Richard Smith needed to build a wall-climbing robot for a customer -- so
he printed one. Smith, director of Smith Engineering Gb Ltd., used
a CAD program to design a 3D model of the
WallRover, a dual-track roving robot with a
spinning rotor in the chassis that creates enough
suction to hold the device to a wall. He then sent
the design file for each component to a 3D printer, which sliced the objects into sections less than
1/100th of an inch thick by printing it, one layer
at a time, using molten ABS plastic as the "ink." As a 3D printer begins fabricating an object, each
layer gets fused or glued to the previous one and
the product gradually gets built up. Under the
hood, 3D printers use a variety of different
fabrication techniques, several of which are
based on ink-jet technology, and can use many different types of "build" materials to print three-
dimensional objects. (To learn more about the
different types of 3D printers, check out our comparison chart.) Before buying a 3D printer, Smith would send its
designs to a service bureau for fabrication, and
parts took three or four days to turn around. Had
Smith used a service bureau for the WallRover
project -- which went through 22 design
iterations -- it would have taken six months to complete, Smith says. Smith Engineering used an inexpensive 3D printer
to build the ABS plastic parts for its wall-climbing
robot prototype for client WallRover Instead, Smith was able to get a final design and
fully functional prototype to the client within two
weeks. And he did it using a consumer-grade 3D "plastic
jet printer" that he built from a kit. The RapMan, from 3D Systems' Bits From Bytes division, cost
just $1,500. Smith spent another $180 for plastic
filament -- the "ink" consumed by the printer. "It
saved five months of development time and
somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000 to
$20,000 in models" that were created in-house instead of being sent to a service bureau, he says. Smaller and cheaper 3D printing isn't new. The manufacturing technique known today as 3D printing, also called
additive manufacturing or direct digital
manufacturing, has been used for rapid
prototyping for decades. But over the last 24
months, prices have dropped to a level that
makes it appealing to a wider audience. The technology is more compact, particularly in
the plastic jet-printing category. Cathy Lewis, vice
president of global marketing at printer
manufacturer 3D Systems Inc., says today's
models are "ideal" for personal use. 3D design gets easier It's relatively easy to use a free tool such as
Google SketchUp to create simple objects for 3D
printing. But for complex shapes and geometries,
designers still reach for professional modeling
tools like SolidWorks. "Visualization software such as Google's
SketchUp provides a fast entry route" to 3D
computer-aided design (CAD), says Nick Grace,
manager of RapidformRCA, which acts as a 3D
printing service bureau for students at the Royal
College of Art in London and uses many different software design tools and 3D printer
technologies. But, he adds, "the shortcuts made by these tools
are not allowed for in the 3D printer's slicing
routine." For example, some software may not
fully render elements of an object that aren't
needed from a particular viewpoint. That causes
problems when the file is sent to the 3D printer. "We still regularly get unbuildable surface files or
haphazardly constructed and translated data from
files that render a perfectly coherent image," he
says. In other words, they look fine on screen but
won't print correctly. Professional solid modeling tools do better job,
but usually require specialized training and
expertise. "The products today are pretty difficult
to use," admits Gonzalo Martinez, director of
strategic research at Autodesk. CAD software makers are addressing the 3D
content creation challenge in three ways: By
introducing easier-to-use solid modeling tools for
3D content creation, by offering libraries of 3D
objects that give users a head start on a design
and by using specialized software such as Autodesk's 123D Photofly. This tool can combine a series of photographs of an object, taken from
all sides, into a usable 3D model -- a process
known as photogrammetry. Professional tool developers are working "to
make complex operations more simple," says
Martinez. "Things that require training today you
will be able to do with little training to create
complex geometries." For example, Autodesk 123D, a free tool for CAD
novices, is a much-simplified version of the
vendor's professional tools. Other products, such as Rhino, a $995 program from McNeel, are edging closer to that middle
ground between complexity and capability. "It is
a high-end surface/mesh modeler, but has
accessible controls and an excellent context-
sensitive help with video clips," says Grace. "We are still some way off the point when a
novice can draw, model and print without help
from a specialist," Grace says, "But that day will
come." But creating a printable 3D object can be tricky.
