A while ago I wrote about Iterative Design and the potential of iterative design on how products are created in the future. Now Hod Lipson and his team brought this concept to the next level with their EndlessForms website.

They combine evolutionary algorithms and generative encodings with crowd sourcing of designs. The results are interesting 3D designs. You could argue the usefulness of many of the designs on the site but it does show a powerful new and easy-to-use way to 3D design and iterative design.

How does it work?

The user selects one of created designs in the gallery or chooses to start anew. The site then evolves this design in 15 different directions and shows the user 15 options. The user can then choose to explore one of the evolutions further, combine multiple evolutions and explore that, or save the 3D design. Optionally the user can choose to 3D printed his design — which is disabled at this moment for some reason.

Here is video on how it works:

Their inspiration was Charles Darwin and the evolution of species. They found their name in the Origin of Species.

“… from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
— Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

I love these types of innovations for new ways to create 3D designs. It makes 3D design accessible and fun.

Three days ago I wrote about the barriers 3D printing has to cross from a technology point of view. To overcome these limitations some major breakthroughs are necessary which can take a decade — or maybe two or maybe never happen at all. in this post I am going to talk about what I think are developments which can (should?) happen in the coming decade.

So which technology breakthroughs do i see happen?

Color printing
To start of with the current technologies are mono-color with the exception of ZCorp. Though ZCorp only has a single material and this material is not the most useful from a functional perspective. Adding color to the plastic and polymer technologies would be very useful. It could as simple as the ability to add legible text to the part or to easily identify the orientation of the part for assembly or for end-product use.

Multiple materials
The ability to combine multiple materials is another important step. I realize this is already offered by Objet but as I wrote in my previous post this is just mixing of one polymer with another. The material properties are not that dissimilar to be very useful. I am thinking here mixing plastic with metal or plastic with polymers etc.

More variety of materials
Each technology has a standard type of materials. SLS has nylon-based materials, FDM has ABS plastic type of materials etc. There are still a wide variety of materials which cannot be 3D printed like wood, clear glass, aluminium, rubber, etc.

Embedding of mass-produced parts
There are parts which will be not be printed in the foreseeable future like sensors, RFID tags, processors, electric wiring, etc. To further increase the ability to create parts out of nothing embedding of mass-produced items during 3D printing is very useful. RFID can be used for identification of parts, sensors can be used to measure stress levels of functional parts in use, etc.

High volume production equipment
The current line up of machines are not ready yet for high volume production. The machines need attention and do not support uninterrupted production. Materials need to be swapped, trays needs to be changed, new build data has to be uploaded, machines need to cleaned after each tray etc. There is still work to do to make these machines fit into a production line where parts end up on a conveyor belt heading to cleaning and post-processing.

Desktop printers
On the other side of the spectrum we have desktop printers. The current line up of personal 3D printers are still very immature in print quality, reliability, speed and noise. They are more suited for a workshop then a desk. Also the quality of the output is limited and mostly suited for functional parts since they are based on FDM-type technology.

There is still much to do to make 3D printing grow what it is today. Even though the technology is already very useful for a lot of applications there is a world beyond that. If you are a CTO at a 3D printing company and have a budget to spend there are still many opportunities to improve the product.

When we combine these improvements 3D printers will come into the realm of product printing instead of part printing. In the end that is holy grail for this technology.

3D printing used to be called exclusively rapid prototyping. This fitted with the primary use case of 3D printing at the time. Nowadays we see many uses of 3D printing and the industry is adapting to these new use cases. New machines are introduced focusing on these new categories. In this post I want to give an overview of these categories.

First of all equipment is going to specialize in four categories:

• Functional part printing — manufacturing of functional parts which are used as part of an assembly of larger product. Companies like Stratasys and EOS are already mainly focusing on this category.
• Manufacturing support printing — 3D printing is not only about printing parts which are the last step in the manufacturing process. There is a category for printing parts which support other production processes like casting and molding.
• Prototype printing — traditionally 3D printing was used to create prototypes for product design or as validation of a mass-produced functional part. The market need has not changed and is still valid.
• Specialized printing — this is category is already increasing in importance and will increasing more. In this category belongs printing of dental implants and ceramic filters.

The current line up of equipment from the different manufacturers of 3D printers is already showing a shift in the direction of these four categories based on the capabilities of their printers. The marketing of their equipment is in some cases still confusing and unfocused.

It is to be expected that most powder based technologies like SLS and DMLS are going to focus on the functional part printing. The same applies to FDM printing as well.
The current line up of jet technologies like 3D Systems’ ProJet and Objet’s Polyjet are more prototype technologies. Also ZCorp’s 3DP technology is very much focused on prototyping.
Specialized printing has a more variety of possible technologies from jet technology for creating dental wax models, to powder based printing for dental implants or ceramic filters. The same applies to the manufacturing support printing processes. Powder-based processes are used to create molds for casting while wax jet printers are used to create wax models for casting.

In the coming years I see a new category emerging named Product printing. The focus in this category is to produce end-user ready parts which need none or very limited post-finishing. It is in this area where I expect the most excitement around. But to get there are some major breakthroughs necessary.

