3-D printing video – Encyclopaedia Britannica
The first Industrial Revolution replaced the village blacksmith with large factories and
standardized parts.
Today, a new technology promises not only to make replacement parts on the fly, but
also to create original and custom products that could not have been made in the past.
The technology behind all this is 3-D printing.
What is 3-D printing?
Julie Friedman Steele:
When I talk about 3-D printing and how it works, one of my favorite analogies is to
use a loaf of bread, and slicing it layer by layer.
And if you wanted to make a loaf of bread by each individual layer, you would just stack
them on top of each other until you had your full loaf of bread.
Ann Arboleda:
A 3-D printed object is essentially a stack of a bunch of 2-D images … very, very microscopic
layers in two dimensions being stacked on top of each other.
Robert Zylstra:
It’s a really simple process, so you might not [like] think that… that whoever came
up with it was extremely smart, even though all the machines are very simple, ranging
from the laser sintering machines all the way down to [kind of] the consumer-grade machines.
They all work with the same relative process…
like I said… layers.
narrator:
Printing methods vary, depending on the material used.
Here, a printer melts and ejects plastic into fine layers, fusing it onto the shape of a
cup from a computer-controlled nozzle.
The plastic comes in a variety of colors, so designers can be creative.
Another method builds layers using a powerful laser and a fine powder.
Here, a titanium object grows – which is to say, its layers build – as the powdered
metal is poured on top and fused together by the laser.
3-D printing in plastic is often quite affordable.
Some finished products may even be flexible.
3-D printing in metal is typical for custom mechanical parts.
Scientists are investigating 3-D printing applied to living tissue.
In this example, the 3-D printer creates a blood vessel structure which dissolves away
as tissue grows around it.
Genetically engineered cells are placed in the structure.
The results hold their shape as the cells grow together.
Software allows people to design virtual objects on a computer, but the whole process can be
rather organic.
Robert Zylstra:
I always tell people the best modeling tool is a piece of paper and a pen… because
they’re all just tools to an end process.
The actual 3-D modeling using the computer is just a tool to take your idea and put it
in the computer with more definition, dimensions and those types of things.
And then sometimes testing with 3-D printing, then… because you can test it in real life,
and make some changes, possibly by sketching again.
narrator:
Objects can be copied from reality, too.
This system borrows a stereo camera from a videogame.
The camera watches the subject on a rotating platform, as it creates a digital 3-D model.
Mike Moceri:
Objects can be scanned in 3-D, using infrared cameras, laser scanners, or 3-D photos stitched
together to create a 3-D object.
Once the 3-dimensional object is completed on the computer, it can be uploaded to the
Internet, downloaded, and re-created by anybody who has access to a 3-D printer.
narrator:
This kind of power and flexibility to make material objects has attracted artists seeking
new opportunities.
The 3-D printed skull by Josh Harker is in fine filigree that could not be molded in
three dimensions, nor cut from bone.
The sculpture is a mix of opposites.
Versus a real skull, it’s light and delicate.
It combines whimsy, life and death in a single material object.
Josh Harker:
Being classically trained, I did a lot of figure subjects… anatomy studies.
And I also got into forensic art doing forensic facial reconstructions.
And I was doing facial reconstructions of mummies from CT scans.
I chose a skull to symbolize the end of my commitment to traditional media and traditional
ways of disseminating and sharing my art, and try this new format and see if I could
get a new audience.
narrator:
3-D printer users are philosophical about its future.
Robert Zylstra:
Access to technology has grown so much that more and more people have either heard about
it, or seen it, or…
So it just keeps growing.
Ann Arboleda:
3-D printing is happening right now because were getting to a point as a society where
we’re craving more customization.
I think that historically with mass manufacturing, we’ve been marketed things.
We’ve been encouraged to find a reason for manufactured objects that have been created
for us.
And now, I think the mentality is shifting in that people want to have more autonomy
over things they interact with on a daily basis.
Julie Friedman Steele:
The Third Industrial Revolution and 3-D printing go hand-in-hand.
And the Third Industrial Revolution is about being able to sustain yourself locally, and
make things on a local level.
So we’re no longer shipping things all over the place.
The supply chain is broken, because you’re just sending file formats to another computer
which then makes the object at a local level.
So we completely disrupt the supply chain with 3-D printing.
[ end ]
Produced and content edited by Karen Sparks, Britannica Book of the Year.
Edited, photographed and narrated by Kurt Heintz.
Additional video by Nick Bacon, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Keywords: 3D Printer Experience, 3D printing, additive
manufacturing, Josh Harker, 3D system, DDD, SSYS, ONVO,EXONE, University of Pennsylvania,
sculpture, CAD/CAM