5 ms·

The 3D Economy: Forget guns, what happens when everyone prints their own shoes?

43 points by x43b 13y ago

darksim905 13y ago
People will have uncomfortable feet, duh.
_delirium 13y ago
I guess it's used only as an example, but we are really far away from being able to 3d print shoes. Or toothbrushes for that matter. Shower-curtain rings and toothbrush handles, yes. I suspect the author of this article has not spent a lot of time looking at the technical side of 3d printing: it's not some kind of magic replicator that can produce arbitrarily complex compound items out of arbitrary materials.
- hershel 13y ago
  3d printed women's shoes are here today: http://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/02/cubify-launches-free-to-download-shoes-you-can-print-overnight/ http://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/02/cubify-launches-free-to-dow... The printer costs around $3K.
  - api_or_ipa 13y ago
    There are only so many ways to wear a solid plastic shoe. I can't really see the common woman (or man) replace a significant part of her wardrobe with this printer.
    - frozenport 13y ago
      Sounded crazy until I realized most of the world wears sandals. The proposition makes less sense for northern climates.
    - NoPiece 13y ago
      Crocs built a billion dollar company on plastic shoes. I think they are actually a foam resin, so you are right about rigid plastic shoes, but a slightly softer more flexible 3d printable material would be practical and useful.
      - georgemcbay 13y ago
        Yeah, even non-exotic 3D printers like the RepRap I have (cost: $650) will print things like nylon and ninjaflex (which is quite flexible after printing). As others have mentioned, this is still the early days and things are moving very quickly.
    - User8712 13y ago
      I think these would have been a huge hit in the 90s. http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2014/03/3D-printed-shoes-by-Recreus-scrunch-up-to-fit-into-pockets_dezeen_ss_6.jpg http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2014/03/3D-printed-shoes-by...
    - Shorel 13y ago
      And yet lots of people use crocs everyday.
    - serf 13y ago
      texture and feeling are not only material properties, but design properties. a soft plastic isn't required for a wearable shoe, it just makes the design require less effort.
- lowglow 13y ago
  Not really: http://www.techendo.co/posts/3d-printed-running-shoes http://www.techendo.co/posts/3d-printed-running-shoes
mahyarm 13y ago
A 3D printer/scanner would of came in handy when I snapped a plastic part in my side mirror on my car. Had to basically get a full replacement mirror because they didn't sell the bottom plate individually. Can't wait until auto repair shops start using them.
- tootie 13y ago
  Jay Leno has you covered: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/technology/4320759 http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/technology/432...
- bsilvereagle 13y ago
  Imagine the cost on that. There will be labor involved to CAD your specific piece, then materials costs, and then machine time. And if the original CAD model failed in some regard you run the risk of being charged twice for the CAD labor.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    >CAD your specific piece // For the first person to make it that hasn't simply used the output of somebody else's 3D scanning process on a complete device (eg construction from multiple photographs or "scan" from a smart-phone or holding it in front of a kinect-life device and turning it around).
  - Sanddancer 13y ago
    This is assuming the mechanic is using their CAD workstation to design the part. However, what will most likely happen is that the mechanic will subscribe to a 3d printing service, much like they do already for keeping their automotive diagnostic readers up to date. That service will have the 3d models already made, so that one part of an assembly can be printed on an as-needed basis.
    - bsilvereagle 13y ago
      > That service will have the 3d models already made Someone somewhere is CAD'ing these pieces up. The cost of doing that will be passed on to the consumer. If the manufacturers provide the models the cost of the 3D printed piece will be more expensive than replacing the whole part. If a manufacturer invests the time into making sure their component library can be 3D printed they will make sure 3D printers exist in dealerships. Huge overhead costs are involved here.
hosh 13y ago
Oh. Did someone in the media finally figure out this implication?
krick 13y ago
Sounds like luddism come again. Remind me, who won the last time?
zimbatm 13y ago
> Once the retail and manufacturing carnage starts to scale, the government carnage will soon follow. How can it not, when only old people pay sales tax, fewer citizens obtain their incomes from traditional easy-to-tax jobs, and large corporate taxpayers start folding like daily newspapers? Without big business, big government can't function. A dramatic cascade to doom that conveniently assumes free and untaxed raw material. No, it's better to keep the existing power structures in place. The whole article sounds like a call for regulation based on a fear of change. Like it's the first time the market has faced technological evolution and doesn't know how to adapt.
- aric 13y ago
