Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Printing three-dimensional things
Like the magic wand of childhood fairy tales, 3D printing offers us the promise
of control over the physical world. 3D printing gives regular people powerful
new tools of design and production. People with modest bank accounts will
acquire the same design and manufacturing power that was once the private
reserve of professional designers and big manufacturing companies.
In a 3D printed future world, people will make what they need, when and
where they need it. Yet, technologies are only as good as the people using
them. People might fabricate weapons and create unregulated or even toxic
new drugs. Our environment may be littered with quickly discarded print-
on-demand plastic novelties. Ethical challenges of bioprinting will make stem
cell controversy seem simple in comparison. Black marketeers will be tempted
to earn quick and dirty proits by making and selling faulty machine parts
whose shoddy construction could fail at a critical moment.
When most people irst hear about 3D printing, their mind leaps to their
old, familiar desktop printer. The biggest difference between an inkjet printer
and a 3D printer is one of dimension. A desktop printer prints in two dimen-
sions, spraying colored ink onto lat paper documents. A 3D printer fabricates
three-dimensional objects that you can hold in your hand.
3D printers make things by following instructions from a computer and
stacking raw material into layers. For most of human history, we've created
physical objects by cutting away raw material or using molds to form new
shapes.
The technical name for 3D printing is “additive manufacturing,” which is
actually more descriptive of the actual printing process. 3D printing's unique
manufacturing technique enables us to make objects in shapes never before
possible.
3D printing is not a new technology. 3D printers have been quietly doing
their work in manufacturing machine shops for decades. In the past few years,
3D printing technology has been driven rapidly forward by advances in com-
puting power, new design software, new materials, and the rocket fuel of
innovation, the Internet.
