Legal Research

3D Printing

I have to say that I fell in love with 3D printers the first time I saw them.

Mostly they're pretty bulky but they can take a digital file that describes something that has been desiged to be 3-dimensional and amke a copy of it. Its great for small toys and parts of machines and prototyes and the like.

Anyway, this one was blogged by Cory Doctorow recently and it's called a CandyFab since it makes 3D objects out of sugar.

Candyfab 6000: latest rev of 3D sugar-printer

Here's a picture of one copy:

There's a picture of the machine after the link. It is desktop sized.

I don't know what the library apps are to this but it sure could be fun! In the engineering world and art and design worlds these are used for rapid prototyping of 3D objects.

Hmmm, can you imagine an entire digital collection of 3D objects that you loaned on demand like eBooks can be now?

Maybe this is what a car parts shop is going to look like eventually... just push a button and get the part. It feels so Jetson.

And don't tell me you think it's impossible. Check out more copiers by searching 3d printing or 3d copies on Google.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on June 11, 2009 (boomark / email).