Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
When they were introduced a few decades ago, low-cost laser printers did
not lead immediately to the paperless ofice; instead cheap and widely avail-
able printing technologies encouraged people to print casually and wastefully.
Similarly, ubiquitous 3D printers might lead to the production of more junk,
making it easier for people to fabricate objects in a wasteful spirit without
realizing the downstream costs of their actions.
Engineers, seamstresses, and probably even surgeons are advised to mea-
sure twice and cut once. When production is costly or risks are high, a
designer or engineer will measure and plan again and again to make sure
physical production will go as planned. Easy-to-use design software and
a nearby 3D printer make it easy to not heed this ecofriendly approach.
Unfortunately, 3D printing induces a spirit of “irrational fabrication” into
some susceptible souls.
I've seen the effects of irrational fabrication irst hand. One morning I
came into the lab and discovered two dozen or so misshapen plastic objects of
similar shape lying in casual disarray on the table next to the lab's 3D printer.
It turned out that the creator of this trashcan full of new plastic garbage was
one of my students, who for a class assignment had spent the night in the lab,
feverishly 3D printing faulty prototype after faulty prototype. Like a frustrated
author ripping out sheet after sheet of paper, this student printed out a design,
slightly adjusted its dimensions in the design ile, then printed it out again,
hoping the next one would turn out better than the previous one.
Software engineers debug half-baked bits of code by compiling it and test-
ing in digital form. However, compiling and re-compiling bad code doesn't
burn up precious raw material. It burns up time and a developer's patience,
but doesn't ill the garbage can with badly shaped plastic objects.
Now that 3D printers have sped up the prototyping process, the environ-
mentally unfriendly physical debugging process has become a real option, at
least for small objects. When people 3D print half-baked design ideas rather
than testing them irst in a computer simulator or measuring twice or for
the third time, they're applying what some might describe as a debugging
mentality rather than a design mentality to their product design process.
Until recently, a debugging mentality in the physical world was costly and
time consuming. 3D printers make it easy for people to test their design iles
by printing them, something they would not dream of doing had they had
