We are seeing an explosion of development of the three-dimensional printing. Three-dimensional printing has existed for 30 years, the market leaders are:
SHAPEWAYS,
Stratasys
New technology takes off in a three-dimensional printing:
Printing organs for transplants http://www.organovo.com/
Printing clothes, food.
Printing houses.
Printing electronics.
I remember when people from 70-80ties were dreaming of traveling at speeds faster than sound. That time there were CONCORDE supersonic aircraft which was flying from London to New York in 2 and a half hours.
Trials were conducted suborbital flights 2 hours flight from London to Sydney, Australia. There were plans to build a permanent base on the moon. Planned flight to Mars. How do these dreams ended we all know.
Flight from London to Sydney, Australia continues today 36H stunning journey of change in Hong Kong. Is the situation of 70-80ties going to reapet? Will the dream of 3D printing come true?
Are we going to print at home - clothes, food, electronics and other everyday usage stuff?
Currently operating three-dimensional printers start at $ 40 000. Cheap 3D printers do not work very well. The printer’s owner needs to handle a lot of knowledge in the creation of three-dimensional objects and hundreds of hours of optimisation.
REP-RAP Printers rig cost after $ 2,000. Truth is however you will not able to use them in effective way.
The leader of the cheap printer is https://www.makerbot.com/.
This printing technology to print FDM liquid plastic.
Printing material is PLA “Polylactic Acid, is a biodegradable plastic” and ABS “acrylonitrile butadiene styrene LEGO"
Commercial Printing 3D is just beginning as before personal computers.
At the moment you can see lot of advantages:
Production of personalized goods tailored to your personal tastes.
Furniture, clothing, electronics houses, etc.
No waste in production.
Instant production, lack of transport of the produced things.
Energy efficient, fully automated process.
There are however disadvantages and risks:
The most serious drawback is the possibility of producing a complete printer by another the same printer. Amplification is a feature of the living structure and it is not a virtual computer virus but reality.
No need for a factory to produce anything.
Unnecessary transportation.
Printing organs from their own stem cells eliminates all sectors of the pharmaceutical companies.
Printing any chemical and biological agents. Threat of biological and chemical terrorism.
The biggest threat is the lack of motivation to make money, everything practically could be available almost immediately.
Do you think that 3D printing will be available in every home in the future?
Do you think that the three-dimensional printing is a threat or an opportunity for modern civilization?
It's a shame, because you've deleted the first post, while I was writing the comment, so I must excuse you, but I will write another one tomorrow
ReplyDeleteSo, here's my comment:
DeleteI think it's a great topic to write about, because it's the future of technology, but I see some things in your presentation I don't really get.
First of all: " Are we going to print at home - clothes, food, electronics and other everyday?" I know it's a question, but how do you imagine we would print clothes? You'll put "cotton liquid and "wool liquid" and you will get a shirt? 3D printers doesn't work that way and I don't think that they would, because why they should? First of all it would far more expensive, secondly I can't imagine how we could create any material, which would imitate natural cotton, wool, etc. I'm not keen on wearing polyester or latex suits. It's ok, but still I don't see a point to have a printer that would produce shirts, rather than buying it for lower price. The same goes with food. You will have to buy same sort ingredients to create food, so why bother to put into printer? To have nice outlook? It's possible, but I hope we won't be forced to do so,
Secondly: "No need for a factory to produce anything. Unnecessary transportation." They'll be producing food from tube, packing it, and delivering to shops (statement mentioned by Piotr Wilk), unless we will invent teleportation.
Moreover: "Printing organs from their own stem cells eliminates all sectors of the pharmaceutical companies." - OK, you'll print new liver and what? If 3D printers would be cheaper, it will make it more affordable - save more lives. How it's a threat? I know that pharmaceutical companies would need to lower thier prices, but I don't think that they're the poor ones. So they'll sell parts or blueprints to create such liver.
Another thing: "Printing any chemical and biological agents. Threat of biological and chemical terrorism." Seriously? How can you connect chemical terrorism with 3D printers? If they have all the ingredients, 3D printer is the least of your concern... They even don't need one to create their weapon!
And last, but not least: "The biggest threat is the lack of motivation to make money, everything practically could be available almost immediately." - so how would you earn money for all the ingredients and actual 3D printer?
I know I may sound like an ass writing this comment in which I'm pointing out things, but I really didn't get it. I know that someone could say that in many years it will be easier, cheaper etc, but I don't think I will live long enough, so that you can show me that I was wrong with my disbelieve.
*disbelief
DeleteI'd really like to hear that printing houses made entirely of concrete is more cost-efficient and at least as solid as traditional ways of building. I would start saving money and start working on software right now. However I've seen this solution only in a few youtube videos and they seemed to be very experimental. I doubt that creators of this technology will give away knowledge about it in public for free. Creating stuff from plastic is fun but I consider it more like gadget than something really beneficial. House printer sounds amazing, but metal printer would be life changing. Creating car parts or whole cars is awesome, but on the other hand I don't think that usual household will be able to afford such machine.