  > The whole article sounds like a call for regulation based on a fear of change. It's the opposite. The article is hypothesizing that regulatory capture will lead to major policy fights against decentralized manufacturing. In fact, that's already the case due to widespread patents that prevent a lot of 3D printing competition -- beyond some recently expired patents, which subsequently allowed a tidal wave of new upstarts to come about (on Kickstarter and so forth). In case it's not clear, the article is not in support of an increase in corporate protection that they're (logically) presuming. One would assume the publication is full support of 3D printing having mass adoption and becoming freer.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  > The whole article sounds like a call for regulation based on a fear of change. Like it's the first time the market has faced technological evolution and doesn't know how to adapt. No it doesn't. It sounds like anticipating and fearing a call for regulation based on a fear of change. Kind of the opposite.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    Yeah, it's Reason magazine, a long-running libertarian media outlet. I seriously doubt they're seeking more regulation.
jhprks 13y ago
How about glasses (frames)? smartphone cases? there are tons of small accessories that can be printed which can save hundreds or even thousands down the road with a 3d printer.
- salgernon 13y ago
  The problem is that plastic molding is already cheap if you're creating a standardized size. The real issue for 3d printing custom objects is that the design is not free. Yes, once a design is done, great. But if you're going to be making a million of them, then more traditional processes are going to be cheaper.
  - serf 13y ago
    yeah but.. 1) people aren't manufacturing, they are producing for themselves and close friends, so volume isn't a cost factor as much as it would be in a production scenario. 2) printing allows for us to get away from standardized pieces for the sake of homogeneity and production cost. These sorts of manufacturing techniques finally allow for the prioritization of artistry rather than the adherence to standards for the sake of cost, as it's putting that decision into the hands of the consumer rather than the business interest. 3) 'design as a cost' is dropping drastically with the advent of tools that allow us to digitize objects into virtual models near instantaneously. it reminds me of ordering a car from the factory in the sixties. Back in those days you could order a car with as few options as you wanted. If you were a racer you could order the economy car with the big engine, no radio or ac or carpet/headliner/backseats and have practically a drag car from the factory. Production cost savings of course nixxed that idea of one-off production cars. Maybe these kind of technologies can allow for those sort of unique configurations without ruining bottom lines too terribly?
justin66 13y ago
Short answer: everyone will be wearing really shitty shoes?
greenyoda 13y ago
How much of our economy is actually based on the kinds of small, plastic objects that can be printed? It doesn't seem to be significant compared to other sectors of the economy, like housing, vehicles, electronics or food. Yes, anyone will be able to print their own iPhone cover, but we won't be able to print an iPhone in the foreseeable future. And even if you can print your own plastic salad bowl or plastic shoes or plastic furniture, people are still going to prefer ceramic bowls and leather shoes and wooden furniture, since they offer a more pleasant user experience. If plastic stuff does become more popular and growing numbers of goods are going to be printed out of plastic, it will cause the price of plastic to go up, since plastic is made from petroleum, a non-renewable natural resource. I also suspect that long-term exposure to vaporized plastic and tiny airborne plastic particles in your home is not going to be great for peoples' health.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  > How much of our economy is actually based on the kinds of small, plastic objects that can be printed? Let me stop you right there. 3D printing is in its infancy. Much where plastics were in the 60's and 70's, where the car was at the turn of the century, and where the printing press was in Gutenberg's time. I implore you, DO NOT make the mistake of underestimating this technology. I do not say this as a fanboy. I say this as someone who has watched production parts be built for aircraft out of titanium, printed from powder. Parts that are in aircraft engines flying right. now. But it isn't just metals (laser sintering). Plastics. Food. Human cells! (3D printed kidney and bladder, respectively: http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidn... ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqw1yjyKEs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqw1yjyKEs). TL;DR You are going to be amazingly shocked at the advances this technology makes in 5-10 years. EDIT: This was a CNC mill conversion I performed ~2 years ago at a 3-day class in Michigan. Total cost to me was ~$3K for the mill, the parts, and the class. I didn't have the space for it, so I sold it to someone who consults to auto manufacturers. Its now on a production line as part of a process to build keyfobs for a major auto manufacturer.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHg2yrWqd8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHg2yrWqd8 I understand its not technically 3D printing, but the manufacturing technology now accessible to your average person is incredible.
nroose 13y ago
To me, this is one of those hypothetical possible eventualities that I don't pay much attention to. It's very likely that for the foreseeable future, printing shoes will be more expensive and result in lower quality shoes than the manufacturing process. Sure, some people will want to imagine their own shoe styles, but most won't want expensive low quality shoes.
Hominem 13y ago
I tried on a pair of 3d printed shoes the other day. We have a long long way to go.
mentos 13y ago