Yesterday I read a post on Fabbaloo called 3D Printing Reality Checklist and I wanted to create my own list of 3D printing limitations. A common theme in the media is to compare 3D printing with Star Trek’s replicator. But that analogy is nowhere near the truth. It is worrisome because it creates unrealistic expectations about 3D printing and with that comes disappoint. It completely fits the Hype Cycle phases of Gartner about which I wrote a few days ago.

So to set the record straight here are my list of limitations of the current technologies:

• Mono material — all technologies are mono-material. They only output plastic or metal parts. Objet sells a multi-material printer but in essence it is still just a different polymer instead of a significant other material.
• Single color — all technologies print single color materials in one run. ZCorp is the only exception. They use ink to color their parts during the printing process.
• Limited set of materials — the choice of materials is limited and does not contain a lot of common used materials like wood, aluminium or clear glass. Plastic, polymers and metal are the dominant material categories.
• Slow — the printing process is slow. It is not just pushing a button, waiting a few minutes and get your part. Printing processes are measured in hours not minutes.
• Immature technology — 3D printing is still immature in many aspects. The lack of closed loop control and similar reasons make 3D printers unreliable. Operating 3D printers and handling of the resulting parts is also more an art than science. Again it is not just pushing a button and the part comes out.
• Expensive — ownership of 3D printers is still very expensive. Machine, material and labor are still significant and magnitudes more expensive than mass-produced parts.

Each printing technology (SLS, FDM, etc.) has its own set of limitations but each suffer from the list above. As a technology optimist I am sure technology will improve over time.

There are many important things to educate our kids on but new technologies is definitely one of them. To prepare them for a new future it is essential that they get in touch with new upcoming technologies. I can still remember that my high school had MSX computers where we learned Logo and did our typing lessons. 3D printing is a new upcoming technology and it needs its place in schools.

3D printers are not exactly new and a lot of universities already got a 3D printer. But from what I hear they are often underused due to staffing or cost problems. But more importantly they are not an integral part of any curriculum yet. There are schools who get it like Saddleback college in California. They teach a Rapid Prototyping class. Here is video about them:

There are actually two needs to address for 3D printing. The first is technology itself, the capabilities and operation of the machines. Second is the creation of content using 3D design. Kids need to learn to 3D design.

For high schools it is important to familiarize their students with 3D printing. At some point these machines will enter their homes and they better be ready to use them. The students also have to learn about the capabilities and learn how to use them. Awareness is very important. Next to that they should learn to create and design 3D models. It is a skill which will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

Design schools should start paying attention now. 3D printing is going to have a major impact on product design and manufacturing of products. Students have to start thinking about their role as designers and how they can adapt to this change. It is a major paradigm shift for designers and we have to prepare the next generation of designers to cope with that.

Universities need to get off their feet and start using 3D printing more. There are many applications for 3D printers in universities; from making prototypes to test setups. But they also should invest more in researching this technology and improving current technologies. The technology is still immature in many respects and there are many research opportunities from 3D printing software, new 3D design user interface concepts to 3D printing technology itself. There are only a handful of universities who put in significant resources in 3D printing.

The adoption of new technology start with young people and education is one of their resources to learn. We have a great opportunity here and we should act on it.

Marc Andreessen wrote an interesting essay today on Why Software Is Eating The World on WSJ. In the essay he makes a point that software — and the services which rely on it — makes the difference nowadays. I agree with him and I think it also applies to 3D printing.

It is software which ties everything together and makes new innovative services possible. Powerful innovations in the hardware world have made this possible. Computer hardware has become a commodity, the internet is ubiquitous and smart phones are on the rise. The combination of those three important hardware developments gave companies the building blocks to build powerful and innovative solutions and disrupt whole industries. Marc mentions a lot of them in his essay but I want to mention two here. The first is Skype. Skype — and others like Whatsapp and Viber — is disrupting the whole telecom industry. All made possible by the internet, computers and smartphones. The second is Netflix (and/or Hulu). They already blown away the video renting business and next up are cable companies and television networks (except for content that is). These are powerful shifts.

The same will happen with 3D printing. Although the technology is not as ubiquitous as the internet or a commodity like computers it is only a matter of time. The technology has improved a lot and keeps on improving. The rise of hobby 3D printers is a perfect sign that something is changing in the 3D printing industry. It also proves there is a need or want to own a 3D printer even though only bought by a niche group of people at this moment.

When you connect 3D printing, the internet and computers you can create very powerful new innovative services and products. It is the software which ties it all together. Software allows to create designs to print and share them with others. Smarter software will make it possible to create better designs and increase the quality and success rate of a 3D printed object. Software will enable creative people to express their creativity on physical products beyond putting a picture on t-shirt or a mug. Product design will become digital content like books became ebooks.

The disruptiveness of this change is significant and the impact on the manufacturing and design industry is going to be massive. It is going to change how companies are marketing their products and how they are interacting with their customers. Designers will need reevaluate their position in the product design process and how they design and market their products themselves. And more importantly it is going to change the perception of products by consumers. Do I actually want that latest model or did I like the one I had? And just make copy with some minor improvements.

Software will make this all possible and I agree wholeheartedly with what Marc Andreessen writes. The next years and the coming decade will be very exciting. It is hard to predict where we will end up exactly, but I am excited about the opportunities it brings.