In the world of IT, if the late 20th century was defined as the computing era, and the beginning of the 21st century is the reign of smartphones and internet, my bold prediction is that the next few decades will be remembered as the 3D printing era. These technologies have striking similarities. They are extremely versatile and have wide application in many sectors. Their greatest strength is that they can be combined and applied to other industry. Very much like a carbon atom, we can find them in the air we breathe and the food we eat.
3D printing, as we have learned from the book “Fabricated”, have so much potential in different sectors. Industry that benefits from the 3D printing technology includes the medical, construction, customized manufacturing, designs, education and etc. Bioprinting, the combination of 3D printing and medical industry, made printing body parts possible in the future. In the case of the old woman with oral cancer, 3D printing saved her life by replacing a titanium, 3D printed bone into her jaw. When we applied manufacturing to 3D printing, we discovered the possibility of mass-customization. The high customization cost associated with the traditional manufacturing process was negated because 3D printer can print customized object as effective as the non-customized. 3D printing also make it easier to create complex object which is impossible using the traditional method.
The potential of 3D printing is unlimited considering the existing technology that can ‘react’ with 3D printing. What we have discovered today is only the tip of an iceberg. The current stage of 3D printing is similar to the gigantic computer in the 60’s. Back then, not only that a computer was exceedingly rare, the machine itself was slow and its card programming system can only process one task at a time. It was not until the invention of a time-sharing system, where multiple terminals are built and linked to the mainframe by a telephone line, that all the previous limitations were removed and the computing technology expanded exponentially.
What I am concerned with 3D printing is the missing of that key “time-sharing system” which is vital to the computing history. Today, 3D printer is very much like the old computer, rare, slow and limited by only one or two materials. We have seen the implementation of 3D printing in manufacturing, construction, medical and education industry. However, it is still fairly uncommon to the general consumers. Unlike computer and smartphone, 3D printer lacks the ability to connect and bring its users closer to each other, yet.
The first phase of IT is to control and manipulate data, while the second phase is to share and connect, then the third phase, marked by the invention of 3D printing, will be to synthesize and fabricate.
