3 The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
The revolution is 3D printing
It is a revolution so tangible you can purchase one that fits on your desktop. The idea is very simple, you create a 3D image of the “thing” you wish to make and print it out. The “thing” above was designed with a piece of google freeware called Sketchup. You simply send this image to a 3D printer, and it will be built layer by layer. Demo here.
The traditional approach would be whittle down something from a solid block. A computer controlled lathe to do this will run you about $30-50k. It also is an inefficient process, as you have to take away to make something. 3D printing is the opposite, It’s an additive process that gives the engineers a real edge. This means you can make hollow, lighter and cheaper objects. The wings of the new airbus A380 are made by this additive process.
Currently, it is at the stage where computers were at in the late 1970′s. Approximately 4000 desktop printers have been sold by MakerBot industries of Brooklyn. Astonishingly, they are selling DIY robot kits for $1300 and fully assembled ones for $2500. I doubt MakerBot will ever IPO as their business model is just to “make cool stuff.” It would be more likely that they would be acquired. However, the frontrunners in this field could well be be companies like $DDD, $SSYS and $GOOG.
Gazing into the crystal ball of this fledgling industry, I see 3 important areas.
1. User friendly software
2. A price point for a 3D printer of under $500
3. Printing resolution within the 0.01mm range
This type of resolution would be smaller than a single human cell. The 3D phallus pictured above may one day come to life, and the material it’s made from might not be plastic.
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3 Responses to “The Birth Of The Next Trillion $ Industry”
Woodshedder
Good post. I saw a special on this technology on the TeeVee several months ago. Really cool…
Tip: Hit enter a few times and shift your image down so that it does not get shifted into the right sidebar by the stupid “share this post” shit.
DrSchadenfreude
This kind of technology will really snowball when it gets into the hands of people with no preconceptions.
Thanks for tip. It renders the image differently depending on device and browser.
TJWP
Love the post and the technology. I think this sort of technology is the way of the future for manufacturing.
Should this become effectively commercialized there is no end to the number of businesses they can put out of business.
Will be very interested to see what sort of materials will be available for this sort of 3d printing. Also see huge synergies between this and nano materials going forward.