CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Jay Leno Mainstreams 3D Printing

Toolmonger: "I could hear the Jetsons theme playing in my head while I wrote this — the future is here. In a video on his website, Jay Leno demos a consumer-level 3D scanner, showing how it can be used in real-world applications"

10 comments:

MBerger said...

I had always been intrigued by 3D printing. Now even more so after learning about 3D scanning. I can see numerous uses for this in the theatre industry from props to 1/4" models of full theatres. While the price is still a little inhibitive, I think, like CNC routers, we will see this technology popping up in scene shops across the country.

Anonymous said...

Ever since I learned about 3D printer, I have been completely fascinated. This is something that will have a huge impact on so many industries, including theater. I hope that soon 3D printing and scanning become more mainstream technology.

David Beller said...

This is an amazing technology, and has numerous applications in many fields. But not only is it a tool to make things easier, it also will allow things to be done that in the past has been impossible. To be able to tangibly touch and see something instead of just seeing it on paper is invaluable.

MichaelSimmons said...

In high school I took a class on Autodesk Inventor. they taught us the program and the class culminated in us designing our own chess set, building it on inventor, and then taking it to a 3d plotter (off campus, we didn't own one) and building our chess pieces.

Its great technology. The concept i've always been taught with model building is that "you never want to make a model so nice that the director has a hard time saying no." but with technology like this, you can build a flawless model for less money and less effort. showing a director exactly how a set is going to look may give them more of a reason not to say no.

Anonymous said...

Sharon Smith here, from Dimension 3D Printing, the company that Jay featured. For those of you who mentioned price, we just introduced a new printer under $15K called uPrint. You can see a video and more details at www.dimensionprinting.com.

Unknown said...

That is awesome! i can't believe that they can make it with the moving parts already in it. This is a great piece of technology that will influence our field a lot.

Anonymous said...

I love 3D printing.

There, I said it. I want one to make props and jewelry and missing pieces from my IKEA furniture.

Did anyone see the comment from a member of Dimension 3D Printing? Is this blog that high-profile? :3 Pretty cool.

aquacompass said...

Cool, very cool. I didn't know that the plotters could make hollow or complex shapes -- I was under the impression they could just build a skin or a block. The concept becomes a more and more attractive ideas as the cost of the plotters becomes less and less. Although, there is something to be said for NOT purchasing prosumer gear just because its cheap. I don't buying the cheap version of a 3D plotter would be worth the maintenance costs in the long run. Like the CNC, I'm not so sure how I feel about removing the human aspect of construction, but it seems to be where the world is heading to.

Anonymous said...

For a Dramaturg 3D printing / scanning is not perhaps the most exciting topic of conversation. However, if its good enough enough for Jay Leno, its good enough for me.

I think the light he has shed on the topic opens these new capabilities up to a wider public, allowing new technology to be ushered in using a mainstream vehicle. Very cool, Jay.

Andrew said...

3D Printing is so awesome. The technology is very intriguing and I would love to see how this progresses over the coming years. This is not only a big deal for creating scenery pieces, but even for models on a small scale. This looks cool