This Week in 3D Printing

Week of 10/6/2015

This Week’s Contents

! In the News ! Research Insight of the Week ! 3D Prints of the Week

In the NewsSummary and Analysis of Headlines around 3D Printing

Penn State and 3D Systems Partner to Research Direct Metal Printing for DARPA Pennsylvania State University and 3D Systems have announced the formation of a partnership to research and develop direct metal printing technology at the Center for Innovative Materials Processing through Direct Digital Deposition (CIMP-3D). CIMP-3D is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) additive manufacturing demonstration facility. The team of direct metal printing experts from the two organizations will continue developing 3D Systems current ProX Direct Metal Printing (DMP) technology, with the goal of continuing to advance and develop the creation of high-resolution DP technology, and provide training using 3D Systems existing DMP technology for use by the US defense and aerospace companies. The first project is working with the US Air Force to incorporate DMP technology into the manufacturing workflow of the largest provider of aircraft engines Honeywell Aerospace, focusing specifically on the production and rapid qualifying of 3D printed metal parts. Source(s): cimp3d.com

New Patent Filed for Inexpensive and Super Strong Graphene 3D Printing Materials

Graphene has been hyped as the material that will completely revolutionize every aspect of our lives. Yet, it seems nothing has come of this ‘revolutionary’ material. This is primarily due to the difficulty of making graphene, as well as the prohibitively expensive cost and large amount of toxic waste byproducts required to produce a large quantity of graphene. But Graphene 3D Lab Inc., hopes to change all of this. The company recently filed a non-provisional patent for a new process for the preparation and separation of atomic layers of graphene. For the past few years, the company has been known in the industry for exploring the creation of various 3D printable filaments using the super strong material. While not much is known about the process being patented, the company says the process is an energy efficient way of sorting and classifying graphene nanoparticles that will be non-chemically invasive and produce no toxic byproducts. If Graphene 3D Lab is capable of brining the patent from idea to production, leading to inexpensive large scale creation of graphene, our lives could greatly change over the next few years.

Source(s): 3DPrint.com

3DPrinterOS Releases Educational and Premium Licenses

3DPrinterOS, a operating system commonly used around the world to operate 3D printers, has released two new custom licenses to make it easier to use in settings with a large number of users. One of the newly announced licenses is for a premium option that features more and improves options over the free 3DPrinterOS license used by most people. The other license class will be for educational purposes, appealing to universities and schools that extensively use 3D printing, giving faculties the ability to easily distribute and track access of 3D printing throughout a campus. The focus here will be to enable schools to invest in 3D printing without requiring a costly staff to operate 3D printers and regulate the workflow.

Source(s): 3ders.org

Macy’s Introduces 3D Printed Selfies to Attract Millennials Seeking to attract the lucrative 12-to-20 year old demographic, Macy’s Department Store has completed a $400 million renovation of their flagship Herald Square store. The new space, called “One Below,” prominently incorporates 3D printing into a variety of showcases. Customers can 3D print jewelry and iPhone cases using a 3D Systems Cube printer, but the real eye catcher will be a soon-to-be-revealed photo booth capable of quickly 3D scanning customers in order to create a 3D printed selfie. If the photo booth and selfies increase Millennial traffic, Macy’s may expand the option to their over 800 nationwide locations. Source(s): Bloomberg.com

Autodesk Announces Next-Gen Design Platform Autodesk Research, a spin-off of 3D design and engineering company Autodesk, inc., has created a new state-of-the-art design platform that may revolutionize the way 3D designs are generated. The Dreamcatcher system is a experimental design system geared towards helping users with the generation of their 3D projects. A designer begins by inputting a projective, which includes information such as material type, functional requirements, performance restrictions, cost restrictions, etc., which are then submitted into Dreamcatcher. The information is processed within the design platform to self-generate a synthesized design space that complies with the particular requirements of the project. Once the system evaluates the self-generated solutions, a designer is able to go in and reconfigure the design solution if the outcome is not exactly what they were aiming for. The is a one-of-a-kind program that is able to teach itself solutions through machine learning, all the while teaching designers how to optimize their 3D models. Source(s): 3DPrintingIndustry.com

U.S. Coast Guard Incorporates 3D Printer as handyman on icebreaker boat For three weeks this past July, a MakerBot 3D printer was taken on a scientific mission aboard the Cutter Healy Icebreaker led by the Coast Guard Research and Development Center in New London. Engineering professor Ron Adrezin managed and operated the 3D printer, which the crew found as a invaluable resource used to perform odd jobs such as kitchen and shoe repair. Adrezin’s job on the expedition was to gauge the practical use of having a 3D printer on board a Coast Guard ship, seeing if the device could help out on various projects by creating 3D-printed parts. Not too long into the voyage, the MakerBot had its chance. The onboard dishwasher, tasked to go through 70 loads of dishes a day, broke. Adrezin used the 3D printer to resolve the problem, leading crew members to approach Adrezin for help creating solutions for their own technical issues. Source(s): 3ders.org

