One life size copy of Britney please...

August 6, 2003 5:25 AM

Printers produce copies in 3D. Z corporation demos 'low-cost' 3D printers at the SIGGRAPH CGI show.
posted by MintSauce (17 comments total)

"Press release" posted to "community weblog" in attempted "viral marketing."
posted by jpburns at 5:28 AM on August 6, 2003

i believe.... rapid prototyping like this already exists. CAD co-ordinates are fed to a machine which uses multiple lasers to focus in at particular points in a 'jar' of unset resin. the focused laser light hardens the resin at particular points allowing the protype to be literally pulled out of the soup.

will look for links.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:50 AM on August 6, 2003

Stereolithography.

although probably does not conform to the 'low cost' of the above.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:54 AM on August 6, 2003

Yeah, systems like these do exist. In university I tinkered at building one for a professor I worked with. This should be a lot cheaper than the technology we were working with. Ours used a plastic compound that could be cured with ultraviolet light. The compound was terribly expensive. There are commercial products available but I think the big deal here is the price point.

There used to be one you could submit designs to for very low cost at either Berkeley or Stanford. Upload your CAD drawings and get back a part. I can't find the URL though, and it's also not operational anyway.
posted by substrate at 5:58 AM on August 6, 2003

Really cool stuff, though not that new. We have a Z-corp machine at work thats used for rapid protoyping. The only problem is that the powder based parts that it prints are extremely fragile and basically only good for show and tell.

Now fused deposition modeling is similar but instead of printing epoxy on a powder layer like the Z-corp, it uses an ABS based plastic to build the layers. These parts You can actually use, and although still brittle last much longer. This is the FDM machine we run now.

On Preview: Frasermoo, your thinking of stereolithography (a term used too broadly sometime but it only pertains to laser setting processes)
posted by Dr_Octavius at 6:01 AM on August 6, 2003

I wonder if anyone has used the office 3-d printer yet to make a reproduction of their butt?
posted by stonerose at 6:42 AM on August 6, 2003

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
posted by UKnowForKids at 6:47 AM on August 6, 2003

I see this as a great tool for making art reproductions, but where do you get a 3D scanner?
posted by PigAlien at 6:51 AM on August 6, 2003

you model something in 3d, then instead of printing a 2d picture of it you print the actual object.
posted by outsider at 7:00 AM on August 6, 2003

I wonder if anyone has used the office 3-d printer yet to make a reproduction of their butt?

Around 2010, office Christmas parties become much more interesting...
posted by RylandDotNet at 7:08 AM on August 6, 2003

Not just a butt: "Karin Sander's 1:10 is a conceptual art project that consists of models of people, fully dressed, rendered at one-tenth life size. Each miniature figure was created by an impersonal three-step process that begins with an elaborate full-body scan. The resulting data file is sent to a modelmaking company, which produces a model using a computer-driven fabricator that sprays out thin layers of plastic resin, each depicting a horizontal cross-section of the subject's body. When the figure is complete, it is sent to an airbrush artist who colors it according to snapshots made at the time of the original scan. The figures display all the rumpled, intense, distant, idiosyncratic qualities of real people, unfiltered by an artist's personality or choices. (At no point in this process is Sander present.) "
posted by shoepal at 8:26 AM on August 6, 2003

This isn't new, but the idea of "one in your house" is. I guess it makes sense. Eventually everything is in your house (like those jet packs, eh!?)

The zcorp system is pretty straight forward and simple. We have one of their units (z405). I like it a lot, but it does have it's limitations.
posted by tomplus2 at 8:39 AM on August 6, 2003

This is something I've been meaning to try for a while, so I've got a (very) small link stash to unload. Quickparts and 3darttopart are a couple of 3d service bureaus that seem to be geared toward smaller one off orders. I haven't used either of them so I can't tell you about their quality or service. And Here's a big page links to all kinds of rapid prototyping hinkfo.

Bathsheeba Grossman makes some interesting mathematical sculptures using these guys.
posted by crumbly at 8:40 AM on August 6, 2003

Lol, UKnowForKids, just sprayed my 'Tea, Early Grey, Hot' acorss my desk laughing ;)
posted by MintSauce at 8:47 AM on August 6, 2003

I wonder if anyone has used the office 3-d printer yet to make a reproduction of their butt?

Around 2010, office Christmas parties become much more interesting...

This has me thinking about a printer that could lay down different materials of varying densities in the same layer: hard bones embedded within gluteus maximi of variable turgidity, cushioned by plastic lipids and covered with pliable skin...

...stonerose scampers off to secret underground lab to fashion Real Ultimate Synthetic Posterior...
posted by stonerose at 8:54 AM on August 6, 2003

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

Sighhhh, I feel like such a dork for getting that.
posted by KnitWit at 11:12 AM on August 6, 2003

but where do you get a 3D scanner?

Here, among others...

I worked on a movie license six or seven years back, and they did full head scans of the cast for us.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 2:00 PM on August 6, 2003