Computed·Blg

Via Fast Company

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Even though most buildings are designed using the latest digital tools, actual construction is stuck in the past; building is messy, slow, and inefficient. 3-D printing might change that, but recent projects like these printed houses in China demonstrate one of the technical challenges--the equipment itself has to be gigantic, because it can’t work unless it’s bigger than the building itself.

A team of researchers from Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia are working on another solution: A swarm of tiny robots that could cover the construction site of the future, quickly and cheaply building greener buildings of any size.

The robots work in teams to squirt out material that hardens into the shell of the building. Foundation robots move in a track, building up the first 20 layers of the structure, and then a series of "grip" robots clamp on the top or sides adding more layers, ceilings, and frames for windows or doors. Vacuum robots attach on at the end to add a layer to reinforce everything.

Other 3-D-printed architecture requires frames, which have to fit entirely around a building, or robotic arms that can only reach as high as themselves. “If you want to make an object as big as a stadium or a skyscraper you’ll need to design a machine bigger than that object in at least one axis,” explain researchers Petr Novikov and Sasa Jokic. “Making such machines isn’t economically reasonable, sustainable, and, in some cases, simply impossible due to their size.”

The Minibuilders could in theory build anything. “The robots can work simultaneously while performing different tasks, and having a fixed size they can create objects of virtually any scale, as far as material properties permit,” say Novikov and Jokic. “They are extremely easy to transport to the site. All these features make them incredibly efficient and reduce environmental footprint of construction.”

Because the technology wouldn't require custom molds or even support structures, there would be zero construction waste. It could also save materials by printing a little extra only in places where the building needs more support.

Eventually, the designers see the robots being used to take care of pretty much every conceivable construction task. "They are an ecology of small construction robots, and this ecology can be extended far beyond 3-D printing," the researchers say. "In the future, we envision robots that do also painting, piping, and variety of other tasks."

Novikov and Jokic, along with fellow researchers Shihui Jin, Stuart Maggs, Cristina Nan, Dori Sadan, are sharing their design plans to encourage others to build on it.

Via Gizmodo

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When you walk into the Shapeways headquarters in a sprawling New York City warehouse building, it doesn't feel like a factory. It's something different, somehow unforgettable, inevitably new. As it should be. This is one of the world's first full service 3D-printing factories, and it's not like any factory I've ever seen.

Founded in the Netherlands in 2007 as a spinoff of Philips electronics, Shapeways is a truly unique and delightfully simple service. If you want an object 3D-printed, all you have to do is upload the design's CAD file to Shapeways' website, pay a fee that mostly just covers the cost of materials, and then wait. In a few days, Shapeways will send the 3D-printed object to you, nicely bubble-wrapped and ready for use. It's effectively an on-demand manufacturing service, a factory at your fingertips in a way that's wonderfully futuristic.

Aside from the windows that look on to the factory floor, Shapeways HQ looks just like any other start-up office. Colorful chairs surround laptop-littered desks. Employees drinking seltzer linger around a long lunch table in the back. It's oddly quiet, and everything is coated in a fine layer of white dust, the cast-off material that didn't quite make it into an object of its own.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was some sort of art studio littered with hulking machines, perhaps for firing pottery or something. In fact, each of these closet-sized machines costs upwards of $1 million and can 3D print about 100 objects at a time. Shapeways names all of them after old women because they require lots of care. The entire cast of Golden Girls is represented.

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There's actually not much to see inside the machines. A small window offers a peek into the actual printing area, an unassuming expanse of white powder that lights up every few seconds. Shapeways uses selective laser sintering (SLS) printers that enable them to print many objects at once and product higher quality products than some other additive manufacturing techniques.

That white powder lingering everywhere is the raw material for a 3D-printed object. The box lights up because a series of lasers are actually sintering the plastic in specific spots, as dictated by the design. An arm then moves over the surface, adding another layer of powder. Over the course of several hours, the sintered plastic becomes an object that's supported by the excess powder. The process look almost surgical if you're not familiar with the specifics of exactly what's going on.

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But, the printers don't just spit out objects ready to go. The finished product is actually a large white cube that's carefully moved from the machine to a nearby cooling rack. After all, it was just blasted with a bunch of hot lasers. Eventually, it's up to a human to break apart the cube and find dozens of newly printed objects in the powder. It's almost like digging for dinosaur bones. As Shapeways' Savannah Peterson explained to me, "You feel like an archaeologist even if you're just watching."

