Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
A printed full-scale bench in stone-like material
Some people remember exactly where they were when they watched the irst
moon landing. Others remember the confusing irst weeks when the Berlin
wall came tumbling down. I remember the irst time I heard about 3D printing.
The time was the late 1980s. The place, a tedious engineering seminar on
manufacturing engineering. The classroom was warm. The professor had the
misfortune to have a droning, unintentionally soothing voice that lulled my
classmates and me into a sort of group stupor.
The classroom door banged open, disrupting the peaceful drowsy calm of
the afternoon's lecture. An unfamiliar man burst into the room. Our surprise
visitor announced he was a salesman from a company called Cubital Systems.
We had never heard of Cubital Systems, which at that time was one of the two
companies in the world selling commercial 3D printers.
The salesman animatedly waved a plastic object over his unruly mop of hair
and announced that a manufacturing revolution was brewing. “I am holding
the future of manufacturing in my hands,” he boldly claimed. “This plastic
object was made by a laser that 'printed' plastic.”
Intrigued, my classmates and I stirred curiously and wondered why he had
come to our class. At that point, sensing our interest, our professor wisely
handed over the classroom to his animated visitor. We learned later that the
Cubital salesman had been invited by our professor as a guest lecturer.
A skilled showman, the salesman ceremoniously paused, relishing our
confusion. In the quiet that followed, he asked a student to turn the crank
sticking out of the plastic object. I can still hear the crisp clicking sound in
the classroom as my classmate energetically turned the crank for what seemed