Designs created in a CAD program need to be
"water tight," or complete. "All surfaces have to
be closed and lie on top of each other or you get
holes in your part," says Jon Cobb, vice president
of marketing at 3D printer vendor Stratasys. The design then needs to be exported to a
standard file format 3D printers can use, most
often the stereolithography (STL) format,
originally developed by 3D Systems, that has
become a de-facto industry standard. Until recently, the quality of STL files produced by
CAD programs wasn't sufficient for 3D printing
and required additional cleanup. But, Cobb says,
that problem has largely gone away in
professional solid modeling tools such as
AutoCAD or SolidWorks. (Consumer-oriented design tools are a different story; see sidebar at
left.) Even so, Pete Basiliere, an analyst at Gartner who
covers 3D printing, doesn't see consumers using
the technology for personal printing of unique,
one-off household items. "What's inhibiting
consumer use is cost. It's too expensive for most
people." Instead, he says, service bureaus may step in to fill those needs. Another issue is that some objects need to have
supports added so they don't collapse or sag
before the materials fully harden. If an object
needs to be supported during the printing
process, the pre-processing driver software that
comes with the 3D printer makes that determination and automatically adds any needed
structural supports to the design. Before printing this figure, an artist cleaned up
the image, and extended the weapon and cape to
the base on which the figure stands to provide
additional support. When a figure first comes out
of the printer, it is quite fragile, so support
material must be removed carefully to avoid breaking off fine details such as fingertips. The support material is usually different from the
build material, and must be removed during a
post-processing step that typically involves
blowing off, breaking off, dissolving, melting or
cutting away the unwanted material. Price is right Declining prices, improved quality and easier to
use software are opening up demand for 3D
printers. Commercial models -- capable of
cranking out industrial manufacturing prototypes
-- that once cost $100,000 now start at about
$15,000, while personal 3D printers for the hobbyist and education market sell for less than
$1,500. "It used to be a six- or seven-figure cost," says
Gartner's Basiliere. Among industrial offerings, higher-end models
add features such as the ability to print colors
(although most can only print one color at a time),
to run jobs faster, to print thinner layers for finer
detail and to offer a larger printable area for
creating larger objects. For industrial designers doing prototyping, even
an entry-level 3D printer is faster than going to a
service bureau, and operating costs can come in
as low as one-tenth of service bureau rates. The
prices of 3D printers are now low enough to
justify in departmental budgets, says Gartner's Basiliere. Manufacturers, such as automakers, have
traditionally used 3D printers in a lab or as part of
a separate internal "service bureau," says Terry
Wohlers, principal consultant and president of
Wohlers Associates Inc., which tracks the 3D
printing market. Now they are showing up in corporate offices, where they sit on the network
like any other networked printer. "Because
they're more affordable, now they're spread all
across General Motors and Chrysler," he says. Other industries use the technology, too. Ben
White uses a 3D printer from Z Corp. to produce
prototypes of window curtain poles, tracks,
blinds and other hardware for Integra Products
Ltd. "It's more economical to lease a printer than it
is to keep sending products out for fabrication," says White, senior product design engineer.
"We're at 10 to 15% of the cost of the service
bureau," he says, the turnaround is faster and the
models are more accurately rendered to the
original design specifications. After six months
the company is using the printer to produce 95% of its prototypes. Hewlett-Packard's DesignJet 3D printer is available
only in Europe. Others report similar savings. By using an HP
DesignJet for rapid prototyping, Tintometer Ltd.
sped up its product development times by 40% to
60%, says industrial designer Amy Penn. And the
company, which manufactures industrial
instruments that measure color, also uses the 3D printer to build finished products. The DesignJet builds testing jigs that calibrate
components before they're inserted into the final
instrument during the manufacturing process.
The parts more precisely meet the original
specifications compared to what Tintometer was
able to get from a service bureau, and are just as sturdy and a lot cheaper, says Penn. The 3D
printer also made it cost effective to print concept
parts that sales people can show to customers.
