3D Printing

We all are aware of the term printing. What we really know about is 2d printing. Pouring ink on a specific area on a sheet of paper, that would generate a pattern which stands for a letter in any language,or number or it can resemble an image.

In a traditional 2D printer, the printhead pours ink over the paper, cloth or other material only once. 2D printing essentially transfers information.

However when it come to 3D printing, the print head would pour the material step by step creating a 3 dimensional physical object. The movement of the print head is controlled by a computer so the the material is poured with great levels of precision. 

3D printing has existed since 1984. However in the last 3 or 4 years, the 3D printers have become affordable and more widely used. Many different kinds of things are made from 3D printing in all shapes and sizes.

Prosthetics are made from 3d printing that are customised to the fit the user. In case of physical deformity customisation is very important since every person may have a different need. With 3D printing better prosthetics are made at a fraction of a cost. 

NASA is planning to 3D print food in space. Scientists have 3D printed tissues and are planning to 3D print organs in the future. Patients have been implanted 3D printed skull, 3D printed bones. Portions of houses are made by 3D printing. In fact engineers are working on technologies to 3D print houses out of concrete.

The 3D printed houses will be cheaper and they would offer greater amounts of design flexibility as compared to traditional methods of home construction. Technologists working on the technology claim that a 2000 sq ft two storied house can be constructed in 20 hours. Since the walls of the house need not be rectilinear, the house can more artistic, aesthetically appealing, stable and resistant to earthquakes and other natural calamities. Rectilinear walls that we have in traditional methods of construction are not very earthquake resistant.  

On YouTube you can easily find examples of 3D printed bicycles, 3D printed cars, 3D printed artefact's, 3D printed shoes, 3D printed skirts etc.

The great advantage with 3D printing is that machine does not make any discrimination between simple and complex objects. 3D printing is really an exciting field of technology that gives individuals power to create anything they like,all they have to do is to design it in the computer and let the machine do the rest. 

Its like a dream coming to reality, you imagine a design in the mind, put it in computer graphics and then ask the printer to create the object for you. A home 3D printer normally uses ABS plastic. If an individual does not design well, he can simply chose to copy other designs. 

3D scanners are available that can scan a product and create its replica, if you want you can make modifications in the original design as well. With 3D printing people don't have to depend on designs made by others.

For industrial 3D printers, the cost savings they provide can be huge. According to this article, Prodrive saved huge amount of money it otherwise had to spend for modification of its tools. Modifying their tools would have cost them £10,000, however they were able to 3D print their tools for £10. That's a cost saving of 99.9%. 

In this post I have shared a video as well which describes how 3D printing can potentially change our world. There are lots and lots of 3D printing videos available online, you can find hundreads of them on youtube. 

The machines of Future and 3D printing

Amazing things are possible in the world of science and technology. Albert Einstein rightly said "Facts can be stranger than fiction". Consider the first computer or the Babbage's analytical engine and compare it to the fastest computer today, or even your desktop/laptop or mobile phone for that matter. Your mobile phone is way more powerful than than the first computer or even computers that were used around 20 years ago.

3D printing is only now catching up, people are mesmerised by the power of 3d printing. The 3D printing machines are getting cheaper, better and faster. Engineers are working on technologies to 3D print houses, already some residential structures are made by 3D printing and that too in a very short amount of time.

Looking forward, with 3D printing technology, in the future we may have 3D printer that can print out other 3D printing machines. Only the raw materials have to be provided to the 3D printers for that purpose.

Now consider the example of a tree. A tree normally germinates out of the seed. It absorbs the nutrients from the soil along with water and with the help of sunlight it carries out the process of photosynthesis and produces its own food. Almost every part of a plant or tree is edible to some animal or other.

Micro-organisms and termites eat the wood; ants, cattle etc eat the leaves and other animals as well as humans can consume the fruits. The fruits themselves contain the seeds that can again give birth to a new plant. This is a beautiful self controlled food generation system of nature.

Now as humans can we intervene and make a 3D printer that can mimic this process. Just as the plants, trees etc absorb nutrients and water from the soil, in a similar way we can provide soil and water as the raw materials to the machine and the machine then converts the soil and water into more basic substances and then produce the stuff that we want be it food, wood or any other organic material. In theory this is possible.

3D printing has achieved the above mentioned dream to some extent. NASA is planning to make 3D printers for astronauts to give them 3d printed food in space. There are already 3D printed artificial animal tissues being made. So it is technologically possible to have 3D printed meat, hence a 3D printed artificial hamburger is a possibility that one cannot deny.

The problems that technology created in the past like air, water and noise pollution have their solutions in technology as well. The air pollution caused by cars and coal fired power plants can be sorted out by utilization of wind, tidal and solar power.

The technology of 3D printing is most promising. In the future our houses, cars and almost everything maybe 3d printed. 3D printed items are also cheaper, there have been prosthetic limbs made for amputees that are customised for their needs and they are cheaper than the traditionally manufactured prosthetics.

 An example is given in the video below.

You can see how this 3D printed prosthetic arm not only costs less but also it is better in terms of functionality since it is customised for the amputee, depending on the structure and functionality of the portion of the body that is incomplete. 

Note that the above video is an example of the current state of technology, this technology will advance in the future and amazing things will be possible.

3D printing

Although 3D printing has been around for quite a long time it is now becoming a buzzword the social networking sites and Internet are abuzz of stuff being 3D printed. Here is an example of what 3D printing can lead to.

The video above shows a 3D printed prefabricated house ,we can print mementos,sculptures ,plates ,dishes using a 3D printer.

There are 3D printers that are being developed that are printing metal objects so we will have some or many of our kitchen utensils made out of 3d printers.

The real exiting stuff about 3d printing is that scientists are now planning to make human tissue cells out of 3d printers and NASA  is now embarking on a project to 3D print food for astronauts in space and make the technology cost effective enough to 3D print food for people where there is scarcity of food. If successful this will change the way we live imagine having a 3D printer where as raw materials you put in the basic ingredients put the choice of your dish and  the flavour ,calorie content and nutritional value  and the 3D printer will print the dish as per order .

The advantages of 3D printing will be many fold first of all people would be able to print out whatever they want at their homes rather that  go shopping for that product. In time 3D printers will get cheaper and will be affordable to more and more people.

One can visit Youtube and see videos of various kinds of 3D printing done there are people who want to 3d print homes also  shoes are being 3d printed.

3D printing is process in which a computer model of a desired object is printed layer by layer in many cases the raw materials is plastic or fine steel powder.

This is one technology about which we will hear and see more and more as time rolls on and it is very much possible that it may have a considerable impact in the way we live and do things.
Do check the video below.

3D printing metallic objects