad.com/things/3XaRYyuG2hd Background, I've done a fair amount of CNC milling and 3D printing. I'm the co-founder of Tinkercad mentioned above. I'm very familiar with Michal's work from when I worked at Google.
- 14y ago

pazimzadeh 14y ago

I can't wait until 3D printers can print 3D printers.

cheeze 14y ago
They are working on it :) http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap
hk_kh 14y ago
You can print molds for some parts, though.

hosh 14y ago

This article does not go deep enough. If you want to know what society might be like with this techonology: - Read Neal Stephenson Diamond Age - Read Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga - Watch Star Trek: Next Generation (replicator technology) This isn't the "third" industrial revolution. This is a continuation of the Information Revolution. 3D printing isn't really about being able to print things from your home. It's about Software Eating Things.

hosh 14y ago
And one more: someone has already experimenting with printable circuitry. We are already seeing DMCA takedowns of blueprints for 3D printable things. SOPA/PIPA are merely previews of what's to come.
hosh 14y ago
This is out of date -- here are some of the things that have been going on in the past five years: http://www.quora.com/Maker-Revolution/The-Diamond-Age-Redux http://www.quora.com/Maker-Revolution/The-Diamond-Age-Redux
- knewter 14y ago
  Ha, I was halfway into that before realizing this was you hosh :) Nice collection. The Diamond Age has long been one of my favorite books (of course, it was the first one I re-read when I got an e-reader)

keymone 14y ago

a #D printer printing a 3D printer will be 4th industrial revolution, i tell you.