"The ROI was about six months," she says. Penn did not disclose what she paid, but she has
the DesignJet 3D color unit, which sells for 16,200
Euros, or about $21,000 U.S. The monochrome
version of the DesignJet 3D printer sells for
12,500 Euros. In terms of shipments, the market for 3D printers
remains relatively small. Unit shipments for
professional use grew at a compound annual rate
of 37% in 2010, according to Wohlers. This
includes usage by industrial engineers, architects,
engineers in traditional markets such as aerospace, consumer products, electronics, tool
makers and other manufacturing concerns. But
that 2010 growth amounted to just 6,164 units --
a tiny fraction of the 2D printer market. In 2010
there were over 44 million traditional printers
shipped worldwide, according to IDC. With only 51,000 3D printers sold worldwide
since 1988 and 2.7 million solid modeling CAD
seats worldwide, Wohlers estimates that there's
plenty of room for growth. By 2015, Wohlers
expects, shipments of industrial 3D printers will
more than double to 15,000 units. The potential for growth is one reason why
Hewlett Packard dipped a toe in the water with
the introduction of the DesignJet 3D, which HP
sells only in Europe. The printer is a re-branded
version of market leader Stratasys' uPrint 3D
printer. Objects made easy Although they lack the capabilities of professional
solid-modeling tools, all of the tools below can
generate printable 3D objects -- and they're free. Google SketchUp Autodesk 123D TinkerCAD 3DTin Hobbyist Market A growing hobbyist market has also developed
for 3D printers; people use the technology to
make everything from toys to drawer pulls. Free
3D modeling tools for hobbyists (see sidebar at
right) make the creation process easier, while
companies such as MakerBot Industries, LLC provide low-cost plastic extrusion, or plastic jet
printers. Manufacturers also offer libraries of
preconfigured objects that users can work with.
For example, MakerBot offers Thingiverse, a website where users can share objects they've
created. Autodesk 123D offers a similar community. Many personal 3D printers go to educational
institutions, rather than homes. "We want to get
these into the hands of kids," says MakerBot CEO
Bre Pettis. "It gives them access to the raw power
of innovation." Unfortunately, simple 3D design software for
home hobbyists isn't suitable for professional use,
and professional tools are still quite complicated
to use. That leaves a big gap between consumers
and industrial designers. "Today you need to be
an expert CAD user to create digital content, or you need a fancy scanner to capture 3D geometry
of an object you want to print," says Lewis at 3D
Systems. The MakerBot 3D printer, which sells for $1,500,
makes 3D objects by applying successive layers
of molten ABS plastic. While designed for the
home/hobby market, professional designers are
finding the devices usable for some commercial
applications. For example, Smith Engineering used a similar product to build and assemble the parts
for a commercial robot prototype. In 2010, 3D printer vendors shipped 5,978
personal 3D printers -- almost as many as sold
into the professional market. But Wohlers doubts
that a broad do-it-yourself at-home market will
develop for personal 3D printers. The bigger market, he says, will be the
emergence of on-demand manufacturers that use
industrial 3D printers or personal 3D printers that
cost from $500 to $5,000. They will produce
unique one-off or small-quantity items tailored to
consumers or businesses that don't want bother with designing and printing items for themselves,
Wohlers says. Gartner predicts that the price for professional 3D
printers that now sell for $15,000 will decline to
about $2,500 by 2020 and will deliver better
performance and more features. But ultimately,
says Basiliere, "From the manufacturer's
perspective it's not the sale price of the printer but the sale of the supplies that matters most."
Average consumables costs for 3D printers range
from $2.50 to $10 per cubic inch, according to
Basiliere. Small-business manufacturing The emergence of low-cost 3D printing lowers
the bar for some types of manufacturing.
