3D Printing no longer just for Rapid Prototyping

[Requia ☣]

Lobbying will ensure that little competition is seen from vending machines using this technology.

[Bruno]

I've been wanting to build a gruel vending machine for a while now. I could do it too, if I had the money.

and the time.


and the space.

[Cramulus]

Requia, you're so cynical! This technology allows you to simply print complex or expensive dishes without any culinary knowledge. The morbidly obese, who are currently sucking down quarter pounders at a terrifying rate, will be able to serve themselves a balanced meal with one button push. Your first reaction is that it's going to be bad, you are disgusted, and people are going to lose their jobs. You don't think this is cool as fuck?

Laypeople don't have to know the first thing about musical notation, valve/key/fret fingering, or tonal theory to be able to utilize a stereo system to deliver a distilled version of a live musical performance directly into their home. Likewise, a layperson would not necessarily need to possess even basic culinary skills to employ an SFF system to create geometrically complex, multi-material food items. Culinary knowledge and artistic skill of world renowned chefs can be abstracted to a 3D fabrication file and then used by laypeople to reproduce famous chefs' work in the home. Also, expert knowledge of the world's leading nutritionists can be abstracted and encoded in 3D fabrication files to help laypeople eat more healthily, without necessarily having to learn healthy cooking techniques or even understand nutritional principles such as caloric intake and protein balance.

SFF systems could even go one step further, and deliver customized solutions (SFF's core strength) to each user that incorporate the individualized nature of nutritional needs. For example, a layperson may soon be able to upload a report of their daily activity from a pedometer and digital food log, and the SFF system could use expert knowledge to print them a meal that fulfills their particular nutritional needs for the day. While experts can currently offer advice on how to balance a nutritional program, their influence falls short of delivering the end-to-end solution that only SFF system can provide: from personalized design through fabrication.

[Triple Zero]

Actually, that sounds kinda gross.  Though I expect the fast food industry will be thrilled to use them to lay off half their employees.

Fast food industry already uses all the industrial scale technology it can.

It's almost like you have no idea what 3D printing is good for?

Fast food industry produces many of the same thing at a mass scale. They already have expensive devices to create any sort of food in any sort of shape in any sort of combination of materials, as long as they can sell a million of the same thing that comes out of it per day. Think of all the crisps/chips in weird shapes, deep-frozen meat snacks in crazy shapes, pre-packaged meals (you thought that was normal gravy? mash potatoe? cheese? sausage? think again). There's an awesome documentary series on Dutch television in the past couple of years explaining where our industrially processed foods come from*. It's hilarious, from revealing that Kellogg's "Special K" cereal adds non-ionized (metallic) iron to claim "WITH EXTRA IRON" (your body doesn't process it) up to exploding chickens (bought a chick from a huge industrial facility, apparently they're not "designed" to be able to live longer than 4-6 weeks).

ANYWAY I digress.


The point of the 3D printing is for fine culinary applications that want to be able to create something different every single time. Not fast-food. What would they need 3D printers for? Maybe for their research labs.





(* Dunno if you've ever seen "wheat fibre" as an ingredient on "food"? Ever wondered what that is? It looks exactly like pocket fluff, bright white fluffy paper fibres Got no nutritional content whatsoever (it's not bad for you either), it's pushed there with the excuse that "extra fibre in your food is good for your intestines", except this additive does not significantly do so in the amounts it's used (compared to say, vegetables), it's purely there for filling and because it soaks up water so nicely, for even more filling volume. It's used in most cheap sausages, but many other things. I dunno, maybe in the USA it's "corn fibre", cause you make everything out of corn?

[Rumckle]

It's hilarious, from revealing that Kellogg's "Special K" cereal adds non-ionized (metallic) iron to claim "WITH EXTRA IRON" (your body doesn't process it)

There was a simple experiment I did when I was a kid about that. You get a small bag of cereal with lots of iron in it (the metallic kind) and crush it up, then you can separate the iron with a magnet, it's kinda weird to think that you eat that.

[Disco Pickle]

Research into printing human skin with the same technology:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/19/bioprinting.wounded.soldiers/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Researchers are developing a specialized skin "printing" system that could be used in the future to treat soldiers wounded on the battlefield.

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine were inspired by standard inkjet printers found in many home offices.

"We started out by taking a typical desktop inkjet cartridge. Instead of ink we use cells, which are placed in the cartridge," said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the institute.

The device could be used to rebuild damaged or burned skin.

The project is in pre-clinical phases and may take another five years of development before it is ready to be used on human burn victims, he said.

Other universities, including Cornell University and the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, are working on similar projects and will speak on the topic on Sunday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington. These university researchers say organs -- not just skin -- could be printed using similar techniques.

Burn injuries account for 5% to 20% of combat-related injuries, according to the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. The skin printing project is one of several projects at Wake Forest largely funded by that institute, which is a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Wake Forest will receive approximately $50 million from the Defense Department over the next five years to fund projects, including the skin-creating system.

