3D CAD Modelling is on the Up. 3D CAD Modelling on a Computer translated via an industrial 3D printer to build-up an exact replica, layer by layer is a Technology which has been available for some twenty years. Very useful in Industrial Product Design for the creation and extraction of quick models for closer examination before advancing to mass expense manufacturing (the ‘real’ required part) – a car engine or vacuum cleaner motor. 3D Printers were large and very expensive and not for general use.
3D Modelling has moved on. Today it is possible to build a 3D MakerBot printer from a kit costing about £800, a price not unprohibitive to homeowner use. Just as the home printer made it possible for home users to up-load family photos; cut, manipulate and add text to their design then finally print it off on a t-shirt or other flat printable object, we will soon see 3D home printers where home hobbyists design and print their own bespoke house-wares?
The medical profession too will be transformed with ‘in house’ 3D printers which will build instant bespoke body implants based on a patient’s MRI scan. In June 2011 in a hospital in Sittard-Geleen, the Netherlands an 83 year old woman had her lower jaw replaced by a bespoke 3D model manufactured by LayerWire in Leuven, Belgium. The jaw was printed out layer by layer in powdered titanium with a computer controlled laser fusing the particles. The finished jaw was then coated with bioceramic to make it compatible with the patient’s tissue. A procedure that would normally take up to two days to create the implant took just a few hours. Biomed professor Jules Poukens said of the operation, “doctors and engineers together around the design computer and the operation table: that’s what we call being truly innovative.”