If you had a 3D printer that could print objects up to the size of a car in an instant, what would you make? I'm thinking the best application for me might be furniture. It would be really cool to flip my apartment every year by melting down my old stuff and printing new. Maybe a bike but it'd have to be one of those chainless designs.[0] But past that, I'm at a loss for what I'd make even with a magical instant printer. There are very few things that I use or want that could be made entirely of plastic. I've wanted to get a 3D printer but I feel like it'll end up going unused like my Raspberry Pi. Once in a while it'd come in handy but its not going to change my world. [0]-http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/chainless-bicycle-nulla-minimalist-bike.jpeg http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/chainless-bicycle-nu...
- Crito 13y ago
  I would look into replacing at many things as possible in my kitchen with printed items. Broken spatula? Print a new one. Friends coming over for drinks? Print some wine glasses[sic?] and plates. Half of a leftover chicken? Print a tubberware case the perfect size for it. I'd print perfectly sized cabinet inserts for all of my utensils. Outside of the kitchen, I could make bookshelves and cabinets that are only as big as I need them to be. There are lots of custom organizational things that I could make. Currently I buy all of these sorts of things from stores, so they are never quite optimal. If I had a shop I'd be making this stuff myself out of wood, but I live in an apartment. Of course I don't have room for a car-sized printer either...
  - salgernon 13y ago
    My espresso machine has a feature where it will suck up milk through a tube to make foam. I figured to print a conical vessel to hold the milk and ensure that the tube would always be submerged to the bottom. Took not too long to design using openscad and print a few (the first was too small, the second failed to print halfway through. When the material doesn't adhere it ends up glob bing onto the end of the print head and makes a huge mess.) Ok, so finally, I have my vessel and I pour in some milk. And then I watch as the milk mysteriously disappears. Turns out that the print is not quite watertight and the milk oozed between the inner wall and outer wall of the cup, where there is a honeycomb-like space. (Most objects are not quite solid, in order to save material.) After washing it out, I figured I'd use it for pencils or something. But you know, you can never quite get the rancid milk out of a porous plastic object. At this point, I won't be quitting my day job to be a 3d designer, but I will say that I've had $2000 worth of fun and learning, so that was worth it. The printers at this point are pretty much able to print things that quality of something you would get for free in your breakfast cereal.
hibikir 13y ago
There are many kinds of 3d printing that would be amazing, but that we are nowhere near close enough to doing. First we have to see the same technology working well in factory environments. For instance, imagine a machine that manufactured clothes in place, tailored to your size, by just scanning you and taking a base design. Say goodbye to all the complex inventory problems that you find in clothing retail today, all while increasing sales, because in other stores, what they have might nor might not fit you well. That kind of printing by retailers seems like a more likely incremental step towards major economic change than having it all work off of home printing. We don't make anywhere near enough purchases out there of 100% plastic items, or where plastic could be a viable replacement.
- JetSpiegel 13y ago
  Printing clothes on demand will never work. Those already exist today. You can have a tailor make you a suit, and it's a special thing only for you. Most people don't want that, they want to wear what their friends and idols wear, so it's not feasible to shift production to 3D printers, so that they print the same thing over and over again. Our current system requires no further investment.
  - easong 13y ago
    Getting a tailor to custom-make your entire wardrobe is wayyy outside of the financial capabilities of almost everyone except the very very wealthy today. In the 40s one might as well have said that handheld calculators will never work - we can always have the women ("calculators") down the hall crunch the numbers for us! Having a machine that, given the correct fabric, can print an arbitrary design would enable clothing stores to completely eliminate most of their factories, warehouses, delivery costs, standing inventory (much of which is thrown out or sold for a pittance), employees, and a significant percentage of the size of their stores. They will be able to react to fast-changing fashion trends instantly with exellent efficiency. They will be able to keep and reuse old designs more or less indefinitely. Sure, machines will be printing a lot of the same thing over and over again at any given time - but the thing they're printing over and over again will be what's popular and selling right there and right now, which is very difficult to predict months in advance and for every location. That, combined with the huge reduction in overhead, will allow the first mass-market retail store to figure out on-demand printing a huge advantage over its competitors. Not to mention that it will fit the customer as close to perfectly as measurement and design allow, so the product itself will probably be of significantly higher utility than what you can get in the average mall store today.
lamby 13y ago
The cobbler's children have no shoes..
joering2 13y ago
Invention of the internet: Forget 411 phoneline, what happens to libraries when everyone can access books from their home computer?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