"Companies and individuals with design talent
and business savvy can start a business and start
manufacturing products," Wohlers says. After seeing what a 3D printer could do, Ed Fries,
the former vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, started up FigurePrints, which uses Z
Corp.'s ZPrinter machines to create one-of-a kind
models of personal avatars for World of Warcraft
and Xbox Live game enthusiasts. FigurePrints downloads the characters directly
from each game site, and lets users pose them
before placing an order. An artist then cleans up
the object, smoothing away the series of
polygons that describe the figure and adding a
third dimension to some 2D elements of the image, such as a cape and hair. Fries chose Z Corp.'s ZPrinter because it is the only
3D printer on the market that supports full-color
printing. That is, it can print an object using
multiple colors. He considered more traditional manufacturing
techniques, such as a resin-cast process designed
for low-volume production. "But you can't hand
paint to the resolution we get, which is 600 dpi,"
he says, and it cost more. That's a key advantage of the full-color ink-jet
printing approach, says Z Corp. CEO John Kawola.
"Because we use ink jet heads you can print a
bottle with all of the label graphics and text on it." By using full-color printing, Z Corp.'s ZPrinter can
fabricate a product bottle prototype complete
with the label and text.While plastic jet printers
heat and extrude ABS plastic through an
"extrusion head" that looks like a syringe or glue
gun, Z Corp.'s ZPrinter builds a 3D object by spreading a thin layer of a powder and then
using an ink-jet print head to selectively deposit a
liquid that hardens it. As the layers build up, the unused powder that
surrounds the object serves as a support. Once
the item is finished, it goes to a cleaning station
where a technician uses compressed air to
remove the powder residue. The composite
material, which has a polymer component, isn't as strong as ABS plastic, so FigurePrints dips each in
a glue solution that hardens the material. Even using the hardener solution, the final
product isn't nearly as strong as injection-molded
ABS plastic. Initially some characters, which
tended to have overdeveloped upper torsos but
thin ankles, snapped off the base during
shipment. So artists take some license with images, in some cases thickening ankles or
extending a cape or weapon to the base to add
support. "The texture and appearance of the finished
product is OK, but isn't to the standard of a plastic
injection-molded action figure you would buy at
the store," Fries admits. The colors aren't as bright, and the finished
product has a texture that Fries describes as
somewhat "chalky." But it works fine for models
that ship in a glass display case, and the price is
right: It costs about $5 per cubic inch to print a
figure, not including pre- and post-processing time. 3D printers compared For the full chart, go here. FigurePrints sells the characters for about $15 per
cubic inch -- and users seem willing to pay. "A
common request is for wedding cake toppers,"
Fries says. "Couples meet in the games and want
their characters on top of the wedding cake." Smith also likes the idea of using 3D printers for
one-off or limited run manufacturing. "We can do
small-scale production -- tens of units -- without
spending the money on expensive injection-
molding tools," he says. But the printer works
slowly, producing up to about four runs a day. FigurePrints gets about two products per day
from each of its printers. "If you're trying to manufacture with these
machines, throughput is everything," Wohlers
says. Using 3D printers successfully in a
manufacturing setting will require better
automation of both pre-processing and post-
processing steps. This ABS plastic hand vacuum was printed on a
Stratasys uPrint 3D printer using fuse deposition
modeling, a process that involves heating a plastic
filament until it liquefies and sending it through a
special syringe-like print head that extrudes it. Cobb says Stratasys expects to cut total pre- and
post-processing time for a typical print job in half,
from 5 hours today to about 2.5 hours within the
next three years, and for prices to drop from
today's $15,000 for its entry-level professional
printer to between $7,000 and $10,000 in that same timeframe. "In three to five years you will
have the same capabilities for under $5,000," he
says. In the personal printer space, says Lewis at 3D
Systems, prices will drop even further. "In the
next year or two you will see us go past the
$1,000 mark. In two years we'll be close to $500,"
she says. How much the market will grow as prices
continue to drop, and whether a mass market
will ever emerge, is an open question. But as
easy-to-use 3D design tools get better, and as
shared 3D object libraries gain in size and
sophistication, businesses and consumers may come up with new applications for the
technology that haven't yet been envisioned. "3D
printing is where the semiconductor business
was in the 1960s," Wohlers says. "We know it is
going to be big but we don't know how big."
