If this is real, and it does appear to be, it will absolutely boggle your mind.
It brings questions to mind like how much does the equipment cost, how strong is the product, and how much does a finished product cost.
Bob-tx
This printer probably has uses and applications that haven't even been thought of. JoeG
Rapid Prototyping has been around for quiet a while. It allows engineers to convert 3D imaging from CAD or CATIA into "things" to check function and fit. I got a tour of the Rapid Prototyping Lab at the Technology Center at Pittsburg State University (Kansas) about 12 years ago and it rolled my eyes back. They were not using this "printing" technology. They were actually molding or machining mock parts from lightweight material and a composite laminate.
However, there might be a little hocus-pocus in the video.
RonB
I remember reading about 3D in some computer mag or another-- so it had to have been late 90's that I saw it first. At the time they were doing solids- like bolts and nuts- no moving parts. No color. It built things up in layers like a CAT scan.
This is way cooler.
In the 90's they were saying how it would revolutionize the parts industry in a decade. I was thinking about all those faxes people send from office Christmas parties-- 3D would give them a whole new life.
Jim
re: "It's real and has been around for a decade or two."
While 3D printing has indeed been around for a "decade or two" - we had it at the Kodak Research Labs when I worked there in an earlier life - the technology to make items with colored moving parts in "one pass" is not that old.
I can't give you a date, but I'm pretty confident in saying that "3D colored moving parts printing" not "a decade or two" old.
OMG!!! I wonder if it can make 20 year old blondes? :)
No, it can only make new ones, and then you have to wait 20 years.
Sitting on the copy or fax machine and produce or transmit a 3D copy of your butt? ^_^
TDD
I don't recall saying anything about it being a "leaps and bounds type of thing".
I merely pointed out that the moving parts and color output is not a decade or two old as you seemed to imply:
"It's real and has been around for a decade or two"
Do you really think that they showed you the entire process?
Do you really think that they just threw the wrench on a flatbed scanner, sent the image to the printer and POOF! out came a functioning wrench?
I had a inlay for a molar made in the dentist's office right before my eyes. Check out this video. It shows a detail account of the "imaging" process. With multiple pictures stitched together by the computer, there's no reason to think that the "internal threads" (which, by the way, are just the opposite of the readily viewable external threads) couldn't be figured out by the computer and sent to the printer.
What's not shown here is the operator's ability to alter the "scanned" images to add parts that might not have been picked up by the camera. A key fact when you think about the "internal threads".
re: "And you still have given me no explanation of how the thread of the screw inside the wrench is determined. There IS only one way. By dis-assembly."
Do you not actually *read* what people write in response to your posts or are you just being a troll trying to drag us all down into the dark, dank abyss of usenet?
Twice, not once, but *twice*, I have posted that the operator has the ability to manipulate the image. I have also pointed out that the internal threads are the exact opposite of the external threads so that they are easliy reproduced by the CAD/CAM system.
Watch the Cerec video I posted the link to. It shows that the "scanning" process is a bit more complicated than just waving a wand over the object.
Are you sticking to your assertion that it's not possible because they edited the video for time and cut out the parts where the scanning could have taken an hour and the image manipulation even longer? If that's your reasoning, then I guess you would say that *any* process shown on a video that does not detail ever single piece of process minutia is a crock.
If you saw a video of plane taking off in NY and landing in London would you call it a fake because the video didn't show the entire 7 hour flight over the ocean?
re: "The point is that "scanning" an object from one side is not going to give suffiient information"
Why do you keep insisting on posting points that don't make any sense? Whoever said that the scanning was done from only one side? Oh wait...I get it. They didn't show you the complete scanning process, so therefore they must not have done anything else than what was shown in the video. Just like the plane that couldn't have made it to London because you didn't see it fly across the ocean.
Do youself (and us) a favor. It'll help..really:
Go to ZCorp site and watch the webcast on their 3-D scanner. I believe it will fill in the missing pieces so that you have won't have to put forth any effort to imagine it in your own mind.
I feel the need to help the less fortunate amongst us...it's just part of my nature. ;-)
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Here's another site, an independent site in fact, listing various 3D printing technologies, that mentions the ability to print moving parts:
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