43 points by x43b 13y ago

People will have uncomfortable feet, duh.

I guess it's used only as an example, but we are really far away from being able to 3d print shoes. Or toothbrushes for that matter. Shower-curtain rings and toothbrush handles, yes. I suspect the author of this article has not spent a lot of time looking at the technical side of 3d printing: it's not some kind of magic replicator that can produce arbitrarily complex compound items out of arbitrary materials.

hershel 13y ago
3d printed women's shoes are here today: http://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/02/cubify-launches-free-to-download-shoes-you-can-print-overnight/ http://www.dezeen.com/2013/08/02/cubify-launches-free-to-dow... The printer costs around $3K.
- api_or_ipa 13y ago
  There are only so many ways to wear a solid plastic shoe. I can't really see the common woman (or man) replace a significant part of her wardrobe with this printer.
  - frozenport 13y ago
    Sounded crazy until I realized most of the world wears sandals. The proposition makes less sense for northern climates.
  - NoPiece 13y ago
    Crocs built a billion dollar company on plastic shoes. I think they are actually a foam resin, so you are right about rigid plastic shoes, but a slightly softer more flexible 3d printable material would be practical and useful.
    - georgemcbay 13y ago
      Yeah, even non-exotic 3D printers like the RepRap I have (cost: $650) will print things like nylon and ninjaflex (which is quite flexible after printing). As others have mentioned, this is still the early days and things are moving very quickly.
  - User8712 13y ago
    I think these would have been a huge hit in the 90s. http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2014/03/3D-printed-shoes-by-Recreus-scrunch-up-to-fit-into-pockets_dezeen_ss_6.jpg http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2014/03/3D-printed-shoes-by...
  - Shorel 13y ago
    And yet lots of people use crocs everyday.
  - serf 13y ago
    texture and feeling are not only material properties, but design properties. a soft plastic isn't required for a wearable shoe, it just makes the design require less effort.
lowglow 13y ago
Not really: http://www.techendo.co/posts/3d-printed-running-shoes http://www.techendo.co/posts/3d-printed-running-shoes

mahyarm 13y ago

A 3D printer/scanner would of came in handy when I snapped a plastic part in my side mirror on my car. Had to basically get a full replacement mirror because they didn't sell the bottom plate individually. Can't wait until auto repair shops start using them.