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She's right. After I made my way around the factory floor, which is roughly half the size of a basketball court, I got a peek at this process. The guy doing the digging was wearing a protective jump suit and a large ventilator to keep from inhaling the powder. And despite the fact that large plastic curtains contained the breakout room, the powder gets everywhere. Suddenly, the light coating of dust that covers the whole factory made even more sense. By the end of the tour, I looked like a baker covered in flour.

That's about as messy as it gets, though. The rest of the process is remarkably clean and streamlined, yielding some pretty incredible objects made not only out of plastic but also vari. The Shapeways website is full of curiosities, from delicate jewelry that can be printed in sterling silver to physical manifestations of internet memes that are printed in color using a special printer that can handle rainbow hues.

MarkerBot opened this store in Boston on November, 22 2013. There is now 3 such stores in USA (New York, Greenwich and Boston). You can of course buy MakerBot 3D printers, filaments, but there also some 3D printed gifts and some workshops seem to be regularly organized as well.

The shop is located in one of the most famous street for shopping in Boston (144 Newbury Street). Beyond the fact that the MakerBot outlet is contiguous to fashion boutiques (being the only computer hardware shop for miles around), the idea is mainly to democratize the ownership of a 3D printer, trying to morph 3D printer into the fridge of the 21st century.

Via The Verge

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Via pcworld

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On Friday, Microsoft released its 3D Builder app, which allows Windows 8.1 users to print 3D objects, but not much else.

The simple, simplistic, free app from Microsoft provides a basic way to print common 3D objects, as well as to import other files from SkyDrive or elsewhere. But the degree of customization that the app allows is small, so 3D Builder basically serves as an introduction to the world of 3D printing.

In fact, that’s Microsoft’s intention, with demonstrations of the MakerBot Replicator 2 slated for Microsoft’s retails stores this weekend. Microsoft customers can buy a new Windows 8.1 PC, as well as the $2199 MakerBot Replicator 2, both online as well as in the brick-and-mortar stores themselves.

One of the selling points of Windows 8.1 was its ability to print 3D objects, a complement to traditional paper printing. Although Microsoft is pitching 3D Builder as a consumer app, the bulk of spending on 3D printing will come from businesses, which will account for $325 million out of the $415 million that will be spent this year on 3D printing, according to an October report from Gartner. However, 3D printers have made their way into Staples, and MakerBot latched onto an endorsement of the technology from President Obama during his State of the Union address, recently encouraging U.S. citizens to crowd-fund an effort to 3D printers in every high school in America. (MakerBot also announced a Windows 8.1 software driver on Thursday.)

Microsoft

Microsoft’s 3D Builder app could certainly be a part of that effort. Frankly, there’s little to the app itself besides a library of pre-selected objects, most of which seem to be built around small, unpowered model trains of the “Thomas the Tank Engine” variety. After selecting one, the user has the option of moving it around a 3D space, increasing or decreasing the size to a particular width or height—and not much else.

Users can also import models made elsewhere. Again, however, 3D Builder isn’t really designed to modify the designs. It’s also not clear which 3D formats are supported.

On the other hand, some might be turned off by the perceived complexity of 3D printing. If you have two grand to spend on a 3D printer but aren’t really sure how to use it, 3D Builder might be a good place to start.

Via PC World

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3D printing may have an image problem. It’s sometimes seen as a hobbyist pursuit—a fun way to build knickknacks from your living room desktop—but a growing number of companies are giving serious thought to the technology to help get new ideas off the ground.

That’s literally off the ground in aircraft maker Boeing’s case. Thirty thousand feet in the air, some planes made by Boeing are outfitted with air duct components, wiring covers, and other small, general parts that have been made via 3D printing, or, as the process is known in industrial applications, additive manufacturing. The company also uses additive manufacturing with metal to produce prototype parts for form, fit and function tests.

Whether it’s the living room or a corporate factory, the underlying principle of 3D printing—additive manufacturing—is the same. It’s different from traditional manufacturing techniques such as subtractive or formative manufacturing, which mainly rely on removing material through molding, drilling or grinding. Additive manufacturing instead starts from scratch and binds layers of material sequentially in extremely thin sheets, into a shape designed with 3D modeling software.

