Re: [Phys-l] 3-d printer

[brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

On 7/15/2011 3:19 AM, Marty Weiss wrote:
> Hi all,
> 	The latest "wow!" video making the rounds on the internet recently is the 3-d printer clip on YouTube and other internet vid sources.  In case someone hasn't seen it... a narrator takes us into a lab where the "inventor" shows the process whereby he takes a wrench, scans it in a new type of scanner, puts the printout into some sort of 3-d printer (after coloring the adjusting mechanism red) which contains some sort of "resin"material and after a few minutes the narrator reaches into the pool of "resin" and out pops a copy of a real working wrench with a red adjustment gear.  The copy does the same job as the real wrench.
>
> The narrator is a "real person"... a PhD and astronaut (at least according to several articles I Googled), but the whole thing has to be an elaborate hoax.  Either that or it's the biggest invention since the light bulb.  If it is a hoax, I have yet to see anyone write about it on any discussion group, on YouTube, or other news source.  Likewise, a real invention such as this would have been heralded throughout the scientific world by now.   Anyone have any explanation or comments?
>
> Marty
The method is moving fast in a direction that counts: price.

The lowest cost current 3-D printer I know of comes for  $5 grand.
It's spatial aperture is small however. Inches cubed.
Not sure on the price point of the laser scanner though.
I recall a Spanish group has just got through laser scanning
some Egyptian Pharaonic antiquity, which they are stereo printing in 
panels  -
by computer milling slabs, and facing them with flexible photo copy material
carrying Hi Def panel images.

Brian W