TCT Europe 21.2 by TCT Magazine

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ISSUE

APR 13 JUNE 12

21|2

tct

AM in Dentistry: Have the Planets Aligned? Reverse Engineering 3D Printing in the Emerging Markets Joris Peels: The Blank Canvas Problem additive manufacturing and professional 3D printing tct 20/2

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additive manufacturing and professional 3D printing

ISSN 1751-0333

GROUP EDITOR

James Woodcock e: james@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222

DIGITAL & COMMUNITY EDITORS

Rose Brooke | rose.brooke@rapidnews.com Daniel O’Connor | daniel.oconnor@rapidnews.com

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER Carol Hardy e: carol@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222

DESIGN

Sam Hamlyn e: sam@rapidnews.com Adrian Price e: adrian@rapidnews.com

C.O.O. / PUBLISHER

Duncan Wood e: duncan@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 7798 844259

C.E.O.

Mark Blezard e: mark@rapidnews.com t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222 Published Prices Print Subscriptions - Qualifying Criteria UK - Free Europe - Free US/Canada - £79 ROW - £99 Print Subscriptions - Non Qualifying Criteria UK - £79 Europe - £89 US/Canada - £99 ROW - £119 Newstand Subscriptions (Via Apple) All Territories Annual - £24.99 p.a - equates to $35.99, €28.99 or 37.99 AUD All Territories Single Issue - £4.99 - equates to $5.99, €4.99 or 6.49 AUD The TCT Magazine is published bi-monthly by Rapid News Publications Ltd Carlton House, Sandpiper Way, Chester Business Park, Chester CH4 9QE, UK. t: + 44 (0) 1244 680222 f: + 44 (0) 1244 671074 © 2013 Rapid News Publications Ltd While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information contained within this publication is accurate, the publisher accepts no liability for information published in error, or for views expressed. All rights for The TCT Magazine are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without prior written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited.

BPA Worldwide Membership

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Somos materials ®

Unleash your creativity Somos® stereolithography materials from DSM are driving performance to new levels of strength and speed, so your latest designs can make it to market faster. Looking for thermoplastic-like durability, but with the accuracy of stereolithography? How about high heat resistance or the ability to perform functional testing? Learn more about what Somos® materials have to offer. Visit: www.dsm.com/somos

Visit us at AMUG and RAPID

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FROM THE EDITOR Over the last month or so the new additions to the TCT team, Rose Brooke and Dan O’Connor, have really made their presence felt — we have more news than ever over on www.tctmagazine.com and www.prsnlz.me; more regular updates on Twitter (@eTCTMagazine and @prsnlz); and time to delve deeper into the stories that matter. e big news over the last couple of months came from Massive Dynamics, a company that we had never heard of before we started receiving regular press releases about its 3D printing arm. See our investigation into this company and its tech on pages 25 and 27 of this issue. Whatever the truth behind the story it is surely an indication that the industry is starting to come of age and represents something innovative in the minds of the general public, for better and for worse. Beyond the magazine and website we are making huge progress with TCT Show + Personalize, which promises to be the biggest and best yet. A whole new look for the conference sessions will be complemented by new features and an ever growing list of exhibitors on the show floor. Registration will be open very soon, so be sure to keep an eye on www.tctshow.com for more details. Jim Woodcock Group Editor

Apology: In the last issue of TCT we published an image of a Lily.MGX lamp. We would like to clarify that the Lily.MGX lamp was designed by Janne Kyttanen for Materialise, which is the exclusive licensee of copyrights, and other intellectual property rights, in and to the Lily.MGX lamp.

Design today... ...build tomorrow Unlock the potential for Additive Manufacturing Renishaw’s laser melting system is a pioneering process capable of producing fully dense metal parts direct from 3D CAD. Find out more at www.renishaw.com/additive

www.renishaw.com 5

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www.tctmagazine.com

TCT VOLUME 21 | 2

contents

AM in Dentistry — Have the Planets Aligned? Renishaw gives us insight into its offerings in the dental sector, specifically developments in AM.

column: Justifying a new AM machine for your business can be trickier than it appears, so explained Todd Grimm.