copyright pcworld
he printed one. Smith, director of Smith Engineering Gb Ltd., used
a CAD program to design a 3D model of the
WallRover, a dual-track roving robot with a
spinning rotor in the chassis that creates enough
suction to hold the device to a wall. He then sent
the design file for each component to a 3D printer, which sliced the objects into sections less than
1/100th of an inch thick by printing it, one layer
at a time, using molten ABS plastic as the "ink." As a 3D printer begins fabricating an object, each
layer gets fused or glued to the previous one and
the product gradually gets built up. Under the
hood, 3D printers use a variety of different
fabrication techniques, several of which are
based on ink-jet technology, and can use many different types of "build" materials to print three-
dimensional objects. (To learn more about the
different types of 3D printers, check out our comparison chart.) Before buying a 3D printer, Smith would send its
designs to a service bureau for fabrication, and
parts took three or four days to turn around. Had
Smith used a service bureau for the WallRover
project -- which went through 22 design
iterations -- it would have taken six months to complete, Smith says. Smith Engineering used an inexpensive 3D printer
to build the ABS plastic parts for its wall-climbing
robot prototype for client WallRover Instead, Smith was able to get a final design and
fully functional prototype to the client within two
weeks. And he did it using a consumer-grade 3D "plastic
jet printer" that he built from a kit. The RapMan, from 3D Systems' Bits From Bytes division, cost
just $1,500. Smith spent another $180 for plastic
filament -- the "ink" consumed by the printer. "It
saved five months of development time and
somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000 to
$20,000 in models" that were created in-house instead of being sent to a service bureau, he says. Smaller and cheaper 3D printing isn't new. The manufacturing technique known today as 3D printing, also called
additive manufacturing or direct digital
manufacturing, has been used for rapid
prototyping for decades. But over the last 24
months, prices have dropped to a level that
makes it appealing to a wider audience. The technology is more compact, particularly in
the plastic jet-printing category. Cathy Lewis, vice
president of global marketing at printer
manufacturer 3D Systems Inc., says today's
models are "ideal" for personal use. 3D design gets easier It's relatively easy to use a free tool such as
Google SketchUp to create simple objects for 3D
printing. But for complex shapes and geometries,
designers still reach for professional modeling
tools like SolidWorks. "Visualization software such as Google's
SketchUp provides a fast entry route" to 3D
computer-aided design (CAD), says Nick Grace,
manager of RapidformRCA, which acts as a 3D
printing service bureau for students at the Royal
College of Art in London and uses many different software design tools and 3D printer
technologies. But, he adds, "the shortcuts made by these tools
are not allowed for in the 3D printer's slicing
routine." For example, some software may not
fully render elements of an object that aren't
needed from a particular viewpoint. That causes
problems when the file is sent to the 3D printer. "We still regularly get unbuildable surface files or
haphazardly constructed and translated data from
files that render a perfectly coherent image," he
says. In other words, they look fine on screen but
won't print correctly. Professional solid modeling tools do better job,
but usually require specialized training and
expertise. "The products today are pretty difficult
to use," admits Gonzalo Martinez, director of
strategic research at Autodesk. CAD software makers are addressing the 3D
content creation challenge in three ways: By
introducing easier-to-use solid modeling tools for
3D content creation, by offering libraries of 3D
objects that give users a head start on a design
and by using specialized software such as Autodesk's 123D Photofly. This tool can combine a series of photographs of an object, taken from
all sides, into a usable 3D model -- a process
known as photogrammetry. Professional tool developers are working "to
make complex operations more simple," says
Martinez. "Things that require training today you
will be able to do with little training to create
complex geometries." For example, Autodesk 123D, a free tool for CAD
novices, is a much-simplified version of the
vendor's professional tools. Other products, such as Rhino, a $995 program from McNeel, are edging closer to that middle
ground between complexity and capability. "It is
a high-end surface/mesh modeler, but has
accessible controls and an excellent context-
sensitive help with video clips," says Grace. "We are still some way off the point when a
novice can draw, model and print without help
from a specialist," Grace says, "But that day will
come." But creating a printable 3D object can be tricky.
