Daily Archives: 10 Nov ’14

5. Future Vision

Posted on by

As a person who knew about 3D printing recently by taking this course, ART 3041, my first reaction was not just surprised and excited. It may be reflected by my pessimistic perspective, still, my first word to say about 3D printing was, “That’s it?” The book, ‘Fabricated’ by Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman, started with the exciting future imagination with 3D printing world. It sounds quite interesting giving me the expectation of 3D printing development such as printing a house. But, as the book explains the process of 3D printing more and more, I thought more of its complication. In fact, printing the actual object from 3D printer takes a long time and without human effort, you simply cannot print any. I feel more like all systems use different languages while they are communicating with each other. There seems more limitations than possibilities and technology is not as fast as what I thought of. In addition, I was so shocked when the authors talked about printing weapons and bioprinting ‘living ink.’ I doubted how safe 3D printing will be in the future.

Leaving the dark side of 3D printing behind, I tried to focus on its ‘hope’ in our future. These days, various industries started to absorb 3D printing in their worlds. One of the interesting industries to me is fashion industry. It’s because I am waiting for the future that I can print out my design of cloth in my room right away. I agree that it is a completely new idea that designers make the clothes by 3D printer, yet it must be impractical for common people to wear, I thought. Especially, I am the person who has sensitive skin so that I cannot wear somewhat rough or metallic. So, I first imagined clothes by 3D printer with plastic filament and it would be so uncomfortable and rough. It was my first question about fashion industry, what kinds of material they use to print. The amazing thing is that designers used wearable thermoplastic materials to make clothes. Even though they are still working with cotton fabric to print out, it seems well-developed.

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/10/31/3d-printed-textiles-bradley-rothenberg/

Then, there should be a new 3D printer which can print out only for the clothes. My second question was whether there is a printer like this right now or not. I found the recent article which introduces a new 3D printer as same as what I expected.

http://3dprinting.com/news/3d-printer-can-print-clothes/

3D printed clothes were already introduced in the famous fashion shows since last year. It got a great attention to the fashion industry. At the beginning, they were just artistic and half naked clothes, but practical and realistic clothes keep showing up at the fashion shows. Once the printable cotton fabric comes out, I strongly believe that the fashion industry will have a new boom of era with 3D printing technology.

http://www.businessinsider.com/3d-printed-fashion-2014-8?op=1

Yet, it is hard to print one cloth out as a whole. We need to print out partial clothes and assemble them by hands. Also, we need a lot of human power to complete one partial cloth such as brushing the sand or dying with color.

http://www.materialise.com/cases/iris-van-herpen-debuts-wearable-3d-printed-pieces-at-paris-fashion-week

There is a website which introduces 3D printing show. It’s good to follow the newest technology through this website.

http://3dprintshow.com/home-2014/

I hope all fashion companies invest their money to develop 3D printing technology and soon not only they sell these products, but also customers simply make and order their custom clothes through these companies. Of course, moreover, I am expecting to see my future room with the 3D clothing printer which can make any design of my clothes in a minute.

4. Personal Reflection

Posted on by

Beginning of the semester, one of the professors asked whether we heard about 3D printing or not. Almost all of the students answered that they heard about it before. I didn’t answer anything because I was ashamed that I had never heard of it. The class started with 3 different professors which I had never seen before and it has two different concepts of studying, management and design. I was confused at the beginning.

The group project gave me a hard time in this class the most. First, it was quite hard for me to do the group project because I am an introvert, but stubborn. Group members should gather different ideas and agree upon each other. So, it was little uncomfortable and difficult for me to be in a group. Now, it got better because the time goes by. Second, the project as it is challenges me every steps. I couldn’t get the idea of steps easily, so I had to ask my classmates or professors. Putting management and design concept together may not be clear to me.

I think I can design things well, though. So, I would like to develop my designing skill by Sketchup or other design software. Also, I am good at organizing and presenting things. If my group members want me to help In that way, I am willing to do so. The concept, thinking outside of the box, may be easy for me to understand because I am the one who usually heard people saying that I am off the wall. My abilities are not very unique, but I believe these can help me learn more in this class.