tootie 13y ago
Jay Leno has you covered: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/technology/4320759 http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/technology/432...
bsilvereagle 13y ago
Imagine the cost on that. There will be labor involved to CAD your specific piece, then materials costs, and then machine time. And if the original CAD model failed in some regard you run the risk of being charged twice for the CAD labor.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >CAD your specific piece // For the first person to make it that hasn't simply used the output of somebody else's 3D scanning process on a complete device (eg construction from multiple photographs or "scan" from a smart-phone or holding it in front of a kinect-life device and turning it around).
- Sanddancer 13y ago
  This is assuming the mechanic is using their CAD workstation to design the part. However, what will most likely happen is that the mechanic will subscribe to a 3d printing service, much like they do already for keeping their automotive diagnostic readers up to date. That service will have the 3d models already made, so that one part of an assembly can be printed on an as-needed basis.
  - bsilvereagle 13y ago
    > That service will have the 3d models already made Someone somewhere is CAD'ing these pieces up. The cost of doing that will be passed on to the consumer. If the manufacturers provide the models the cost of the 3D printed piece will be more expensive than replacing the whole part. If a manufacturer invests the time into making sure their component library can be 3D printed they will make sure 3D printers exist in dealerships. Huge overhead costs are involved here.

hosh 13y ago

Oh. Did someone in the media finally figure out this implication?

krick 13y ago

Sounds like luddism come again. Remind me, who won the last time?

zimbatm 13y ago

> Once the retail and manufacturing carnage starts to scale, the government carnage will soon follow. How can it not, when only old people pay sales tax, fewer citizens obtain their incomes from traditional easy-to-tax jobs, and large corporate taxpayers start folding like daily newspapers? Without big business, big government can't function. A dramatic cascade to doom that conveniently assumes free and untaxed raw material. No, it's better to keep the existing power structures in place. The whole article sounds like a call for regulation based on a fear of change. Like it's the first time the market has faced technological evolution and doesn't know how to adapt.

aric 13y ago
> The whole article sounds like a call for regulation based on a fear of change. It's the opposite. The article is hypothesizing that regulatory capture will lead to major policy fights against decentralized manufacturing. In fact, that's already the case due to widespread patents that prevent a lot of 3D printing competition -- beyond some recently expired patents, which subsequently allowed a tidal wave of new upstarts to come about (on Kickstarter and so forth). In case it's not clear, the article is not in support of an increase in corporate protection that they're (logically) presuming. One would assume the publication is full support of 3D printing having mass adoption and becoming freer.
fennecfoxen 13y ago
> The whole article sounds like a call for regulation based on a fear of change. Like it's the first time the market has faced technological evolution and doesn't know how to adapt. No it doesn't. It sounds like anticipating and fearing a call for regulation based on a fear of change. Kind of the opposite.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  Yeah, it's Reason magazine, a long-running libertarian media outlet. I seriously doubt they're seeking more regulation.

jhprks 13y ago

How about glasses (frames)? smartphone cases? there are tons of small accessories that can be printed which can save hundreds or even thousands down the road with a 3d printer.

