so today i'm going to share a little bit of a story with you about some of the impacts of 3d-printing. but before i do that,let's back it up a little bit and we're gonna talk about what it is and why you're hearing about it so much right now.
how accurate is 3d printing, so, 3d-printing is also known as additive manufacturing. and it refers to a handful of technologies that use computer-controlled machines to build up an object in layers. so, one example of this
is a makerbot,which is a filament-based printer. it essentially works like a veryaccurate computer-controlled glue gun. as the plastic filament gets pushedthrough a hot nozzle and the printer draws layer after layer until you geta 3d-printed object. now this isn't the only kind of 3d printer. there is also a brand called form 1 this is a technology called stereolithography. and so it starts with a vat of liquid resin
and a laser cures very thin layersof the material and over several hours a object emerges. we've also got other technologies that fuse layers of powdered nylon or bind layers of gypsum powderwith superglue-like adhesive. you can even find 3d printers building in sugar or chocolate, or giant cement 3d printerscreating structures. so the bottom line is, regardless of the materialor the process,
if it's built up in layerswe call it 3d printing. so, we are hearing a lot about 3d printing right now, but this actually isn'ta new technology and that surprises a lot of people, most of the patents actually originate from the 1980's. this is an original stereolithography patent from 1986. so originally 3d printing was developedas a way of making faster prototypes and that's one of the reasons that it's often called rapid prototyping. whether it's a car or a phone,
product designers use prototypes to testthe look and feel and function of an object before they gear up for mass production. but those first 3d printers werereally expensive, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and so they were really only accessiblein big industries. so a few years ago all of that started to change. partly because the patentsstarted to expire. hobbyists began building their own home-grown machines, early prototypes like thesefrom the reprap project in 2010,
evolved into a full line industry racewithin only a couple of years. now we have sort of this explosionof new low-cost desktop 3d printers. so, now you find 3d printersin all sorts of places. schools, libraries, maker spaces,studios, garages and workshops. there's even a 3d printer on the international space station. so now that we know a little bitabout 3d printing, what it is : machines that build up objects in layers, and why we're hearing about itso much right now, it's newly accessible to the masses.
you know, that, in and of itself,isn't that disruptive. but this technology has a lot of potential for impact. so this is where i wanna tell a little bitabout how i've been using 3d printers. for the last decade or so i've been workingin the theatre industry as a set designer. i primarily work as an associateto the designer john lee beatty and together we work on a mix ofbroadway and regional productions. and the photos i'm showing here todayare sort of a mix of our work. so, set designers create designswith tons of different documentation. plans, elevations, paint specifications,
but it's often really those scale models that are the most accessible to a widevariety of collaborators on a project. so, whether it's a producer approving a budget or a carpenter on the shop floor, or an actor in a rehearsal room, everybody can look at that modeland say : "you know what, i knowwhat this space looks and feels like, and i know where i fit into it." so, how does 3d printing fit into all of this?
i bought my first 3d printer in 2011, which is kind of early daysin the diy scene, it was a kit that i put together myself, and i started experimenting with3d-printed furniture in details. now the models i build today are a blendof sort of old-school model building with x-acto knives and map worldalong with 3d printed parts. with a 3d printer i can tacklemore details faster to better get across that big pictureto directors, actors, and producers. ok, so, cool, right?
now, there are lots of stories like mine. people using 3d printers in interestingways to make their lives easier. but i actually think that the way that i'm usinga 3d printer is gonna be pretty mundane in a few years here. this technology has the potentialfor pretty big impact. so 3d-printing completes the digital loop. i would be the first to admit that great set design does not requirecomputers of any kind,
but as designers today, we're really increasinglyinterfacing with digital processes. graphics that we create aredigitally printed onto huge backdrops with large-format inkjet printers. lines that we draw in a cad programare cut into plywood with computer-controlled rudders. it's a necessity to be plugged in in some sort of way. and when we're talking about 3d workflows 3d printers really complete that loop. it's really easy to get lost in a cad drawing.
cad programs allow you to sort of zoom in and out indefinitely. and you can really lose sight ofthe big picture. and after all that work is done, it's really hard to show that work to somebody else without glossing over the intricacies. 3d forms are really hard to representon 2d pieces of paper, or a 2d computer screen. 3d-printers bring digital ideas backinto reality where a broader range of collaboratorscan interact with that idea.
the printing press revolutionized the waywe distributed the written word, laser and inkjet printers hada huge impact on graphic design, and 3d-printing is going to transformthe workflow of anyone who is involved in the design and making of things. 3d-printing serves niche markets. so, this 3d-printed chair here is something that i create for set designers models all the time now, and in essence it's a niche product. i'm not the only person who needs miniature chairs
but there is definitely not enough demand for somebody to prompt a companyto manufacture those in bulk, distribute them, keep an inventory and make them available in a store or online. so desktop printers give me the freedom to design and print one or ten copieswhenever i want to. i'm making physical, functional objects that perfectly meet my needs, in the comfort of my studio apartment. and that's kinda crazy.
some people ask:what if i don't own a 3d printer? these days it's actually not a problem. there are companies like shapeways whose 3d-printing factory of the futureis right here in new york city. you can upload a design of your file,order a copy and in about a week it will arriveat your doorstep ready to go. and if you wanted to sell it to other people, they'll do that too. so somebody else can order your designs, they'll print it on a demand and ship it to customers around the world.
you can join forces with thousandsof creatives, myself included, who are building small businesses utilising high-end manufacturing technology with very little cost or knowledge upfront. welcome to the future of manufacturing. more variety, more customisation, more opportunity for entrepreneurial spirit and more niche problems solved. so 3d-printing also promotes new distribution methods.
the desktop 3d-printing movement was bornout of diy and open-source communities, the same ideals that spurred technical innovation led to the open sharing of design files. initially this dynamic felt reallyforeign to me. why would i make my intellectual propertyand hard work available for free? it didn't really make sense to me. but when i started i needed some feedback. so i uploaded a handful of designsto a website called thingiverse under copyleft creative commons licenses,
which allow users to freely downloadand print my designs. actually i think i closed my eyesas i uploaded, because i was really conflicted about the decision and it's not really something to take back. and three years later, those designs have been downloaded over 100,000 times. check out the few photos of placesthat they've ended up. that purple tea party is oneof my favourites. so whether a paid 3d-printer board marketplace that looks more like apple's appstoreis going to emerge
or sort of this free model of distributioncontinues to reign, it really begs some questions aboutthe distribution of physical objects. how does that change what we ownand how we shop? and as a designer, do i devalue my work when i give it away for free or do i enrich this common creative culture and myself by letting my workout into the wild instead? finally 3d-printing invites collaboration. this current crop of desktop 3d printersare kind of interchangeable. i can design something, send it to you,
you can print it out, test it,make some changes and then fire back. we can work on a project together whether we live across the street or halfway around the world. now a great example of this is a carpenter in south africa who lost his fingers in a shop accident,reached out to a prop maker online who designs functional sort of steam-punkstyle puppet fingers. and together they collaboratedon a 3d-printed prosthetic. and adaptations of that initial designhave been printed all over the world, primarily through the offer ofan organisation called e-nable.
these citizen inventeurs continually improve the low-cost 3d-printed prosthetics and provide them for free to underserved populations and kids who need them. projects like e-nable really show the power of distributed design and manufacturing and it's really interesting to see over the next few years where else we're gonna seedynamics like this emerge. so 3d-printing has the potentialfor big impact. changes in the way we workwith digital files,
more customisation and independent designers in the marketplace,
new distribution models that changehow we buy and share things and a lot of options for collaboration. thanks. (applause)
