3D printing was
looking for the killer app and I suspect that we have just discovered it. Materials will have to be designed and
mastered, but the software solution is already to hand. Presume every design can be processed this
way and presume all imaginable textures can be produced. The material can even be made as strong and
as light as we desire. Thus you pick the
design you want, step into a measuring booth allowing the computer to produce a
three dimensional model and let the system for the rest. You receive a packaged tightly compressed
garment that easily shakes out.
It that is not a
billion dollar industry, I do not know what is.
Better, it is coming quickly.
I expect plenty
of limitations but then with the size of the industry and natural reward
already built in, change will come quickly.
However, your
home printer can merely print off a simple gown or coverall every day if you
want. It may well be coming to
that. Remember Star Trek?
Look at These
Clothes Made of 3-D Printed Chainmail
12.17.13
Nervous System, the Boston-based design firm founded
by Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg has been making stylish, 3-D
printed jewelry for years, but have just developed new design software that
could shake up the 3-D printing market. Photo: Nervous System
It might be hard to believe, but 3-D printers are
already passé. Sure, there’ll be a steady flow of cool hardware and neat
materials in the years to come, but the reality is that low-cost 3-D printers
are basically machines that are great at cranking out small plastic objects,
very slowly. But they don’t have to be.
Nervous System,
the Boston-based design studio known for combining biologically inspired
aesthetics with additive fabrication has developed a new software tool called Kinematics that pairs 3-D
printers with web-based design tools to create large, desirable objects in
under an hour.
Kinematics was inspired by a commission from Google
who wanted a stylish way to promote their uber-customizable Moto X phone.
Their goal was to send a van around the country to demo the device and leave
visitors with a 3-D printed souvenir. The challenge was that the tchotchkes had
to be customized by the shoppers and printed in the vehicle while they received
the sales pitch.
Nervous System was excited by the open-ended
challenge, but knew that traditional prints would take far too long. They
realized that by printing relatively flat designs with built-in hinges, parts
could be folded into impressive structures, but printed in a fraction of the
time. The result was a Javascript tool that allowed visitors to customize a
chunky piece of jewelry via touchscreen and have it 3-D printed and assembled
as they watched.
He believes Kinematics is a generalizable tool that
can be applied to everything.
After Google 3-D printed their last tchotcke,
Nervous System continued developing the software and upgraded to a larger,
higher-resolution selective laser sintering 3-D printer that enables more
adventurous geometries. Emboldened by the success of their jewelry, they
decided to step up the fashion food chain and print entire dresses.
Each garment starts as a 3-D model, created in the
traditional fashion. The Kinematics software then breaks the model down into
triangular planes, flattens the now polygonal 3-D model into a glorified 2-D
sheet, and adds hinges that allow the printed piece to be folded back into its
original form like a giant piece of plastic origami. It then compresses the
garment, reducing its volume by 85 percent, and sends it to the 3-D printer for
fabrication.
The results are impressive and compare favorably to
Iris Van Herpen’s 3-D
printed haute couture and Victoria’s
Secret’s rapid prototyped panties, but Nervous System cofounder Jesse
Louis-Rosenberg believes we’re a long way to go before we’re printing our
wardrobes. “Once we see 3-D printed fashion actually being worn at a real event
by someone not as a 3-D printed thing, but simply as fashion, that will be a
sign it is ready to go mainstream.” Instead, he believes Kinematics is a
generalizable tool that can be applied to everything from wearables to
sculptures. 3-D printer operators can try it out here.
New releases to the software will features options
for building in locking mechanisms to stabilize the parts, alternatives to
the bulky hinge mechanism, and developing new folding schemes that will help
avoid the distinct polygonal feel many of the Kinematics pieces share.
Eventually, Louis-Rosenberg would like to support printers capable of producing
parts with multiple materials: “We are excited about the possibilities of
combining hard and soft, conductive and insulating.”
Kinematics shares similarities with Hyperform, the
inventive “4-D printing” process developed by MIT alum and TED Fellow Skyler
Tibbets. Both tools radically expand the size of objects that can be printed on
affordable machines, but Louis-Rosenberg is looking to solve an even bigger
problem.
‘Design is the often neglected other half of making
3-D printing accessible.’
“A 3-D printer isn’t very useful if you can’t make
anything for it to print,” says Louis-Rosenberg. “Design is the often neglected
other half of making 3-D printing accessible.” Despite its importance, 3-D
modeling software is expensive, difficult to learn, and apps that offer 3-D
scanning as a solution often createmonstrous
results. There is also the deeper issue that for all the democratization
3-D printers bring to the world, few people consider themselves designers. They
might be able to put together a slick ensemble from Nordstrom, but given a
sewing machine and fabric, they’d freeze.
Going forward, Nervous System wants their design
tools to be engaging, fun even, and so far they seem to be on the right path.
“Kinematics seems to have really clicked with people,” says Louis-Rosenberg.
“It’s a great step towards engaging people in design and having consumers play
a more active role in the things they own.”
2013 can easily be called the year of 3-D printing
with Makerbot’s
acquisition by Stratasys, the launch of the hi-def Formlabs Form 1—among
countless new systems—as well as the torrid stock performance
of more established companies. That said, 2014 is shaping up to be the year
that software engineers develop tools that will put all these amazing machines
to good use and actually deliver on the promise of next-generation
manufacturing.
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