BBC examines Direct Digital Manufacturing

Will 3D printing revolutionise manufacturing?
By Peter Day

With the creation of many products, including building materials, now possible at the touch of a button, will 3D printing sound the death knell for mass production?

In a way there is nothing new about 3D printing.

For several decades it has been called "rapid prototyping": a quick way of making one-off items from fused plastic or metal powder, using expensive computer-controlled lasers that are at the heart of the "printers".

But now 3D printing is coming into its own, and is being taken seriously as a manufacturing process by very big corporations.

Read the entire article here.

Delivering High Quantities of Prototypes Fast

Objective3D Direct Manufacturing produces parts using a range of additive and conventional manufacturing technologies. We offer tailored solutions for your project’s needs. If your project requires larger quantities of small parts – fast, Laser Sintering is the best technological solution for you. Per-part pricing is reduced as quantities increase, but there are more advantages to using Laser Sintering for small prototypes than price alone. Laser Sintering (LS) provides strong, versatile and geometrically intricate components made from filled and un-filled nylon materials that are ideal for fit and form verification and functional testing. Prototypes made with LS are created quickly and offer robust solutions for your project. FAST Delivery Laser Sintering can provide sturdy, functional prototypes as little as 24 hours. Multi-component designs can be incorporated into single structures, allowing engineers to produce complex features and geometries in one print, and elim...

How Artec Space Spider helps measure the shape-shifting of birds in response to climate change.

Challenge: In the past century, researchers have been studying a variety of birds in Australia to see how their bodies have changed as a result of global warming in order to determine how to adjust. In order to document the exact dimensions of thousands of beaks of 86 different species of birds in museums in a fast, accurate, and convenient manner, they needed a fast, accurate, and convenient method. Solution: Artec Space Spider, Artec Studio Results: By using the handheld 3D scanner Artec Space Spider, each bird can be scanned in submillimeter colour 3D in approximately two minutes. This makes it easy to scan anywhere from 30-50 birds in one museum visit. Scan processing takes just under six minutes for each bird. PhD candidate Sara Ryding 3D scanning an Australian galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) with Artec Space Spider (image credit: Sara Ryding) One of the most startling impacts of global warming has taken place for decades now: multiple species of birds around the world have b...

3D scanning and reverse engineering streamline original furniture design and production

MU Form Furniture Design is an Oakland-based company that designs, manufactures and distributes furniture products for the modern home and business. The company is never short of orders since good and original design is sought after by architects and interior designers. The main material MU Form works with is high-quality bent ply, which is one of the most widely used materials in this industry due to its ability to create a variety of shapes for chairs, stools, and tables. The company’s specialists seek to create great designs that pose a challenge for other manufacturers to copy or replicate. The V Dining Chair in red and grey, designed by MU Form’s Po Shun Leong. “Our designers are tasked to develop furniture designs that require a significant amount of trial and error by developing physical prototypes of chairs and stools,” says Mark Leong, CEO of MU Form. To produce a new original piece of furniture, MU Form would normally ship a physical prototype model to a factory ...

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