** Next Engine

"Captain, It is highly illogical to assume we can replicate objects using stone knives & bearskins."

I guess we've evolved a little.

**Check out all the videos!

Does it work with Bryce?
Can it model itself?
Can it deal with Escher stuff?

Probably no, no & no!  :lol:

Love your optomism! LOL

....but for less than what the dentist charges, I can scan & 3D print a whole box of denture replacements....Oh wait, I don't have dentures. yet

Oh wait, I don't have dentures

I do...:lol:

Well I'm still waiting to have mine out so I can in fact get some China Choppers and in fact be able to chew nuts again...LOL, but aside from the price that looks like the 'cat's pajamas' for smallish objects....now we need one that will fit a real car...heh heh heh.. ...

yea but then it takes the fun out of modeling you own

Not impressed.  Its not practical.

I think its one of those in between technologies.

I have a lot of models I'd like to see as a physical 3d object...  We are getting there slowly but surely

we have something like this at work,  but it stands 7 feet high and goes for 50k...;)

Isn't there somekind of machine that makes plastic models by laser heating plastic mush. We saw it in the Darkman films but it actually exists?

Yes, there is a 3D printer that made the headlines not to long ago.
Don't know if I saved any reference to it.

I saw that 3D printer, I must say I wasn't incredibly impressed by it... but that may just have been it's pre-manufacturing home-made look.  I also thought that the quality of the end product was a bit... rough - if I'm remembering it correctly.

At least it showed that it was possible though.

ICM:
 the actual quote is from "The City on The Edge of Forever " episode of StarTrek (TOS).

quote
Spock: Captain, I must have some platinum. A small block would be sufficient--5 or 6 pounds. By passing certain circuits through there to be used as a duodynetic field core...
**
**Kirk: Mr. Spock, I've brought you some assorted vegetables, baloney and rolls for myself, and I've spent the other 9/10ths of our combined salaries for the last three days on filling this order for you. This bag doesn't contain platinum, silver, or gold, nor is it likely to in the near future.
**
**Spock: Captain, you're asking me to use equipment which isn't far ahead of stone knives and bearskins.
/quote

All that aside, this looks fasinating.

Attached Link: David Laserscanner

It's certainly in the typical Brycer budget range.

(Well actually the typical Brycer budget range is free, but I won't quibble ;) )

Bryster, take a look for stereo lithography (what you were asking about) - we use it at work to do quick prototypes for fit checks on complex mechanisms/cockpit  evaluations and maintenance layout work.

Incarnadine: Thanks but I'm not really bothered. ;-) I simply have no use for primitive equipment on Mars!

(Sure I said this but can't find the post)

I was just thinking that what might make the difference would be a machine that incorporated both technologies, one part to scan a 3D object and produce a fine mesh 3D computer model from that, and the other part to produce a 3D object from a computer model.

Best of both worlds.

We are getting there. slowly but surely..   we will see it being advertised someday soon...

bikermouse:

Yup, my all time favorite episdoe. One year for Xmas my son gave me an Edith Keeler figure.
I still have it somewhere in it's original packaging.

There was a thread on 3d printers a year or 2 ago. There are actually services that will create 3d figures from models you specify. It was in one of those 3d World, Computer Art, or whatnot mags...

Yup, I remember that one.

thought that might be the case, but you know, just trying to be helpful.

According to the self-proclaimed experts of whom I do not claim to be one, Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) was the only woman Kirk went after on his own without being under the influence of something or someone...don't know if that's true but it would be interesting if so. 

Well, eventually "repilicators" WILl probably be viable.
The 3D scanners show this (saw an awesome Eagle space ship modell form Space 1999 made from Rhino, to model). Although it's a huge difference to make actual materials, such as say, stainless steel from just the raw materials, versus making a simple plastic model...it's a step.

Saw they had created carbon60 diamonds, turns out they are magentic, which should be impossible ( only a few metals have that ability). This means it maybe possible in the future, to have a
-high temperature resistant (C60 diamond burns at 1,200C iirc, which is about 300C higher than normal diamond)
-harder than normal diamond,
-incredible tensile strength (real diamonds are full of flaws, low tensile strength, C60 has enormous tensile strength)
-corrosion immune material
-that's magnetized (and this means it can divert charged particles like lethal solar radiation)..ie the perfect space craft material.

With nanotechnology, imagine a "replicator" in yor house..instead of buying goods, you shop at Amazon, see an item, buy the BLUEPRINTS, it gets made in your replicator...so no more delivery ofgoods, except raw materials. Scifi now, possible reality by end of the century.

LOL. Guys like Incarnadine would have it made then.

Then... what reason would we have to ever leave the house?  We'd all stagnate - it'd be like Logan's Run, a sort of 'dial-a-life', living in isolation all the time... euurk future!

If you've got the money shopping can be fun (without crowds) and personally I prefer to see and perhaps touch things before buying.

Hmmm not sure about that sort of future.

Fran hasn't heard of Second Life !

Yes I have - in fact you told me about it last year.

I just hardly have time for this life, never mind a second one.

Actually the technology to take a CAD drawing and render out a plastic model does exist in reality.
I know this because for a little while at least my brother was head of R&D for a company that made it...or one of them anyway...back in the infant days of the technology.
I've seen the machine itself..watched it work.
It was a bit like watching paint...or plastic...dry but it was kinda cool.

Oh yes, I know there are massively expensive industrial ones.  I just like the idea of a home use one - like the first Home PC.