Adobe Announces App that Turns 2-D Selfies into 3D models

Adobe, known for their Photoshop software, is expected to present a new and exciting application known as 3-D Portraits at Adobe MAX Sneaks, the annual peek inside their development labs. The app recognizes faces, eyes, mouths, and hair in 3D photographs, and effectively turns them into useable 3D models. While technically currently possible within Photoshop, the same process requires a number of complex and tedious steps with results that range in quality. 3-D Portraits effectively negates all of the steps, creating a 3D modeling process that could quickly change a wide range of industries ranging from game developers to art design. Research led by Menglei Chai, a PhD student from Zhejiang University, and a team of Adobe Research scientist is to thank for figuring out how to largely automate the process 3D modeling process.

Source(s): FastCoDesign.com

New York to invest $125 Million to Build World’s First Industrial-Scale 3D Printing Facility

The state of New York has announced plans to invest nearly $125 million to build the world’s first industrial-scale 3D printing facility as part of a private-public partnership with Norway’s Norsk Titanium AS. Groundbreaking for the plant is expected to begin in late October or November of this year in Plattsburgh, New York, and is slated to be fully operational by the end of 2016. The plant is expected to print large components for aircraft manufactures and weapons makers at much lower cost than current technologies. According to inside sources, SUNY Polytechnic Institute will manage the program, with the plant planned to be more than 200,000-square-feet. Source(s): Reuters.com

Branch Technology Has Built the Tallest 3D Printed Object In America

Branch Technology, the 3D printing company known as the first company to successfully construct 3D printed walls, has printed the tallest 3D printed object in America. Branch has unveiled a 18-foot-tall sculpture as part of the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA)’s exhibit “Designers, Makers, Users: 3D Printing the Future.” The sculpture is the result of a collaboration between Branch and architect Keith Kaseman, best known for designing the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Washington, D.C. The sculpture, known as TN-01, took a little over a month’s time, and was printed in several segments and assembled on site a MODA. The sculpture has a volume of about 54 cubit feet, and was created to demonstrate the potential of 3D printing in architectural applications.

Source(s): 3DPrint.com

Turning Smartphones into 3D Printers Solido3D, a rapid prototyping and digital fabrication firm, has announced OLO, a device that designers claim can turn any smartphone into a 3D printer. While the internal mechanics of OLO are not yet known to the public, the design team has revealed that the battery-powered devices consists of only 7 components and one motor. The app behind the printer will be free for users to download, allowing them to upload and manager 3D models, the ability to send them to print, as well as the option to share their models and skills to the overall OLO community. While the printer will be relatively small and inexpensive, it will be interesting to see how users capitalize on such a interesting device. Source(s): 3DPrintingIndustry.com

Research Insight of the WeekQuantifying the 3D Printing Landscape

Deloitte Consulting estimates that 95% of 3D printed object are made with

professional grade 3D printers, with over 222,000 3D printers to be sold this year, an

increase of 100 percent over last year.

Source: Deloitte, 2015

3D Prints of the WeekShowcasing some of the most interesting applications of 3D Printing, from the amusing to the artistic to the innovative

3D Printed Wheelchair Helps Kitten Walk Again

! Two 17 year old students, Josh Messmer and Isaiah Walker, from Walnut Grove Secondary School in British Columbia have created a 3D printed wheelchair for a handicapped kitten named Cassidy.

! Cassidy was found in a rural residency in British Columbia without both of his back legs by Shelley Roche of Tiny Kittens Society, who nursed the small kitten to health. Roche then turned to the public for help enabling Cassidy to live a normal life.

! Touched by Cassidy’s predicament, Messmer and Walker turned to 3D printing technology to design a wheelchair for the kitten. After several prototypes, a working 3D printed wheelchair was created that Cassidy could comfortably use and move around in. As it’s 3D printed, as the kitten grows, the design can grow with him.

3D-Printed ion Thruster

! João Duarte is a talented 3D printing enthusiast who has built a 3D printed ion thruster and made the instructions and files available for others to build their own version.

! An ion thruster is a type of electrical propulsion system currently used for spacecraft propulsion.

! Duarte hopes the project, which he calls “project osmanthus,”has educational value that demonstrated the process of accelerating ions and the ion thruster working principle.