salgernon 13y ago
The problem is that plastic molding is already cheap if you're creating a standardized size. The real issue for 3d printing custom objects is that the design is not free. Yes, once a design is done, great. But if you're going to be making a million of them, then more traditional processes are going to be cheaper.
- serf 13y ago
  yeah but.. 1) people aren't manufacturing, they are producing for themselves and close friends, so volume isn't a cost factor as much as it would be in a production scenario. 2) printing allows for us to get away from standardized pieces for the sake of homogeneity and production cost. These sorts of manufacturing techniques finally allow for the prioritization of artistry rather than the adherence to standards for the sake of cost, as it's putting that decision into the hands of the consumer rather than the business interest. 3) 'design as a cost' is dropping drastically with the advent of tools that allow us to digitize objects into virtual models near instantaneously. it reminds me of ordering a car from the factory in the sixties. Back in those days you could order a car with as few options as you wanted. If you were a racer you could order the economy car with the big engine, no radio or ac or carpet/headliner/backseats and have practically a drag car from the factory. Production cost savings of course nixxed that idea of one-off production cars. Maybe these kind of technologies can allow for those sort of unique configurations without ruining bottom lines too terribly?

justin66 13y ago

Short answer: everyone will be wearing really shitty shoes?

greenyoda 13y ago

How much of our economy is actually based on the kinds of small, plastic objects that can be printed? It doesn't seem to be significant compared to other sectors of the economy, like housing, vehicles, electronics or food. Yes, anyone will be able to print their own iPhone cover, but we won't be able to print an iPhone in the foreseeable future. And even if you can print your own plastic salad bowl or plastic shoes or plastic furniture, people are still going to prefer ceramic bowls and leather shoes and wooden furniture, since they offer a more pleasant user experience. If plastic stuff does become more popular and growing numbers of goods are going to be printed out of plastic, it will cause the price of plastic to go up, since plastic is made from petroleum, a non-renewable natural resource. I also suspect that long-term exposure to vaporized plastic and tiny airborne plastic particles in your home is not going to be great for peoples' health.

toomuchtodo 13y ago
> How much of our economy is actually based on the kinds of small, plastic objects that can be printed? Let me stop you right there. 3D printing is in its infancy. Much where plastics were in the 60's and 70's, where the car was at the turn of the century, and where the printing press was in Gutenberg's time. I implore you, DO NOT make the mistake of underestimating this technology. I do not say this as a fanboy. I say this as someone who has watched production parts be built for aircraft out of titanium, printed from powder. Parts that are in aircraft engines flying right. now. But it isn't just metals (laser sintering). Plastics. Food. Human cells! (3D printed kidney and bladder, respectively: http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidn... ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqw1yjyKEs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nqw1yjyKEs). TL;DR You are going to be amazingly shocked at the advances this technology makes in 5-10 years. EDIT: This was a CNC mill conversion I performed ~2 years ago at a 3-day class in Michigan. Total cost to me was ~$3K for the mill, the parts, and the class. I didn't have the space for it, so I sold it to someone who consults to auto manufacturers. Its now on a production line as part of a process to build keyfobs for a major auto manufacturer.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHg2yrWqd8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHg2yrWqd8 I understand its not technically 3D printing, but the manufacturing technology now accessible to your average person is incredible.

nroose 13y ago

To me, this is one of those hypothetical possible eventualities that I don't pay much attention to. It's very likely that for the foreseeable future, printing shoes will be more expensive and result in lower quality shoes than the manufacturing process. Sure, some people will want to imagine their own shoe styles, but most won't want expensive low quality shoes.

Hominem 13y ago

I tried on a pair of 3d printed shoes the other day. We have a long long way to go.

mentos 13y ago

If you had a 3D printer that could print objects up to the size of a car in an instant, what would you make? I'm thinking the best application for me might be furniture. It would be really cool to flip my apartment every year by melting down my old stuff and printing new. Maybe a bike but it'd have to be one of those chainless designs.[0] But past that, I'm at a loss for what I'd make even with a magical instant printer. There are very few things that I use or want that could be made entirely of plastic. I've wanted to get a 3D printer but I feel like it'll end up going unused like my Raspberry Pi. Once in a while it'd come in handy but its not going to change my world. [0]-http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/chainless-bicycle-nulla-minimalist-bike.jpeg http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/chainless-bicycle-nu...