Please, we call it "additive manufacturing"

Boeing has been conducting research and development in the area of additive manufacturing since 1997, but the company wants to scale up its processes in the years ahead so it can use the technology to build larger, structural components that can be widely incorporated into military and commercial aircraft.

For these larger titanium structures that constitute the backbone of aircraft, “they generally fall outside of the capacity of additive manufacturing in its current state because they’re larger than the equipment that can make them,” said David Dietrich, lead engineer for additive manufacturing in metals at Boeing.

“That’s our goal through aggressive new machine designs—to scale to larger applications,” he said.

Boeing’s use of 3D printing may seem unconventional because of the growing attention on the technology’s consumer applications for things like toys, figurines and sculptures. But it’s not.

In industry, “we don’t like to refer to it as ‘3D printing’ because the term additive manufacturing has been around longer and is more accepted,” Dietrich said.

For consumers, some of the more prominent 3D printer makers include MakerBot, MakieLab and RepRap; industrial-grade makers include 3D Systems, which also makes lower-cost models, Stratasys, ExOne and EOS.

The cost of a 3D printer varies widely. 3D Systems’ Cube, which is designed for home users and hobbyists, starts at around $1,300. But machines built for industrial-grade manufacturing in industries like aerospace, automotive and medical, such as those made by ExOne, can fetch prices as high as $1 million.

The average selling price for an industrial-grade 3D printer is about $75,000, according to market research compiled by Terry Wohlers, an analyst who studies trends in 3D printing. Most consumer printers go for between $1,500 and $3,000, he said.

3D printing or additive manufacturing offers several advantages over traditional subtractive processes. The biggest benefit, some businesses say, is that the technology allows for speedier, one-off production of products in-house.

At Boeing, the team handling additive manufacturing in plastics has cut down its processing time dramatically. While it might take up to a year to make some small parts using conventional tools, 3D printing can lessen the processing time to a week, said Michael Hayes, lead engineer for additive manufacturing in plastics at the company.

The company can also more easily tweak its products using the technology, he said. “You can fail early,” Hayes said. “You can make the first part very quickly, make changes, and get to a high-quality part faster.”

Far beyond the hobbiests

NASA is another organization that is using 3D printers to experiment. The space agency has been looking at the technology for years, but over the past six months, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been using the technology more frequently to test new concepts for parts that may soon find their way into spacecraft.

Located in Pasadena, California, the lab has a dozen 3D printers including consumer models made by companies such as MakerBot, Stratasys and 3D Systems.

Previously, 3D printers were too expensive, but the revolution now is their affordability, said Tom Soderstrom, chief technology officer at the lab. JPL uses the printers as a brainstorming tool as part of what Soderstrom calls their “IT petting zoo.”

So far, the program’s results have been good. This past summer, mechanical engineers used the printers to create concepts for simple items like table trays. But an actual stand for a webcam was produced too, to be used for conference calls. And engineers realized, using the 3D printers, they could incorporate the same swivel mechanism that was used for the stand into their design for a new spacecraft part for deploying parachutes.

“That was the ‘aha’ moment,” Soderstrom said, that the printers could be used to conceive and print parts for actual spacecraft. The swivel part, which has been designed but not manufactured yet, would provide wiggle room to the parachute to reduce the torque or rotational impact when it deploys.

Another advantage of having a 3D printer in-house is that it can give a company an easier way to fine-tune designs for new products, Soderstrom said. “It can take you 20 times to get an idea right,” he said.

Soderstrom hopes that eventually entire spacecraft could be printed using the technology. The spacecraft would be unmanned, and small, perhaps a flat panel the size of an art book. “Not all spacecraft need to look like the Voyager,” Soderstrom said.

For consumer-level 3D printers, the technology is still developing. Depending on the machine, the printed objects are not always polished, and the software to make the designs can be buggy and difficult to learn, Soderstrom said. Software for generating designs for 3D printing can be supplied by the printer vendor, take the form of computer-aided design programs such as Autodesk, or come from large engineering companies like Siemens.

