At this early stage in inexpensive personal 3D printing, we're still exploring the technology and what it means. While we see intellectual property confusion and carnage in the digital music and now text-based industries, some of us feel that a similar catastrophe will befall personal manufacturing. In the meantime, we continue to explore the space.

But a deep analysis of the intellectual property implications has been recently published by Simon Bradshaw, Adrian Bowyer and Patrick Haufe in their appropriately titled paper, "The Intellectual Property Implications of Low-Cost 3D Printing".

The paper brilliantly introduces the concept of 21st century 3d printing in the context of manufacturing history, putting recent developments in long-term perspective. But then the second half of the paper delves into the knotty problems of intellectual property that will eventually result. One example scenario examined:

If Bridget owns an Acme car she might create 3DPDFs for some of its spare parts, to allow herself to 3D print copies should she need them. One of these is a cap for the windscreen wash reservoir. It is of commonplace design and has to have a diameter and screw pitch to fit the reservoir opening, so it is assumed that no design protection subsists. It does however have Acme’s name moulded into it, a trade mark registered in numerous categories including vehicle parts, and Bridget’s 3DPDF includes this. Bridget makes the 3DPDF available online, and it is downloaded by Dave, who owns a small garage. One of Dave’s customers needs an Acme reservoir cap, so Dave uses his workshop 3D printer to make one from Bridget’s 3DPDF and sells it. He infringes no design right or design document copyright by doing so, but he has sold goods bearing Acme’s trade mark, which he has therefore infringed. If, though, Bridget had removed or omitted the trade mark, Dave could have legitimately labelled the cap as being for an Acme™ car as there is specific provision for a mark to be used to indicate the intended purpose of a product, such as a spare part.

This and other pathological examples are examined in light of UK IP law in gruesome legal detail. Upon reading the paper, one wonders how many other bizarre scenarios will actually occur when the technology becomes widespread.

What is the bottom line? It's not entirely clear, but the paper suggests that generally items produced for personal use may proceed without infringement, but trouble occurs when trademarks or visible designs are shared among others. Time will tell, as these imaginary scenarios will inevitably be played out for real.

As reported yesterday, T. A. Grimm & Associates has published a very extensive benchmarking report on a selection of common commercial 3D printers. We've been looking forward to something like this because we all too often hear statements from vendors such as: "lowest cost of materials" and"five times better resolution" or "suitable for office use". But these terms are vague at best until the actual devices are actually compared against each other in action. That's precisely what this benchmark has done.

So what does the report say? Lots, but here's a few highlights that caught our notice:

 When accounting for all aspects of time, the ZPrinter 310 is significantly faster to produce models than the other printers
 The SD300, while being inexpensive to acquire, is one of the slowest to produce models
 The ZPrinter 310 appears to be not only the fastest printer, but also the least expensive to produce a model, all-in costs considered
 The highest cost of materials, by far, is the SD300's plastic sheets. Fortunately, the huge amount of waste cut-away is recycled
 The uPrint produces "by far" the strongest parts, with the Alaris 30 a distant second
 The surface finish varies considerably between printers, you'd best look at the test images
 The accuracy is quite variable and depends on the form of the object being printed by each printer
 The Alaris 30 is the most accurate 3D printer measured, and the V-Flash is the least accurate
 Biggest surprise for us: the ProJet SD3000 showed poorly in many of the tests, including quality, cost and time

Moral of the story/benchmark: No single performance factor tells the truth. Your printer might have the lowest material cost, but the cost per model might be the highest. A combination of all factors is the only way to truly estimate the operational cos t of any specific printer. The report concludes that the best and worst 3D printers cannot be ranked, as their performance depends entirely on the situation presented.

Wish: An additional report that measures hobbyist printers, such as RepRap, Fab@Home and the MakerBot. Their costs will be low, but their labor will be high.

Platform Design has an interesting article and video on the topic of personal fabrication. Presenter Neil Gershenfeld speaks less on specific device and technologies, but more on the social aspects - including the sense personal power that appears when individuals have the ability to create the things they want. He also discusses the issues that result when society changes from one that consumes products to one that manufactures its own products. According to Gershenfeld.

This thought provoking 18 minute video was originally presented at the TED conference. On the same page there is a second 2 minute video where Gershenfeld provides a brief overview of personal manufacturing.

3D printing is being used to manufacture custom objects for psychological experiments. The shapes are of typical objects, but they are not robust enough for normal use, since most 3D printers today cannot produce objects of sufficient strength. However, the psychological experiment involves subjects merely touching the objects to identify them by shape. This use avoids the strength problem and permits great flexibility in creating shapes for use in the experiments. Also, note picture of the wash-up chamber that's used to get rid of deposition residue.

