Print me a house please

The expensive XNUMXD printing technology has so far been used mainly to make models in architects' offices or prototypes for civil engineers * However, the first XNUMXD printing website is already under development, and prices are gradually decreasing

Thomas Cleburne, InformationWeek
Desktop production is already in the offing - thanks to improvements in XNUMXD printing technology. Just as in the XNUMXs laser printers arrived from service bureaus to users' homes, revolutionizing desktop publishing, so now XNUMXD printers - which translate computer files into XNUMXD structures - are about to change the way many products are designed and manufactured.

"I believe that we are already in the middle of the process" - says Dina Brown, vice president of the Alchemy Models company, which prepares models for architects. "The prices of printers are falling and the quality of the product is increasing. It is very important for architects to visualize the house they are offering to clients, and XNUMXD printing makes it possible to quickly prepare impressive models."

Alchemy Models uses the Z Corp Spectrum Z510 printer, which prints 600D models at a resolution of 49,900 dpi. The printer is not particularly cheap - it costs 19,900 dollars - but in the next ten years the prices are expected to decrease every year. Z Corp also offers a simpler model, priced at $XNUMX.

Z Corp's revenues increased in 2005 by 50% and amounted to more than 30 million dollars. Its clients include the companies BMW, Boeing, DaimlerChrysler, Fisher Price, Ford, NASA, Northrop Grumman, Porsche and Sony, as well as Harvard, MIT and Yale universities.

Z Corp is now working on the development of the first XNUMXD printing project intended for the general public - a website called Cosmic Modelz, where children can order XNUMXD characters designed with special software. The site was supposed to start operating at the end of last summer, but its launch was postponed - said the company's spokesperson.

If so far XNUMXD printing has been used mainly in the development stages of prototypes and models, now it is increasingly being used for the production of final products as well - says Roger Calsolo, director of marketing development at Z Corp. The use of technology is widespread, according to Calsolo, in architecture and medicine.

"It is possible to XNUMXD print CT and MRI scans of patients," says Calsolo. This way the surgeons can prepare for surgery in a XNUMXD model instead of on a monitor, and the preparations are more realistic. In plastic surgeries, for example, it is possible to get a realistic impression of the bone structure, even before the patient lies down on the operating table.

On the other hand, the technology also helps the product counterfeiters, who will actually be able to counterfeit products via the Internet. On the Second Life website, for example, we have already complained about expensive virtual characters coming to the real world and being offered for sale there, with the help of a software known as CopyBot.