The current level of 3D print development

Absrtact: "3D print" author Hudilipsen and Merbakuman the whole Wheat Blueberry muffin fragrance from the kitchen food printer. When you transfer the printer to Advanced medical mode, the muffins are Low-sugar, while the other series of digital breakfasts make your camp

"3D Printing" author Hudi Lipson and Merba Kuman

"The freshly baked whole-grain blueberry muffin scent floats out of the kitchen's food printer." When you transfer the printer to Advanced medical mode, the muffin is Low-sugar, while the other series of digital breakfasts make your nutrition more balanced. ”

This is not a short story science fiction, but a possibility of our lives in decades. In the book 3D printing, written by Hudi Lipson and Merba Kuman, they boldly imagined the life of ordinary people in a day when the 3D printing technology was ripe. The two authors interviewed the scientists, and also examined the 3D printing laboratory. They want to explore how this new model of production will change our lives, our laws and our economy.

However, not all people are optimistic about the prospect of 3D printing. Not so long ago, the manufacturing giant, Terry Gou, said: "If 3D printing is really the third industrial revolution, then my ' Guo ' word is written upside down." "At present, the challenge to this technology comes mainly from the limitations of its use, including the limitations of the field and the limitations of materials and technology."

But two authors have not been affected, and they have come to Beijing to bring small objects printed with a 3D printer. Open their "treasure chest", which has a bicycle chain, medical nose bones, copies of ancient fossils and beautiful rings.

Dialog

3D Printing for unique products

Reporter: Can you talk about the current level of 3D print development?

Woody: In the past, 3D printing has grown rapidly and has grown by 20% a year in the industrial manufacturing sector. But for the entire manufacturing sector, this is still a very insignificant proportion. There are some reasons to think that this technology will become important in the future, such as 3D technology can help people create very complex things.

Merba: If you want to produce a small production, some even need only one, is unique, it is very suitable for 3D printing technology. such as dental orthotics, hearing aids, artificial nasal bone, these are very personalized products, everyone is different. But some things are not necessarily unique, such as I do not care about my mobile phone and yours is the same. If it is such a product, in fact, more suitable for the traditional manufacturing industry.

Reporter: What do you think of the recent criticism of the 3D print by Gou?

Merba: As I said just now, 3D is suitable for the customization of small-volume products. We have now used 3D to print very complex carving and special angle bending effects. But the tens of thousands of quantitative products like Foxconn, which are simple in shape, are not suitable for 3D printing, so their costs will increase dramatically. At present, the real suitable for 3D printing or medical equipment, jewelry, household items and so on.

Woody: Actually I think everyone in life is likely to use 3D print, but many of them do not even know that they have used 3D printing, such as a car part of the 3D printing results, but you do not know, you do not care, of course, now more 3D printing use in DIY.

More likely in the future, only a handful of people who often need DIY will have 3D printers on their own, but maybe your car broke down and the repairman used a 3D printer to make a new part, but you don't need to have one.

Journalist: How long will it take for 3D technology to be popularized? What will the future look like?

Woody: It's hard to say, you don't know what the computer will look like in 1970, what Facebook is. 3D is a platform-style change, the two years is the popularity of printers, the next may be the software revolution and so on.

I'm interested in robots and I've always wanted to be able to do all the things with robots, and I thought it would take 10 years before 10, and now I'm afraid it will be 10 years.

Merba: When we wrote this book 1.5 ago, publishers want our book to be about how to use this technology, but in the preparation of this book, everything is changing, the establishment of new companies, the introduction of materials, even NASA said to use 3D printing technology on the moon to print a space base, and in the books, Our prediction of the use of 3D technology to print handguns has become a reality, and it's really hard to predict what the technology will look like in the future.

In this book is a picture of 3D printing technology produced a bikini, 400 dollars, I will not pay the money to buy a bikini, I think it should not be comfortable to wear, but there must be someone willing to do so. What I'm trying to say is that humans are very creative and you can't imagine what this technology is going to be.