"5 Ways Your Grandkids will Use 3D Printers in 2050"

 Organs What if in 2050, no one will have to be on a waiting list for an organ transplant ever again? The children of the future just might be able to find a way to replace body organs. Your grandkids might be able to create skin with a 3D printer, and no one will ever know the difference.
 Toys In 2050, you may not need to bring your grandchildren to the toy store. Why? They’ll most probably be designing and creating their own toys by then. You can already make your own action figures today, although it is difficult to make them out of non-toxic materials. By 2050, non-toxic materials for the 3D printer should be readily and easily available.
 Automobile Parts It’s very possible that your grandchildren will construct their own cars with this type of printer. If they are able to construct a majority or all of the different parts of an automobile and are able to assemble it, then there will be no need to get them a car.
 Homes When your grandchildren grow older and express interest in moving out of their parents’ house, they might just move into a home built with a 3D printer. At present, there is already talk of using this technology for building homes, but there are still many issues that have to be solved.
 Electronics In this day and age, people still have to pay for their gadgets. If you want a mobile phone or a computer, you need to buy it. In 2050, things will be different. A 3D printer can print pretty much anything—including electronics. There will be no need to pay for the latest technology, because your grandchildren will be making it for you.

3D PRINTING: MAKING THE DIGITAL REAL

Imagine a future in which a device connected to a computer can print a solid object. A future in which we can have tangible goods as well as intangible services delivered to our desktops or highstreet shops over the Internet. And a future in which the everyday "atomization" of virtual objects into hard reality has turned the mass pre-production and stock-holding of a wide range of goods and spare parts into no more than an historical legacy.

Such a future may sound like it is being plucked from the worlds of Star Trek. However, whilst transporter devices that can instantaneously deliver us to remote locations may remain a fantasy, 3D printers capable of outputting physical objects have been in development for over two decades.

Current Applications

Most current 3D printers are not used to create final consumer products. Rather, they are generally employed for rapid product prototyping, or to produce moulds or mould masters that will in turn allow the production of final items. Such printing of 3D objects already enables engineers to check the fit of different parts long before they commit to costly production, architects to show detailed and relatively low-cost scale models to their clients, and medical professionals or archaeologists to handle full-size, 3D copies of bones printed from 3D scan data. There are also a wide range of educational uses.
The range of products that have employed 3D printers in their design process or to produce final moulds or mould masters is constantly growing. To date such products include automobiles, trainers, jewellery, plastic toys, coffee makers, and all sorts of plastic bottles, packaging and containers. Dentists are now also starting to use 3D printers to produce dental appliances.

A Solid Tomorrow

In an age in which the news, books, music, video and even our communities are all the subjects of digital dematerialization, the development and application of 3D printing reminds us that human beings have both a physical and a psychological need to keep at least one foot in the real world. 3D printing has a bright future, not least in rapid prototyping (where its impact is already highly significant), but also in medicine, the arts, and outer space. Desktop 3D printers for the home are already a reality if you are prepared to pay for one and can find an application. 3D printers capable of outputting in colour and multiple materials also exist and will continue to improve to a point where functional products will be able to be output. As devices that will provide a solid bridge between cyberspace and the physical world, and as an important manifestation of the Second Digital Revolution, 3D printing is therefore likely to play some part in all of our futures.

Site Admin
info@prinding.com

This blog is mainly to help you understand better the procees of 3d printing. Since all 3d file formats are conveyable into STL format lets try and unserstand what is an STL file.

STL is a file format native to the stereolithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. This file format is supported by many other software packages; it is widely used for rapid prototyping and computer-aided manufacturing. STL files describe only the surface geometry of a three dimensional object without any representation of color, texture or other common CAD model attributes. The STL format specifies both ASCII and binary representations. Binary files are more common, since they are more compact. An STL file describes a raw unstructured triangulated surface by the unit normal and vertices (ordered by the right-hand rule) of the triangles using a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.

History of use
Stereolithography machines are basically 3D printers that can build any volume shape as a series of slices. Ultimately these machines require a series of closed 2D contours that are filled in with solidified material as the layers are fused together.

The natural file format for such a machine would be a series of closed polygons corresponding to different Z-values. However, since it's possible to vary the layer thicknesses for a faster though less precise build, it seemed easier to define the model to be built as a closed polyhedron that could be sliced at the necessary horizontal levels.

The STL file format appears capable of defining a polyhedron with any polygonal facet, but in practice it's only ever used for triangles, which means that much of the syntax of the file is superfluous. It is also the case that the value of the normal shouldn't be necessary, since that is a direct calculation from the coordinates of the triangle with the orientation being controlled by the right hand rule.

STL files are supposed to be closed and connected like a combinatorial surface, where every triangular edge is part of exactly two triangles, and not self-intersecting.

However, for the purpose of generating a single contour slice using a very lightweight piece of software on a computer with little memory, this format is perfect since it can be processed in one pass regardless of file size.

info@prinding.com

3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by successive layers of material. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive manufacturing technologies. 3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts and assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process. Advanced 3D printing technologies yield models that closely emulate the look, feel and functionality of product prototypes.

In recent years 3D printers have become financially accessible to small and medium sized business, thereby taking prototyping out of the heavy industry and into the office environment. It is now also possible to simultaneously deposit different types of materials.

While rapid prototyping dominates current uses, 3D printers offer tremendous potential for production applications as well.[1] The technology also finds use in the jewellery, footwear, industrial design, architecture, automotive, aerospace, dental and medical industries.

Hey guyz,
Created this blog to just explore everyones creativity.
Letz share ur experiences related to work and more.
Have a nice time guyz.

Amit Chippa.