ReplyDeleteBut if ... yes than we would not only have internet of things but also internet full of patterns.
In my opinion 3D-printers will have a significant impact on our future. From time to time we hear what amazing things can be created with the use of 3d-printers and how practical and applicable they are in many fields: medicine, dentistry, architecture, automotive, and even in the construction industry! Furthermore, a number of 3d-printers applications will continually increase/grow.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you mentioned some drawbacks of having 3d-printers and I would like to take the first two under a consideration. You pointed out that the popularity of those devices would cause “no need for a factory to produce anything” and “unnecessary transportation”. For me it equals unequivocally with a serious breaking down of the labour market, with vanishing of various occupations and working places as well as with a collapse of several important industry sectors. This, of course, would affect the development of world’s economies. For example - if you like eating apples then you can imagine how the process of delivering the fruit to you looks like (assuming you do not have your own orchard): someone has to pick it up, someone else has to pack it, and someone else has to bring it to a market to sold. Of course this is just a big simplification, probably it is more complicated and demands a commitment of bigger group of people, but that's not the point now. By this exemplification I wanted to point out that 3D printers let you to create that apple but doing that excludes all these people normally engaged in a whole process of delivering the apple to a costumer. So, if it turns out that the future lies in 3D technology and we will make everything in our homes, than are we sure that we will be able to provide work for people?
It seems like 3D printers is "the next big thing". Although, those kind of machines available, as being mentioned, for quite some time, not yet evolved into something groundbreaking.
ReplyDeletebtw, have you heard about food 3D printers - " print yourself a pizza": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfzcnmDZHzo
Hope, as I said, tech is always a hope, the use of it can be bad or good but I hope that we will find a good way of use for 3d printing
ReplyDelete3D-printing is currently one of the hottest new technologies out there. I do believe it will eventually change everything. For now the digital revolution was mostly about information. In the near future it will start affecting the physical world. Imagine downloading, sharing and collaborating on physical object via the Internet.
ReplyDeleteObviously there will be many people and companies freaking out. Lots of talk about "piracy" of physical objects. People landing in jail for essentially breaking the current business model of big corporations. We've see this already with music and movies, but this will be on a much bigger scale. Hopefully over the time the society will be able to figure stuff out.
As for you remark about "lack of motivation to make money" being the biggest threat - I would love if this was the case. Money is probably necessary right now, but it also brings a lot of problems. I think a world without money would be a wonderful place. But I'm afraid I'm not that optimistic. I'd like this to happen, but I don't think it will.
3d will be in all homes in some time. Probably in foreseeable future. I don’t think this as a threat. It is way more needed than we can now imagine. One assumption needs to be done here. There will be some security settings that will not allow to produce potential threat devices are things. Now we have plotters that can print a very accurate images. You could even print money if you would have appropriate paper… Fortunately there is security system that scans what you want to print on that device and do not allow to copy money I think that if there would be a good security system installed in 3d printer that it would be only a benefit not a threat.
ReplyDeleteAs it was discussed under one of previous posts I also think new technologies are always an opportunity. Everything depends of how it is gonna be used but I believe modern civilisation is always trying to do something for themselves, not against.
ReplyDeleteI'm also of the opinion that 3D printing has big future. The technology seems to be constantly developed and I think it'll be probably much improved in the nearest future.
ReplyDeleteI don't see 3D printing as a threat, rather as an opportunity for our civiization. I think the biggest gain is printing human organs. Thanks to that we may eliminate many life-threatening diseases and increase life expectancy.
3d printer in my opinion, are very useful. Not necessarily as a weapon but as a thing useful. using this machine You can create 3D models and convert them into sculpture. Personally, I can not imagine any other use of these printers than useful things. thanks to this you can create more accurate parts machine and accessories.
ReplyDelete3D printers have unlimited possibilities which may create a hazard in the event of inadequate using them.
ReplyDeleteEven now a lot of dangerous things begin to develop thanks to 3D printers. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey-WyHU0iPU
I think that in the future such printers will be in the most of households.
This is another example of the invention which is currently not available to everyone (as they use a computer, internet, etc).
Normal use of this printer will certainly make life easier but the wrong one can threaten.
Without a doubt 3D printing it's future technology. We as a nation have some accomplishments in that industry:
ReplyDeletehttp://pierwszymilion.forbes.pl/zortrax-wydrukowali-sobie-globalny-sukces-w-3d-,artykuly,176524,1,1.html
3D printing in nearest future is obviously an opportunity for us because we can prototype much faster than before. Its a huge opportunity for engineering.