3D printing

Ever imagined building your house using a printer. Or designing your own wedding gown using a printer. Well keep your picturesque ready as the 'Third Revolution' has arrived.

Time for some 3D Printing!!

3D printing is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model. 3D printing, where successive layers of material are laid down in different shapes. It mostly relies on the removal of material by methods such as cutting or drilling.
#Wikipedia 

 
Virtual blueprints from computer aided design (CAD) and "slices" them into digital cross-sections for the machine to successively use as a guideline for printing. Depending on the machine used, material or a binding material is deposited on the build bed or platform until material/binder layering is complete and the final 3D model has been "printed." It is a WYSIWYG process where the virtual model and the physical model are almost identical.



To perform a print, the machine reads the design from an .stl file and lays down successive layers of liquid, powder, paper or sheet material to build the model from a series of cross sections. These layers, which correspond to the virtual cross sections from the CAD model, are joined together or automatically fused to create the final shape. Imagine a multi-layer cake, with the baker laying down each layer one at a time until the entire cake is formed.


There are a variety of very different types of 3D printing technologies, but they all share one core thing in common: they create a three dimensional object creating it layer by successive layer, until the entire object is complete.

Queen of Burlesque shows off world’s first fully-articulated 3D printed gown

Queen of Burlesque with her 3D gown

 

Shapeways wowed fashionistas at the Ace Hotel in New York with a 3D printed gown that was worn by none other than queen of burlesque Dita Von Teese. The gown, designed by Michael Schmidt and 3D modeled by architect Francis Bitonti, is fully articulated based upon the Fibonacci Sequence, printed in 17 nylon pieces by Shapeways, and then painted black and adorned with 13,000 Swarovski crystals. 

 

 

 

 

 Further research is going on to manufacture space suits using 3D printing technology as the present suits are found to be harmful for human skin if used for a longer duration. A couple of years down the lane you can have your own wardrobe collection designed and printed in your own house.

 

3D printing will make renewable energy more accessible

Technology will enable Photovoltaic cells printing at the molecular level. Research-level photovoltaic efficiencies have surpassed 40%, which is better than that of your car and nuclear power plants.
 printing a steam engine, and solar energy can produce steam without the need of photovoltaic via employing magnification or concentration.

Efficiency will be printed into buildings

Due to less materials being used in construction, greater uniformity in materials used, higher consistency of quality execution, and more control over design, future buildings will be markedly more efficient than the drafty boxes we currently call homes. Solar heaters and coolers can be incorporated right into the roof and walls, as well as other renewable energy catchers like wind turbines and geothermal heat pumps.

                        
                                  World's first 3D Printed house in Netherlands

Walls printed in one material will be more efficient than the concrete, wood, fiberglass, and plaster we sandwich together now because they’ll be seamless, multiporous, and of complex geometries specially designed to keep the weather outside.

 3D printing promotes recycling, upcycling, and repairing

The recycling of plastic piles into new objects has the potential of having an even greater positive effect on the sustainability of 3D printing, because no longer will bad prints and support materials be considered waste.
If you’re not familiar with upcycling, it’s the repurposing of what might have been discarded and/or the improving upon what still functions, and 3D printing is already making an impact here. 

3D printing will enable major efficiency gains in food production

You may not like that a lot of our food is genetically modified, but it is. The future will likely follow a similar trend as it relates to printing food. Modern Meadow aims to print meat from real animal tissue grown in labs to avoid mass raising, slaughter, and transport of livestock. Raising livestock is one of the most pollution-creating industries due to the large amounts of feed, water, and space required, as well as the excessive amounts of methane and sewage produced. You may not feel comfortable eating printed meat but there’s a good chance that your grandchildren will find it commonplace.