Designs created in a CAD program need to be
"water tight," or complete. "All surfaces have to
be closed and lie on top of each other or you get
holes in your part," says Jon Cobb, vice president
of marketing at 3D printer vendor Stratasys. The design then needs to be exported to a
standard file format 3D printers can use, most
often the stereolithography (STL) format,
originally developed by 3D Systems, that has
become a de-facto industry standard. Until recently, the quality of STL files produced by
CAD programs wasn't sufficient for 3D printing
and required additional cleanup. But, Cobb says,
that problem has largely gone away in
professional solid modeling tools such as
AutoCAD or SolidWorks. (Consumer-oriented design tools are a different story; see sidebar at
left.) Even so, Pete Basiliere, an analyst at Gartner who
covers 3D printing, doesn't see consumers using
the technology for personal printing of unique,
one-off household items. "What's inhibiting
consumer use is cost. It's too expensive for most
people." Instead, he says, service bureaus may step in to fill those needs. Another issue is that some objects need to have
supports added so they don't collapse or sag
before the materials fully harden. If an object
needs to be supported during the printing
process, the pre-processing driver software that
comes with the 3D printer makes that determination and automatically adds any needed
structural supports to the design. Before printing this figure, an artist cleaned up
the image, and extended the weapon and cape to
the base on which the figure stands to provide
additional support. When a figure first comes out
of the printer, it is quite fragile, so support
material must be removed carefully to avoid breaking off fine details such as fingertips. The support material is usually different from the
build material, and must be removed during a
post-processing step that typically involves
blowing off, breaking off, dissolving, melting or
cutting away the unwanted material. Price is right Declining prices, improved quality and easier to
use software are opening up demand for 3D
printers. Commercial models -- capable of
cranking out industrial manufacturing prototypes
-- that once cost $100,000 now start at about
$15,000, while personal 3D printers for the hobbyist and education market sell for less than
$1,500. "It used to be a six- or seven-figure cost," says
Gartner's Basiliere. Among industrial offerings, higher-end models
add features such as the ability to print colors
(although most can only print one color at a time),
to run jobs faster, to print thinner layers for finer
detail and to offer a larger printable area for
creating larger objects. For industrial designers doing prototyping, even
an entry-level 3D printer is faster than going to a
service bureau, and operating costs can come in
as low as one-tenth of service bureau rates. The
prices of 3D printers are now low enough to
justify in departmental budgets, says Gartner's Basiliere. Manufacturers, such as automakers, have
traditionally used 3D printers in a lab or as part of
a separate internal "service bureau," says Terry
Wohlers, principal consultant and president of
Wohlers Associates Inc., which tracks the 3D
printing market. Now they are showing up in corporate offices, where they sit on the network
like any other networked printer. "Because
they're more affordable, now they're spread all
across General Motors and Chrysler," he says. Other industries use the technology, too. Ben
White uses a 3D printer from Z Corp. to produce
prototypes of window curtain poles, tracks,
blinds and other hardware for Integra Products
Ltd. "It's more economical to lease a printer than it
is to keep sending products out for fabrication," says White, senior product design engineer.
"We're at 10 to 15% of the cost of the service
bureau," he says, the turnaround is faster and the
models are more accurately rendered to the
original design specifications. After six months
the company is using the printer to produce 95% of its prototypes. Hewlett-Packard's DesignJet 3D printer is available
only in Europe. Others report similar savings. By using an HP
DesignJet for rapid prototyping, Tintometer Ltd.
sped up its product development times by 40% to
60%, says industrial designer Amy Penn. And the
company, which manufactures industrial
instruments that measure color, also uses the 3D printer to build finished products. The DesignJet builds testing jigs that calibrate
components before they're inserted into the final
instrument during the manufacturing process.
The parts more precisely meet the original
specifications compared to what Tintometer was
able to get from a service bureau, and are just as sturdy and a lot cheaper, says Penn. The 3D
printer also made it cost effective to print concept
parts that sales people can show to customers.
