A month or so ago I spoke to a reporter from Computerworld about low-cost 3D printing and the Desktop Factory printer. The article has now shown up in the online version of their New Zealand edition. (Update: it's on their US edition too. Must be a dateline thing that made it hit NZ first.)
I love the quote from Ed Fries from FigurePrints regarding home 3D printing:
"When you have children, an amazing amount of plastic crap comes into the house every day, and you might as well download it from the internet," he says.
Yeah, but how do you print out the Happy Meal?
I wasn't as thrilled with my quote, which made me sound more negative about the Desktop Factory printer than I am. If I really said "In terms of accuracy they have some work to do" I'm sure I meant "resolution" not "accuracy", and I'm pretty sure it was in the context of how well the Desktop Factory printer stacked up to the other technologies we use at Art Center, i.e., ZCorp and FDM. It is true they have some work to do, and I'm glad to report a lot of work is going on there. The Desktop Factory printer is not going to be competitive in the near term with a $25,000 machine, but for what it's supposed to do it has the potential to be amazing.
Now if I can figure out a way to wrangle a trip to New Zealand out of this.
23 March 2008
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3 comments:
Hi Michael,
I think you can compare it with a inkjet printer at home and the equipment of a printing office.
It's an excellent development that step by step 3D printers become available at home. People can experiment and learn how to construct objects.
Hopefully, in twenty years from now, we don't have to ship al these goods from china to the US or Europa anymore. We just print it by our selfs. Opensource 3d print projects like fablab and RepRap should be embraced.
cheers
rene
www.sotopiaoncepts.com
thanks Rene, I agree.
I have to agree, Michael - in 5 to 10 years the major retail stores are going to be considering how to change their operations to account for consumers' ability to print their own objects. What will Home Depot look like then? I suspect a lot of their smaller items will be replaced by an online library where customers simply purchase the design and punch them out at home.
BTW, Michael - would you be interested in exchanging links with my 3D news blog, Fabbaloo.com?
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