Regular readers of TomorrowsTrends know I have been following – and will continue to follow the interesting developments in the area of 3D printing, also known as “rapid replication”.

You can think of 3D printing as a lot like regular printing – except that a 3D printer will actually produce a 3D object.

The WSJ had an interesing article on the topic

 

Toby Ringdahl, a computer-aided-design specialist at shoemaker Timberland Co., recently bought a color 3D printer from Z Corp. that allows footwear designers to see their constructions overnight rather than waiting a week for model-makers to carve them. The printer cost $50,000, but he says it was worth it. “People get pretty amazed when they see a full-color, prototype shoe on the table,” Mr. Ringdahl says.

Computer printing is going three-dimensional. In the past four years, designers of a variety of products, including shoes and cellphones, have been buying specialized office printers costing $20,000 to $50,000 that can quickly produce a plastic model using computer-aided-design, or CAD, software.

Though they resemble typical office copiers on the outside, these are not ink-on-paper printers. Rapid prototyping machines were pioneered by 3D Systems Corp., of Valencia, Calif., nearly 20 years ago. They work by taking computer-aided-design data and using it to build a device layer by layer. Inside a 3D printer, either a print head shoots out plastic particles and glue, or an ultraviolet or laser beam passes over a liquid resin bath, hardening a layer of plastic, 3/100ths of an inch thick, in a computer-generated shape. Then the machine builds layer upon layer until the full model is completed, one to four hours later.

WSJ.com – 3D Printers Reshape World of Copying.

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