Rapid+Prototyping

Rapid prototyping From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rapid prototyping is the automatic construction of physical objects using additive manufacturing technology. The first techniques for rapid prototyping became available in the late 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used for a much wider range of applications and are even used to manufacture production-quality parts in relatively small numbers. Some sculptors use the technology to produce complex shapes for fine arts exhibitions. Previous means of producing a prototype typically took many hours, tools, and skilled labor. For example, after a new street light luminaire was digitally designed, drawings were sent to skilled craftspeople where the design on paper was painstakingly followed and a three-dimensional prototype was produced in wood by utilizing an entire shop full of expensive wood working machinery and tools. This typically was not a speedy process and costs of the skilled labor were not cheap, hence the need to develop a faster and cheaper process to produce prototypes. As an answer to this need, rapid prototyping was born. This video was produced for an art gallery to demonstrate the different types of rapid prototyping and expalin the benefits they can offer to designers. This video, in itself, is unlikely to fully expalin the different types of rapid prototyping, but it does show a few worked examples and it's also quite relaxing. **REMEMBER! After watching each video you will need to refresh the page in order that you can watch the next video.**

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 In recent years 3D printers have become financially accessible to small and medium sized business, thereby taking prototyping out of the heavy industry and into the office environment. It is now also possible to simultaneously deposit different types of materials. While rapid prototyping dominates current uses, 3D printers offer tremendous potential for production applications as well. The technology also finds use in the jewellery, footwear, industrial design, architecture, automotive, aerospace, dental and medical industries.
 * 3D printing** is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by successive layers of material . 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive manufacturing technologies. 3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts and assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process. Advanced 3D printing technologies yield models that closely emulate the look, feel and functionality of product prototypes.

Below is an example of a promotional video for a company that manufactures 3D printers. It is an advert for the company but gives a excellent indication of the opportunities presented by this technology. []

This video gives a view of an item being built up using 3D printing. media type="custom" key="5922153"

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 * Selective laser sintering **
 * Selective laser sintering ** (**SLS**) is an additive manufacturing technique that uses a high power [|laser] (for example, a carbon dioxide laser) to fuse small particles of plastic, metal (Direct Metal Laser Sintering), ceramic, or glass powders into a mass representing a desired 3-dimensional object. The laser selectively fuses powdered material by scanning cross-sections generated from a 3-D digital description of the part (for example from a CAD file or scan data) on the surface of a powder bed. After each cross-section is scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer thickness, a new layer of material is applied on top, and the process is repeated until the part is completed.

Below is a graphic showing how one type of SLS machine works. In the video at the top of this page you watched a Stereolithography machine using a sligtly different method, with gel being laid down in layers rather that powder. The video below shows SLS being used to produce a model depicting the geography around Zurich. This is one of example of how electronic information can be transformed into a hard model. In product design we would normally export our CAD models as STL files and transform these into hard models to be used for testing or presentation.

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