"The ROI was about six months," she says. Penn did not disclose what she paid, but she has
the DesignJet 3D color unit, which sells for 16,200
Euros, or about $21,000 U.S. The monochrome
version of the DesignJet 3D printer sells for
12,500 Euros. In terms of shipments, the market for 3D printers
remains relatively small. Unit shipments for
professional use grew at a compound annual rate
of 37% in 2010, according to Wohlers. This
includes usage by industrial engineers, architects,
engineers in traditional markets such as aerospace, consumer products, electronics, tool
makers and other manufacturing concerns. But
that 2010 growth amounted to just 6,164 units --
a tiny fraction of the 2D printer market. In 2010
there were over 44 million traditional printers
shipped worldwide, according to IDC. With only 51,000 3D printers sold worldwide
since 1988 and 2.7 million solid modeling CAD
seats worldwide, Wohlers estimates that there's
plenty of room for growth. By 2015, Wohlers
expects, shipments of industrial 3D printers will
more than double to 15,000 units. The potential for growth is one reason why
Hewlett Packard dipped a toe in the water with
the introduction of the DesignJet 3D, which HP
sells only in Europe. The printer is a re-branded
version of market leader Stratasys' uPrint 3D
printer. Objects made easy Although they lack the capabilities of professional
solid-modeling tools, all of the tools below can
generate printable 3D objects -- and they're free. Google SketchUp Autodesk 123D TinkerCAD 3DTin Hobbyist Market A growing hobbyist market has also developed
for 3D printers; people use the technology to
make everything from toys to drawer pulls. Free
3D modeling tools for hobbyists (see sidebar at
right) make the creation process easier, while
companies such as MakerBot Industries, LLC provide low-cost plastic extrusion, or plastic jet
printers. Manufacturers also offer libraries of
preconfigured objects that users can work with.
For example, MakerBot offers Thingiverse, a website where users can share objects they've
created. Autodesk 123D offers a similar community. Many personal 3D printers go to educational
institutions, rather than homes. "We want to get
these into the hands of kids," says MakerBot CEO
Bre Pettis. "It gives them access to the raw power
of innovation." Unfortunately, simple 3D design software for
home hobbyists isn't suitable for professional use,
and professional tools are still quite complicated
to use. That leaves a big gap between consumers
and industrial designers. "Today you need to be
an expert CAD user to create digital content, or you need a fancy scanner to capture 3D geometry
of an object you want to print," says Lewis at 3D
Systems. The MakerBot 3D printer, which sells for $1,500,
makes 3D objects by applying successive layers
of molten ABS plastic. While designed for the
home/hobby market, professional designers are
finding the devices usable for some commercial
applications. For example, Smith Engineering used a similar product to build and assemble the parts
for a commercial robot prototype. In 2010, 3D printer vendors shipped 5,978
personal 3D printers -- almost as many as sold
into the professional market. But Wohlers doubts
that a broad do-it-yourself at-home market will
develop for personal 3D printers. The bigger market, he says, will be the
emergence of on-demand manufacturers that use
industrial 3D printers or personal 3D printers that
cost from $500 to $5,000. They will produce
unique one-off or small-quantity items tailored to
consumers or businesses that don't want bother with designing and printing items for themselves,
Wohlers says. Gartner predicts that the price for professional 3D
printers that now sell for $15,000 will decline to
about $2,500 by 2020 and will deliver better
performance and more features. But ultimately,
says Basiliere, "From the manufacturer's
perspective it's not the sale price of the printer but the sale of the supplies that matters most."
Average consumables costs for 3D printers range
from $2.50 to $10 per cubic inch, according to
Basiliere. Small-business manufacturing The emergence of low-cost 3D printing lowers
the bar for some types of manufacturing.