Still, Soderstrom recommends that CIOs make the investment in 3D printing and purchase or otherwise obtain several machines on loan. They don’t have to be the most expensive models, he said, but companies should try to identify which business units might see the most benefit from the machines. Companies should try to find somebody who can act as the “IT concierge”—a person with knowledge of the technology who can advise the company how best to use it.

“Producing a high-fidelity part on some of the cheaper 3D printers can be hard,” Soderstrom said. “This concierge could help with that.” Certain skills this person may need could include knowing how to work with multiple different materials within a single object, he said.

Companies don’t have to be as large as Boeing or NASA to get some use out of 3D printers. The technology is also an option for small-business owners and entrepreneurs looking to make customized designs for prototypes and then print them in small-scale runs.

A new take on 3D printing

One company making strategic use of 3D printing is shipping and logistics giant UPS. The company, which also makes its services available to smaller customers via storefront operations, has responded to the growing interest in the technology with a program designed to help small businesses and startups that may not have the funds to purchase their own 3D printer.

A poll of small-business owners conducted by UPS showed high interest in trying out the technology, particularly among those wanting to create prototypes, artistic renderings or promotional materials. So, in July the company announced the start of a program that UPS said makes it the first nationwide retailer to test 3D printing services in-store.

Staples claims to be the first retailer to stock 3D printers for consumers, but UPS says its program makes it the first to offer 3D printing services like computer-aided design consultations in addition to the printing itself.

Currently, there are six independently owned UPS store locations offering Stratasys’ uPrint SE Plus printer, an industrial-grade machine. A store in San Diego was the first to get it, followed by locations in Washington, D.C.; Chicago; New York; and outside Dallas. In September, the printer was installed at a location in Menlo Park, California, just off Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley, a street known for its concentration of venture capital companies backing tech startups.

The UPS Store will gather feedback from store owners and customers over the next 12 months and then will decide whether to add printers in additional stores if the test is successful.

So far at the San Diego store, costs to the customer have ranged from $10, for lifelike knuckles printed by a medical device developer, to $500 for a prototype printed by a prosthetics company. The biggest factor in determining price is the complexity of the design.

The customer brings in a digital file in the STL format to the store. The store then checks to make sure the file is print-ready by running it through a software program. If it is, the customer gets a quote for the printing and labor costs.

Sometimes the digital file needs to be reworked or created from scratch. In such cases, the customer can work with a contracted 3D printing designer to iron out the design. Depending on how this meeting goes, it can be a several-step process before a file is ready for printing, said Daniel Remba, the UPS Store’s small-business technology leader, who leads the company’s 3D printing project.

So far at the San Diego store, there have been several different types of customers coming in to use the printer, said store owner Burke Jones. They have ranged from small startups to engineers from larger companies, government contractors and other people who just have an interesting idea, he said.

One customer wanted a physical 3D replica of his own head, Jones said. There was also a scuba diver who printed a light filter for an underwater lamp and a mountain biker who printed a mount for a camera.

For early stage companies, Jones estimates that the store has printed roughly a couple dozen product prototypes. In total, the store has done probably as many as 50 printing jobs for various types of customers, he said, producing 200 different parts.

In Menlo Park, the store has completed about 10 jobs with the printer, with at least 25 other inquiries pending.

A virtual physical enterprise

There are other online companies that offer 3D printing services. Two sites are Shapeways and Quickparts, which take files uploaded by the customer and then print the object for them. But the UPS Store project is different because it’s more personal, Jones said.

“We get to know the people, and their vision,” he said.

3D Hubs is another company betting that there are people who are interested in 3D printers but don’t own one. The site operates like an Airbnb for 3D printers, by helping people find 3D printers that are owned by other people or businesses nearby.

3D printing is already a crucial element in some large companies’ manufacturing processes. But for smaller companies, the technology’s biggest obstacle may be a lack of awareness about when it’s right to use it, said Pete Brasiliere, an industry analyst with Gartner.

Though the desktop machines may not be as advanced, their popularity within the “maker” culture could provide that knowledge to the business world. “The hype around the consumer market has made senior management aware,” Brasiliere said.

Via TechCrunch

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Another day, another 3D printer. This time we have a model that comes from SUNY Purchase College where they are working on a laser-cut, compact 3D printer that can make extra tall models simply by swapping out a few pieces.

