| | | Sorry for the delay, deeno. I've been waiting for inspiration which results in using different words to say the same thing, and nothing is coming. -g-
Everyone in their own field of interest whether actual employer funded or self-funded is primarily in an experimental mode related to their field of interest. Still. After 30 years of knowledge about this 3D world. Primarily the masses have been unleashed do to the expiring of patents fueling the rush to mfgr machines and feed the dream of the super-ap.
A lot of these 3D applications are awkward, need tweaking, the equipment is glitchy, nothing is off the shelf ready at the low end (below $5K). The polygonal software is constantly being upgraded in the open systems world which operates the slicers as the builder community is demanding more and more control over print profile variables that boggle the mind.
The media costs are outsized to the usefulness of the end product printed. Waste is tremendous. Any glitch during use, whether from poor design or dirty electricity scraps hours and hours of buildtime and the botched print ends up in the "landfill."
The guys in the backrooms networking with each other in their peer group are still pretty much building pieces related to gaming industry. Few are post finishing anything they build, it's always on to the next experiement.
I've watched architects struggle with external textures, fit of interior and exterior walls, roofs, skylights. They look bewilderedly forward and reach back for familiar older tools of their modeling craft.
This technology is creating more problems than it is solving by existing in the first place. I see no breakthroughs nor super-ap on the intermediate horizon.
3D printing has been around since the mid-80s, and we've heard nothing yet in the way of a super ap, it's now 30yrs later, no one has come up with anything particularly useful on a mass scale. Designers/rapid prototypers (vs the old sculpted in clay and then reproduced--think Detroit Car Model) are shaving time off their externally imposed, project deadlines from their controllers/marketers, but that is hardly hard-core stuff of "super aps."
Even in the prosthesis application field, there is promise of delivering "custom human replacement parts restoring mobility, dignity and functionality", true. But, there are few who can in 3D building equipment now, on the small scale required, at reasonable print costs, those prototypes, let alone attractive models.
I don't see it changing anytime soon. Maybe super ap is the goal, but it doesn't look like that is the primary focus of builders now. 3-D printing genre is exceedingly fragmented and resembles highschool science faire initiatives and hopeful, pimpled, collective of idealism driven teenagers' exhibitions.
The most remarkable thing seen recently are printers who can whip out carbon fiber prints. How many of those items composed of that filiament basis do we need as a society?
Seems to be a field more enamoured with the idea than the throughput.
Does any of this connect?
JUST MY MOST HUMBLE OPINION. Your mileage may vary. |
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