Researchers developed the skin "bio-printer" by modifying a standard store-bought printer. One modification is the addition of a three-dimensional "elevator" that builds on damaged tissue with fresh layers of healthy skin.

The skin-printing process involves several steps. First, a small piece of skin is taken from the patient. The sample is about half the size of a postage stamp, and it is taken from the patient by using a chemical solution.

Those cells are then separated and replicated on their own in a specialized environment that catalyzes this cell development.

"We expand the cells in large quantities. Once we make those new cells, the next step is to put the cells in the printer, on a cartridge, and print on the patient," Atala said.

The printer is then placed over the wound at a distance so that it doesn't touch the burn victim. "It's like a flat-bed scanner that moves back and forth and put cells on you," said Atala.

Once the new cells have been applied, they mature and form new skin.

Specially designed printer heads in the skin bio-printer use pressurized nozzles -- unlike those found in traditional inkjet printers.

The pressure-based delivery system allows for a safe distance between the printer and the patient and can accommodate a variety of body types, according to a 2010 report from the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine.

The device can fabricate healthy skin in anywhere from minutes to a few hours, depending on the size and type of burn, according to the report.

"You are building up the cells layer after layer after layer," Atala said.

Acquiring an adequate sample can be a challenge in victims with extensive burns, he said, since there is sometimes "not enough (skin) to go around with a patient with large burns," Atala said.

The sample biopsy would be used to grow new cells then placed in the printer cartridge, said Atala.

Researchers said it is difficult to speculate when the skin printer may be brought to the battlefield, because of the stringent regulatory steps for a project of this nature. Once the skin-printing device meets federal regulations, military officials are optimistic it will benefit the general population as well as soldiers.

"We're not making anything military-unique," said Terry Irgens, a program director at the U.S Army Medical Materiel Development Activity.

"We hope it will benefit both soldier and civilian," he said.

In the meantime, researchers said they're pleased with results of preliminary laboratory testing with the skin printer.

Atala said the researchers already have been able to make "healthy skin."

now that's just fucking cool.  Reminds me of that scene from The Fifth Element.

[Cramulus]

  that is so cool!

[Requia ☣]

I've been looking at the price of Print on Demand 3d printing.  Some of the materials Shapeways offers are dirt cheap if you need small bits and ends.  Working on my 3d again.

[Cramulus]

HOLY SHIT! I hadn't heard of Shapeways... what a bad ass site!

My roommate is a CG designer, he's a whiz with cad software... oh yes, the gears are turning.

gears like this: http://www.shapeways.com/model/56881/steampunk_d20__3cm_.html?gid=mg

[Luna]

HOLY SHIT! I hadn't heard of Shapeways... what a bad ass site!

My roommate is a CG designer, he's a whiz with cad software... oh yes, the gears are turning.

gears like this: http://www.shapeways.com/model/56881/steampunk_d20__3cm_.html?gid=mg

That is a whole box of awesome.

[Cramulus]

GEORGE JETSON CALLED, HE WANTS HIS REALITY BACK

[Cuddlefish]

HOLY SHIT! I hadn't heard of Shapeways... what a bad ass site!

My roommate is a CG designer, he's a whiz with cad software... oh yes, the gears are turning.

gears like this: http://www.shapeways.com/model/56881/steampunk_d20__3cm_.html?gid=mg

Holy crapz. I want dice! The thorn ones look might neat, as well.

[Luna]

HOLY SHIT! I hadn't heard of Shapeways... what a bad ass site!

My roommate is a CG designer, he's a whiz with cad software... oh yes, the gears are turning.

gears like this: http://www.shapeways.com/model/56881/steampunk_d20__3cm_.html?gid=mg

Holy crapz. I want dice! The thorn ones look might neat, as well.

Once the apartment is done being furnished, I'm thinking dice are next...  And someplace to store all my freakin' miniatures that isn't "in a box behind the couch."

[Requia ☣]

HOLY SHIT! I hadn't heard of Shapeways... what a bad ass site!

My roommate is a CG designer, he's a whiz with cad software... oh yes, the gears are turning.

gears like this: http://www.shapeways.com/model/56881/steampunk_d20__3cm_.html?gid=mg

Holy crapz. I want dice! The thorn ones look might neat, as well.

I'm thinking I might modify the companion cube into a D6 and make copies.

[Disco Pickle]

Any of you spags catch Colbert last night?  He had a guy showcasing a 3d printer design that he said cost around 2100 (I think)

I don't think any other tech has had me this excited for over a decade.

Ram dropping to $1 a MB over the course of just a few years is probably comparable to the awesome factor, but man this thing's got REAL legs and serious potential as a game changer in ways no other tech has for decades.

I'm working out a thread in my head atm that runs along the lines of "3D Home Printing: The New New Shmoo"

I hadn't thought of the Shmoo in years and then LMNO said he wanted to fuck one and suddenly I'm finding them the perfect metaphor for this tech, at least in my head.  I'll post it when I get my thoughts more ordered and coherent.

ETA: http://www.businessinsider.com/makerbot-colbert-2011-6