The printer pumps out plastic at 100 microns, a more than acceptable resolution, and uses very few moving parts. You’ll notice that the print head rides up three rails. This would allow you to add longer bars or extensions to bring things bigger than the platform.

Created by students Shai Schechter, Andrey Kovalev, Yasick Nemenov and Eugene Sokolov, the project is currently in pre-beta and they aim to launch a crowdfunding campaign in November. You can sign up for updates here.

The team hopes to make the product completely open source and because it uses very few expensive parts they’re able to price it very aggressively. While I love projects like these, I’m anxious to see how they build their software – one of the most important parts of a 3D printing package. As long as it’s solid I’d totally be down with this cool rig.

Via Slash Gear

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MakerBot is best known for its 3D printers, turning virtual products into real ones, but the company’s latest hardware to go on sale, the MakerBot Digitizer, takes things in the opposite direction. Announced back in March, and on sale from today for $1,400, the Digitizer takes a real-world object and, by spinning it on a rotating platform in front of a camera, maps out a digital model that can then be saved, shared, modified, and even 3D printed itself.

Although the process itself involves some complicated technology and data-crunching, MakerBot claims that users themselves should be able to scan in an object in just a couple of clicks. The company includes its own MakerWare for Digitizer software, which creates files suitable for both the firm’s own 3D printers and generic 3D files for other hardware.

Calibration is a matter of dropping the included glyph block on the rotating platter and having the camera run through some preconfigured tests. After that, you center the object you’re hoping to scan, selecting whether they’re lightly colored, medium, or dark, and then waiting until the process is done.

MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner overview:

That takes approximately twelve minutes per object, MakerBot says, so don’t think of this as the 3D scanner equivalent of a photocopier. The camera itself runs at 1.3-megapixels and is paired with two Class 1 lasers for mapping out objects, and the overall resolution is good for 0.5mm in terms of detail and +/- 2.0mm for dimensional accuracy. Maximum object size is up to 20.3cm in diameter and the same in height.

Once you’ve actually run something through the scanner, the core grid file can be shared directly from the app to Thingiverse.com, or edited and combined with other 3D files to make a new object altogether.

The MakerBot Digitizer Desktop Scanner is available for order now, priced at $1,400.

Via Slash Gear

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In the latest of 3D-printed hardware, NASA has completed a series of test firings of the agency’s first rocket engine part made entirely from 3D printing. The component in question is the rocket engine’s injector, and it went through several hot-fire tests using a mix of liquid-oxygen and gaseous hydrogen.

However, NASA didn’t use ABS plastic that most 3D-printers use. Instead, the agency used custom 3D printers to spray layers of metallic powder using lasers. The lasers spray the powder in a specific pattern in order to come up with the desired shape for an object. In this case: a rocket engine injector.

The testing was done at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and the project is in partnership with Aerojet Rocketdyne. The company designed the injector and used 3D printing to make the component a reality. If they were to make the injector using traditional manufacturing processes, it would take over a year to make.

With 3D printing now an option, NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne are able to make the same component in just a matter of four months or less. Costs are a huge factor too, and the 3D-printed reduces costsby up to 70% compared to traditional methods and materials. This could lead to more efficient and cost-effective manufacturing of rocket engines.

NASA didn’t say what was next for the 3D-printed injector as far as testing goes, nor do they have a timeline for when they expect to officially implement the new technology in future rocket engines. We can only expect them to implement it sooner rather than later, but it could take several more years until it can be fully operational and on its way into space.

Via engadget

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3D printing is awesome, yet it still has a lot of untapped potential -- you can use it to create terrifying spiderbots and even tiny drones, but you can't make electronic components out of pools of plastic. Thankfully, a team of North Carolina State University researchers have discovered a mixture of liquid metal that can retain shapes, which could eventually be used for 3D printing. Liquid metals naturally have the tendency to merge, but alloys composed of gallium and indium combined form a skin around the material. This allows researchers to create structures by piling drops on top of each other using a syringe, as well as to create specific shapes by using templates. The team is looking for a way to use the mixture with existing 3D printing technologies, but it might take some before it's widely used as it currently costs 100 times more than plastic. We hope they address both issues in the near future, so we can conjure up futuristic tech like bendy electronics, or maybe even build a body to go with that artificial skin.