"Companies and individuals with design talent
and business savvy can start a business and start
manufacturing products," Wohlers says. After seeing what a 3D printer could do, Ed Fries,
the former vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, started up FigurePrints, which uses Z
Corp.'s ZPrinter machines to create one-of-a kind
models of personal avatars for World of Warcraft
and Xbox Live game enthusiasts. FigurePrints downloads the characters directly
from each game site, and lets users pose them
before placing an order. An artist then cleans up
the object, smoothing away the series of
polygons that describe the figure and adding a
third dimension to some 2D elements of the image, such as a cape and hair. Fries chose Z Corp.'s ZPrinter because it is the only
3D printer on the market that supports full-color
printing. That is, it can print an object using
multiple colors. He considered more traditional manufacturing
techniques, such as a resin-cast process designed
for low-volume production. "But you can't hand
paint to the resolution we get, which is 600 dpi,"
he says, and it cost more. That's a key advantage of the full-color ink-jet
printing approach, says Z Corp. CEO John Kawola.
"Because we use ink jet heads you can print a
bottle with all of the label graphics and text on it." By using full-color printing, Z Corp.'s ZPrinter can
fabricate a product bottle prototype complete
with the label and text.While plastic jet printers
heat and extrude ABS plastic through an
"extrusion head" that looks like a syringe or glue
gun, Z Corp.'s ZPrinter builds a 3D object by spreading a thin layer of a powder and then
using an ink-jet print head to selectively deposit a
liquid that hardens it. As the layers build up, the unused powder that
surrounds the object serves as a support. Once
the item is finished, it goes to a cleaning station
where a technician uses compressed air to
remove the powder residue. The composite
material, which has a polymer component, isn't as strong as ABS plastic, so FigurePrints dips each in
a glue solution that hardens the material. Even using the hardener solution, the final
product isn't nearly as strong as injection-molded
ABS plastic. Initially some characters, which
tended to have overdeveloped upper torsos but
thin ankles, snapped off the base during
shipment. So artists take some license with images, in some cases thickening ankles or
extending a cape or weapon to the base to add
support. "The texture and appearance of the finished
product is OK, but isn't to the standard of a plastic
injection-molded action figure you would buy at
the store," Fries admits. The colors aren't as bright, and the finished
product has a texture that Fries describes as
somewhat "chalky." But it works fine for models
that ship in a glass display case, and the price is
right: It costs about $5 per cubic inch to print a
figure, not including pre- and post-processing time. 3D printers compared For the full chart, go here. FigurePrints sells the characters for about $15 per
cubic inch -- and users seem willing to pay. "A
common request is for wedding cake toppers,"
Fries says. "Couples meet in the games and want
their characters on top of the wedding cake." Smith also likes the idea of using 3D printers for
one-off or limited run manufacturing. "We can do
small-scale production -- tens of units -- without
spending the money on expensive injection-
molding tools," he says. But the printer works
slowly, producing up to about four runs a day. FigurePrints gets about two products per day
from each of its printers. "If you're trying to manufacture with these
machines, throughput is everything," Wohlers
says. Using 3D printers successfully in a
manufacturing setting will require better
automation of both pre-processing and post-
processing steps. This ABS plastic hand vacuum was printed on a
Stratasys uPrint 3D printer using fuse deposition
modeling, a process that involves heating a plastic
filament until it liquefies and sending it through a
special syringe-like print head that extrudes it. Cobb says Stratasys expects to cut total pre- and
post-processing time for a typical print job in half,
from 5 hours today to about 2.5 hours within the
next three years, and for prices to drop from
today's $15,000 for its entry-level professional
printer to between $7,000 and $10,000 in that same timeframe. "In three to five years you will
have the same capabilities for under $5,000," he
says. In the personal printer space, says Lewis at 3D
Systems, prices will drop even further. "In the
next year or two you will see us go past the
$1,000 mark. In two years we'll be close to $500,"
she says. How much the market will grow as prices
continue to drop, and whether a mass market
will ever emerge, is an open question. But as
easy-to-use 3D design tools get better, and as
shared 3D object libraries gain in size and
sophistication, businesses and consumers may come up with new applications for the
technology that haven't yet been envisioned. "3D
printing is where the semiconductor business
was in the 1960s," Wohlers says. "We know it is
going to be big but we don't know how big."
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