Crito 13y ago
I would look into replacing at many things as possible in my kitchen with printed items. Broken spatula? Print a new one. Friends coming over for drinks? Print some wine glasses[sic?] and plates. Half of a leftover chicken? Print a tubberware case the perfect size for it. I'd print perfectly sized cabinet inserts for all of my utensils. Outside of the kitchen, I could make bookshelves and cabinets that are only as big as I need them to be. There are lots of custom organizational things that I could make. Currently I buy all of these sorts of things from stores, so they are never quite optimal. If I had a shop I'd be making this stuff myself out of wood, but I live in an apartment. Of course I don't have room for a car-sized printer either...
- salgernon 13y ago
  My espresso machine has a feature where it will suck up milk through a tube to make foam. I figured to print a conical vessel to hold the milk and ensure that the tube would always be submerged to the bottom. Took not too long to design using openscad and print a few (the first was too small, the second failed to print halfway through. When the material doesn't adhere it ends up glob bing onto the end of the print head and makes a huge mess.) Ok, so finally, I have my vessel and I pour in some milk. And then I watch as the milk mysteriously disappears. Turns out that the print is not quite watertight and the milk oozed between the inner wall and outer wall of the cup, where there is a honeycomb-like space. (Most objects are not quite solid, in order to save material.) After washing it out, I figured I'd use it for pencils or something. But you know, you can never quite get the rancid milk out of a porous plastic object. At this point, I won't be quitting my day job to be a 3d designer, but I will say that I've had $2000 worth of fun and learning, so that was worth it. The printers at this point are pretty much able to print things that quality of something you would get for free in your breakfast cereal.

hibikir 13y ago

There are many kinds of 3d printing that would be amazing, but that we are nowhere near close enough to doing. First we have to see the same technology working well in factory environments. For instance, imagine a machine that manufactured clothes in place, tailored to your size, by just scanning you and taking a base design. Say goodbye to all the complex inventory problems that you find in clothing retail today, all while increasing sales, because in other stores, what they have might nor might not fit you well. That kind of printing by retailers seems like a more likely incremental step towards major economic change than having it all work off of home printing. We don't make anywhere near enough purchases out there of 100% plastic items, or where plastic could be a viable replacement.

JetSpiegel 13y ago
Printing clothes on demand will never work. Those already exist today. You can have a tailor make you a suit, and it's a special thing only for you. Most people don't want that, they want to wear what their friends and idols wear, so it's not feasible to shift production to 3D printers, so that they print the same thing over and over again. Our current system requires no further investment.
- easong 13y ago
  Getting a tailor to custom-make your entire wardrobe is wayyy outside of the financial capabilities of almost everyone except the very very wealthy today. In the 40s one might as well have said that handheld calculators will never work - we can always have the women ("calculators") down the hall crunch the numbers for us! Having a machine that, given the correct fabric, can print an arbitrary design would enable clothing stores to completely eliminate most of their factories, warehouses, delivery costs, standing inventory (much of which is thrown out or sold for a pittance), employees, and a significant percentage of the size of their stores. They will be able to react to fast-changing fashion trends instantly with exellent efficiency. They will be able to keep and reuse old designs more or less indefinitely. Sure, machines will be printing a lot of the same thing over and over again at any given time - but the thing they're printing over and over again will be what's popular and selling right there and right now, which is very difficult to predict months in advance and for every location. That, combined with the huge reduction in overhead, will allow the first mass-market retail store to figure out on-demand printing a huge advantage over its competitors. Not to mention that it will fit the customer as close to perfectly as measurement and design allow, so the product itself will probably be of significantly higher utility than what you can get in the average mall store today.

lamby 13y ago

The cobbler's children have no shoes..

joering2 13y ago

Invention of the internet: Forget 411 phoneline, what happens to libraries when everyone can access books from their home computer?

deleted 13y ago
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