17 column Joris Peels

tct news

on the cover:

column Todd Grimm

column: What’s stopping more people from using 3D printing for more things? Cost? Materials? Or, as Joris Peels postulates, could it be too much choice?

from the editor

Joris Peels

tct news News for engineering, product development and manufacturing

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preview: Advanced Manufacturing Show Details and highlights for the Advanced Manufacturing Show in the UK in June.

feature: Massive Dynamics Rose Brooke and Dan O’Connor dig deep into the story behind Massive Dynamics, a mysterious US-based company that claims to be joining the burgeoning 3D printing industry.

Todd Grimm For more detail, please see pages 8 and 9.

massive dynamics

08 lead lews

from the editor

on the cover

advanced manufacturing

Rose Brooke, Dan O’Connor

feature: All Star Cast Jim Woodcock takes a tour of Grainger and Worrall’s foundry facilities, including its new ExOne 3D printer.

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additive manufacturing and professional 3D printing

Product development — hyphenated We take a look at a new prototyping and testing facility in Canada with an enviable selection of technology and expertise.

Centre for Advanced Additive Manufacturing Returning to his old stomping grounds at The University of Sheffield, UK, Jim Woodcock visits a team called AdAM.

feature: Innovate 2 Make Encouraging companies to adopt additive manufacturing means more than showing them the path, as i2M explained to Jim Woodcock.

US Bureaux Map: Our indespensible guide to product development, engineering and manufacturing service providers across the USA.

feature:

3D Printing in the Emerging Markets TCT’s Rose Brooke summarises the lastest developments in AM and 3DP across the emerging markets of China, India, Brazil and the UAE.

section:

section: Digital Dentistry A look at how digital technologies including 3D scanning, milling and additive manufacturing are impacting the world of dentistry.

3D Labs GmbH A glimpse at 3D Labs’ Scan LED 3D printing technology.

Reverse Engineering A selection of news, views and case studies from the reverse engineering and metrology sectors, including

feature:

ctrl-alt-del

49 reverse engineering

feature:

36 hyphenated prototyping

innovate 2 make

centre for advanced additive manufacturing

all star cast

US service providers map

Materials

ctrl-alt-del Some of the things from across the web that have taken our eye this month, including a roundup of important maker news

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: y r t s i t n e D n i AM

? d e n ig l a s t e n a l have the p One of the most frequently discussed attributes of additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing (3DP) is the widely recognised potential for ‘mass customisation’: the ability to economically manufacture bespoke components without the overheads of tooling and other traditional mass production restrictions. Mass customisation is not going to be economically possible for every component due to a range of factors from physical size to technical challenges, but one area where the planets do seem to align is the dental industry; although this is not without its challenges, great potential exists.

Renishaw www.renishaw.com

enishaw began to use its metrology expertise to manufacture products specifically for the dental industry about 10 years ago at a time when dental laboratories began machining dental restorations, either in metal or ceramic, directly from digital data. Renishaw’s expertise was brought to bear on the reverse engineering of models, using digital data for either tool paths, or other manufacturing methods employed by dental laboratories. Initially, these reverse engineering products were manufactured by Renishaw for dental company Nobel Biocare. One of the significant challenges of bringing new processes and methods to the dental sector as a whole is its fragmented structure, being largely founded on craft-based processes and the skill and judgement of individual technicians. This results in variable quality and consistency across the industry. Digitally driven manufacturing processes have the power to overcome these limitations but, as with many technological shifts, resistance is often met because of concerns about risks to employment and the perceived high cost of new equipment and methodologies. Transfer of skills between technologies is not always straightforward either as there can be fundamental differences in approach that aren’t easy to overcome. However, we can take heart since many industries have faced and overcome these challenges already, so long as we don’t ignore these sensitivities altogether. The drive for digital manufacturing processes demands a wide spectrum of technologies, from metrology (measurement), reverse engineering (data capture), CAD (data manipulation), CAM (turning the design into machine code), and ultimately direct manufacture without tooling or moulds (either machining or AM/3DP). There is room for improvement; the interfacing between these processes and packages is not yet seamless, but it is possible, using a range of technologies, including Renishaw systems, to produce precise dental prosthetics and implants on a commercial scale. This is achieved using dental reverse engineering systems, such as the Renishaw DS10 and DS20 dental scanners, Renishaw DM10 dental milling machine, and a dental-specific version of the Renishaw AM250 laser melting machine.

