'Multifab' 3D-prints a record 10 materials at once, no assembly required (w/ Video)
Dr. Chris Starsson
Digital Habitats is crafting mobile and autonomous communities of the future on land, sea, and space with disruptive innovations in habitation, infrastructure and transportation.
In recent years companies have been working to tackle some of these challenges with "multi-material" 3D printers that can fabricate many different functional items. Such printers, however, have traditionally been limited to three materials at a time, cost as much as $250,000 each, and still require a fair amount of human intervention.
But this week researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) say that they've found a way to make a better, cheaper, more user-friendly printer. In a paper accepted at the SIGGRAPH computer-graphics conference, a CSAIL team presented a 3D printer that can print an unprecedented 10 different materials at once by using 3D-scanning techniques that save the user time, energy and money.
Delivering resolution at the level of 40 microns, or less than half the width of a human hair, the "MultiFab" system is the first 3D printer to use 3D-scanning techniques from machine-vision, which offers two key advantages over traditional 3D printing.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-08-multifab-3d-prints-materials-required-video.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-08-multifab-3d-prints-materials-required-video.html#jCp