Another set of booths and activities that I found engaging were those that concerned 3-D printing. I do not own nor have I used a 3-D printer, though I did sit through a 90 min class at the HacKid Conference with my daughter a couple of years ago. That 3-D printer was a small home hobbyist printer and the lab reeked with several less than healthy chemical smells including acetone. Nevertheless, my daughter asked for one for Christmas (which we did not get her) along with a Raspberry Pi (which we did).
My perception of 3-D printing was, admittedly, several years old and biased toward the hobbyist with a limited budget (<$1000). In such a rapidly evolving field, and one with such economic potential, the printer in the aforementioned class was several generations old.
Many of the 3-D printing technology booths were in the Intel® RealSense™ Technology area, where they demonstrated the use of Intel RealSense with regards to 3-D printing. I say ‘technology’ because some are used in conjunction with 3-D printing, even if they did not actually have a 3-D printer. The basic theme was to use the Intel RealSense camera to create a 3-D representation within the computer, and then 3-D print something based upon that 3-D image.
I saw the results of a commercial product that was remarkable but not yet on the market – though it is right around the corner. See the photo below. At first, I did not believe a 3-D printer created it. It had a heft that was more like a high quality painted and durable commercial plastic mold, similar to the high quality figurines you see at gamer stores. At first glance, it looked like it was made of some ceramic material.
Looking at it more closely, I still could not tell that it was made with a 3-D printer. There was no layering, the colors of the figurines were realistic (vs the bright primary colors I associate with 3-D printing), and not painted but deposited by the printer. The Fame*/Cubify* developers manning the booth told me that the only post processing done was to remove the “dust” on the outside of the mold. This “dust” is not really dust but a very thin layer of dust sized roughness that diffuses the light on the figurine, making the colors appear faded. After manufacture, this “dust” is removed to expose the full color of the plastic.
They also scanned in a 3-D image of my face (see the Cubify home page), and created a video of me as a snowboarder. It was either the snowboarder me, or the zombie-survivor-shotgun-wielding me. Truth be told, I make a fair to middling snowboarder, and probably a horrible zombie apocalypse survivor. (There were other options, such as the princess me and the knight-in-shining-armor me. I can assure you that I look positively frightening as a princess.)
In fact, you can buy one of the figurines with your 3-D face on it for $70. (Actually, it was $69.96. I like the certain symmetry to the price.) Though my right brain will not admit it, my left brain is seriously considering buying one. See the next image. Outside of the limits of digital rendering, the only two defects are (1) I was not smiling – not really something 3Dme can correct, and (2) the beard on my chin looks like an extension of my chin and not the distinguished grey tuff that it really is. (Though “distinguished” may be carrying things a little far.)
They had an actual snowboarder figurine on display which looked quite realistic vs the slightly cartoonish look of this picture. Unfortunately, I did not think to take a picture of it.
There were many other 3-D themed exhibits and talks, including one by Chris D. McCoy who gave a Maker themed presentation on 3-D printing. It was from a Maker perspective and looked at 3-D printing techniques. I was surprised by the number of individuals in the audience who actually had 3-D printers. Perhaps I will get myself…uh, I mean my daughter…a 3-D printer for Christmas after all.
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