February 2015
www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
FUTURE OF 18 THE MANUFACTURING
SouthMACH 2015 an event to look forward to.
What does 2015 hold for NZ ICT exporters?
Baskiville unveils nonflammable medical-grade materials for silicones (Methven, NZ) Baskiville.com Ltd. has unveiled two new products that have the potential to substantially improve the safety, environmental protection and clinical performance of medical devices and related products made in New Zealand. Baskvilles have been appointed by MicroCare Corp., a U.S.A.-based supplier of advanced precision cleaners, coatings and lubricants, to serve as the authorized source for both a new Universal Carrier Fluid and a unique SwellEx(r) silicone assembly fluid from MicroCare. With these two new products companies in New Zealand will have important new manufacturing choices that will result in more competitively-priced products that out-perform the competition. The first innovation, the MicroCare Universal Carrier Fluid, is engineered as a drop-in replacement for flammable, smelly and toxic carrier fluids. The product is a custom-formulated, nonflammable carrier fluid optimized to dilute and apply medical grade silicone liquids to medical devices. This new formula provides a safe, reliable and nonflammable alternative to older, flammable carriers such as hexane or toluene carrier fluids. The SwellEx assembly fluid is a smart, efficient answer to a different but
troublesome problem. Many medical devices require leak-free seals on connections between devices and tubing. Because the fit needs to be tight, assembling those devices can be extraordinarily labor-intensive. The SwellEx fluid accomplishes what the name implies: it swells the plastic tubing, allowing for fast and simple assembly. Then the fluid evaporates and the plastic tubing shrinks back to the original size and strength, forming perfect seals. “Silicone has a long history as one of the most trusted biomaterials in the healthcare industry,” notes Ian Fowler, Managing Director of Baskiville. com Ltd. “Now these two new fluids make using silicone parts or silicone lubricants far easier, safer, faster and ultimately less expensive. It’s a win-win for New Zealand industry.” About the Universal Carrier Fluid Silicone-fluid lubricants are commonly used to coat the disposable needles that are used for delivering or withdrawing fluids, and for suturing after surgery. The lubricious coating allows the needle to penetrate skin more easily, making the treatment less painful for the patient. However, silicone lubricants usually are very continued on page 8
31 REAR VIEW
Markets are born at the Intersection.
Creating high – resolution 3D videos Three-dimensional (3D) movies, which require viewers to wear stereoscopic (i.e. Related to the technique of creating an impression of depth by showing two slightly offset flat images to each eye) glasses, have become very popular in recent years. However, the 3D effect produced by the glasses cannot provide perfect depth cues. Furthermore, it is not possible to move one’s head and observe that objects appear different from different angles — a real-life effect known as motion parallax. Now researchers have developed a new way of generating high-resolution, full-colour, 3D videos that uses holographic technology. Holograms are considered to be truly 3D, because they allow the viewer to see different perspectives of a reconstructed 3D object from different angles and locations (see image). Like a photograph, a hologram contains information about the size, shape and colour of an object. Where holograms differ from photographs is that they are created using lasers, which can produce the complex light interference patterns, including spatial data, required to re-create a complete 3D object. However, generating high-resolution, moving holograms to replace current 3D imaging technology has proved
A new way of streaming high-resolution, full-colour full-parallax three-dimensional (3D) hologram videos.
difficult. To enhance the resolution of their holographic videos, Xuewu Xu and colleagues used an array of spatial light modulators (SLMs). “SLMs are devices used in current two-dimensional projectors to alter light waves and generate projections,” explains Xu. “In a 3D holographic display, SLMs are used to display hologram pixels and create 3D objects by light diffraction. Each SLM in our system can display up to 1.89 billion hologram pixels every second, but this resolution is not high enough for a seamless large video display.” To address this challenge, Xu and his team divided every frame of their hologram video into 288 sub-holograms. They then streamed the sub-holograms through 24 high-speed SLMs stacked together in an array. This technique was continued on page 8