CreateWorld

In 2006, a Stanford PhD worked on a novel technology called light field imaging, which does not only capture light intensity, but also light directions. This technology eventually lead to the creation of the first light field imaging, and maybe even more. Now everything is going 3D, and this new technology has proved it does not have the technical feasibility, but also business feasibility. 

Yet another field that additive manufacturing can find some niche market in. The concept of using porous surface to facilitate osseointegration is not something new, but its application in spine fusion surgery is a rather novel idea. 

With most prevailing composite structural designs being 2D, work has been focused on the design of fiber reinforced composites with excellent in-plane properties. However, there is a question that is subtly avoided: How about multi-axial loading and out-of-plane loading? 

My belief is that you can design for performance, but you can't design for situation. Structures should be designed according to the situations (often unexpected), not they way they are supposed to be used. 

This common misconcept is often offset by modern design and control engineering, which helped reducing or eliminating uncertainty in a variety of applications and industries. However there still exist a large category of applications where unexpectable is expected, for example, space travel and implants. There can be measurements that reduce the risk, but could not completely eliminate them.

This year in MS&T, some folks from Fraunhofer Institute presented a very interesting process that uses pre-made screens as patterns to print 3D parts. For mass production purposes, this would be a very creative idea, although a large inventory of tooling mask might add considerable cost. 

No surprise, then, that there are folks that have pushed this concept to smaller scale. HRL Laboratories recently published their new process in Science (Nov.2011) that could produce metal cellular structures with 0.9mg/cc, the lightest yet metal foams (correct me if I am wrong). The process? Selective ultralight exposure of liquid photomonomer using patterned masks. The next step is to coat the preform with Ni-P (nickel phosphorous), then etch out the preform and leaving a structure with hollow struts. 

There is also a video that demonstrate this new LUMEX Advanced-25 system. For complex solid shape, it seems to do a pretty neat job, but for porous structure, the surface finish still does not look like it has been CNC-milled. 

Several features of this system that are very attractive:

1. The CNC and AM are integrated into the same system.

2. The tool turrent can hold up to 10 different tools.

3. The powder can be replenished during the process

4. Tools can be changed (add or remove) during the process.

5. The operating interface is quite visual-oriented.

It is a very inspiring research that by using simple sensor array, it becomes possible to realize 3D real-time rendering by using projectors, in regardless of the topology of the geometry, except for the undercut feature, which is physically inaccessible to the projection lights.

Well, this is probably my, ..., 6th personal blogger, counting in tweeter and Facebook, which of course, do not count. So it's not too bad, especially consider the fact that my design friends recommended this to me. 

Eventually, there will probably only be one huge online blogger system, consider what Google has been doing. Very soon the search engine will be able to use personal information to locate friends secret sites, even only based on their nicknames or favorite food. Who knows.