research

3D Printing Spinal Implants

A new era of orthopedic surgery is taking shape at Peking University. Armed with an Electron Beam Melting (EBM) 3D printer, doctors are able to create titanium implants that fit perfectly with a patient’s body. Over the course of the last four years, Dr. Liu Zhongjun has been using EBM 3D printing to develop new… Continue reading 3D Printing Spinal Implants

The Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute

A new initiative has launched, hoping to uncover new 3D printing technological advances. The Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute will operate as a sponsor for selected research projects that address gaps in our knowledge of 3D printing. The program runs during August, much like Google’s Summer of Code program.    The program is hosted by the… Continue reading The Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute

3D Printing Will Be Adopted by K-12 in 5 Years

In a newly released report, the New Media Consortium (NMC) has identified six emerging technologies that could dramatically impact K-12 education. Among the new technologies are: cloud computing, mobile learning, open content, virtual/remote laboratories and, of course, 3D printing.   While the report projects that 3D printing will be among the last technologies to be… Continue reading 3D Printing Will Be Adopted by K-12 in 5 Years

3D Printing Resources

We’ve spent some time updating our 3D resources page. If you haven’t seen it, the page contains our list of key 3D printing resources. Areas of coverage now include lists for:    Do It Yourself Options Hobbyist 3D Printers Commercial 3D Printers Popular 3D Print Services Popular 3D Print Related Books 3D Print Crowdsourcing Notable… Continue reading 3D Printing Resources

MOST Needs Your Help

The Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology Research Group is investigating the mechanical properties of parts produced with RepRap-style 3D printers and they need samples to put through extensive testing.    They require a very large number of samples of “tensile bars” to undergo testing. They say:    We are currently asking for companies/individuals with 3D… Continue reading MOST Needs Your Help

An Interview with the Ceramics Master

We managed to obtain an exclusive interview with one of the world’s leading print researchers, Professor Stephen Hoskins. Professor Hoskins’ group has recently been investigating the potential of 3D printing.    Fabbaloo: You’re the Hewlett Packard Professor of Fine Print and Director of the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of… Continue reading An Interview with the Ceramics Master

3D Printing Electrical Circuit Discovery?

We’re reading about a group of researchers at Stanford who have concocted new gel-like substance that has some very interesting properties. We think the electrically conductive hydrogel created by Stanford Associate Professors Zhenan Bao and Yi Cui could potentially be used in 3D printers, or perhaps a modification of it. At least it’s worth an… Continue reading 3D Printing Electrical Circuit Discovery?

True 3D Scanners for Phones?

Developments at MIT by professor Vivek Goyal may lead to very inexpensive and ubiquitous 3D scanning equipment, perhaps even embedded in your mobile phone. A dream for many 3D printer owners is the ability to capture 3D shapes efficiently. Today one must use very expensive 3D scanners or be satisfied with rudimentary solutions such as… Continue reading True 3D Scanners for Phones?

One Blue Ring

The guys at Open3DP seem to have made a breakthrough in their quest to develop glass-based 3D printing. Every week they seem to make progress, and this week we see a “semi translucent blue glass ring”.    There’s no details on their blog to describe how they managed to create this magical item, but if… Continue reading One Blue Ring

Flying With Objet

Objet 3D printing technology is being used at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering to produce a Robotic Samara – a micro unmanned aerial system (UAS). The school focuses on advanced propulsion, composites and hypersonics for potential alternate modes of flight for military applications:   Micro/Nano Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are… Continue reading Flying With Objet

The MIT Food Printer

MIT’s Fluid Interfaces Group is working on the design of a concept device that if made popular, would revolutionize how we cook, eat and even socialize. The device shown above (and don’t get your hopes up, that’s merely a conceptual image) would store a variety of raw food elements in cartridges. The cartridges would be… Continue reading The MIT Food Printer

Glossy 3D Printing?

New developments are afoot in color sheen printing. Recently researchers at  Adobe Systems and Dartmouth college managed to create an inkjet printer capable of producing reflective surfaces in a variety of colors. Their color thermal printer is “versatile enough to print many metallic inks and foils as well as standard inks.”  One issue they’ve encountered… Continue reading Glossy 3D Printing?

Real-Time 3D Scanning – With a WebCam!

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a breakthrough technique for vastly simplified 3D scanning. The system, called ProFORMA (Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition) uses 3D Delaunay tetrahedralisation to transform scanned points into a 3D surface mesh in real time by merely hand-turning an object in front of a webcam! The video demonstrates… Continue reading Real-Time 3D Scanning – With a WebCam!

3D Printing Market to Hit $782M by 2013?

A recent report by ABI research suggests that the 3D printing market could reach heights of almost USD$800M by 2013. Is this possible? We think so – and here’s why: The number of applications of 3D printing continues to increase. We’ve seen medical, artistic, manufacturing and other uses appear simply due to the creativity of… Continue reading 3D Printing Market to Hit $782M by 2013?

Get Ready for Printed Electronics

We were all quite impressed when the RepRap printer managed to reproduce itself some months ago. But in fact the reproduction was only of its structural members, whereas the metal bits and electronics were not actually reproduced. No worries, it will eventually happen. Metal printing has emerged in several 3D print services, but what about… Continue reading Get Ready for Printed Electronics

Glass Printing

We’ve seen many different materials being used as the print medium for 3D printers, including the obvious (titanium, wax, plastic) and a few rather bizarre ones (paper, nutella, pasta and sugar), but we haven’t really noticed Glass yet. Until now. According to PhysOrg.com news: A team of engineers and artists working at the University of… Continue reading Glass Printing

Surface Saturation

Tim Pickup posted a very interesting report on investigations taking place at the Centre for Fine Art Print Research in Bristol, UK. In addition to ideas regarding advanced scanning, modeling and the printing of “impossible” objects such as Klein Bottles, one item caught our eyes: surface quality. Some of the highlights:   The researchers apparently… Continue reading Surface Saturation

Super Paper 3D Printing?

New Scientist reports on a very intriguing development involving plain paper. Researchers at the Swedish Royal Instititue of Technology have produced a very strong paper product by leveraging nanofibres that naturally occur in cellulose – a material available virtually everywhere. Conventional paper production involves destruction of these nanofibres, but the Swedish research crew developed a… Continue reading Super Paper 3D Printing?

MPP: Metal Printing Process

A interesting article appeared this week describing a new approach to 3D printing being undertaken in Europe by Norwegian research institute Sintef. The process attempts to use powdered metals “based on the process principles of xerographic printers”. This additive process works very similar to that photocopier machine down the hall: by changing the electrostatic properties… Continue reading MPP: Metal Printing Process

3D CSI?

We’ve all seen those amazing police sketch artists who transform vague witness accounts into highly realistic portraits, often featured in “WANTED” posters. More recently artists have used manual techniques to create lifelike head and face models by applying clay “muscles” and “skin” to casts of skulls. Today we see the same function accomplished with 3D… Continue reading 3D CSI?

12,616 Lenses for your Camera

We’re not sure where this one is going, but a very interesting optical development may eventually result in astounding 3D scanning technology. A group from Stanford University has developed a unique optical camera concept. While a typical camera may have a 3MB pixel digital sensor, they want to modify it to contain a separate lens… Continue reading 12,616 Lenses for your Camera