Laser melting machine build chamber

Molar crown model

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[cover star]

The process of constructing a dental restoration from digital data still requires an impression of the patient’s mouth so that a replica can be created referred to as stone model, although some companies are developing intra-oral scanners to remove the need for this step. In cases where the restoration is to be connected to dental implants, rather than just the existing teeth, additional features called ‘transfer copings’ are screwed into the implants prior to taking the impression. Transfer copings offer accurate location features that aid the reverse engineering process. Following these steps, ceramic slurry is moulded into the impression to produce a stone model replica that accurately represents the exact geometry of the patient’s mouth. This stone model is then ‘virtually’ coupled to what dental technicians refer to as a ‘wax up’, essentially comprising the designed external geometry of the tooth or teeth. This uniting of geometries in the virtual world is achieved using dental scanners to capture the geometry of the stone model and wax up through contact or non-contact scanning. Once the digital data has been united using Renishaw technology, the production of the dental restoration usually follows two basic routes, either machining in zirconia using the Renishaw DM10 dental milling machine, or additive manufacturing (AM) in metal using the Renishaw dental version of the AM250 laser melting machine. Broadly, zirconia is desired for its aesthetics, biocompatibility and slightly higher strength, while metal provides the most cost-effective and arguably better solution for larger frameworks where fit can be manipulated a little if required. The advantages of using additive manufacturing are that the alloys used are classed as nickel free and the precision of the fit can be more accurately controlled. AM technologies offer the ability to produce components using medically approved cobalt-chrome powder for dental restorations such as crowns where porcelain adhesion is important. AM can also be used for the production of titanium implants where restorations are required to be secured to an implant rather than existing teeth; this can provide a strong foundation as a result of the good osseointegration properties of titanium. Revisions are also considered to be more straightforward with metallic restorations, should the need arise. While it is tempting to think that the dental industry will be keen to harness the latest technology, it is likely to be a relatively slow process. The concept of science-based product standards and manufacturing process controls that are common in the field of

engineering are less familiar in dentistry, where art and craft remain dominant forces. Process controls and product standards are commonplace in the aerospace and automotive industries where CAD/CAM has been embraced with spectacular success since the 1960s. If we DS10 Scanner compare these standardised engineering practices with traditional crown and bridge production techniques in dentistry, the process of CAD/CAM adoption has only just started. To facilitate this adoption process, Renishaw provides several entry points to gain access to the technology. For example, Renishaw is a service provider: a dental laboratory will send through a model and wax up for scanning* and Renishaw returns a completed dental structure back to the laboratory for final finishing such as adding porcelain. Alternatively, a laboratory can take on as much or as little of the technology as fits the scale of its operation, potentially being equipped with a reverse engineering capability, a milling machine and a laser melting system. A key recent event was an agreement between Renishaw and BEGO Bremer Goldschlägerei Wilh. Herbst GmbH & Co. KG that licenses Renishaw to use BEGO patents for additive manufacturing in dental applications. This allows Renishaw to sell and utilise its own dental-specific additive manufacturing machines for dental market applications, and also gives its customers access to the BEGO patents and CE marked cobalt chrome powder. This will undoubtedly help to accelerate the adoption of digitally driven processes for the dental industry, potentially allowing more consumers to benefit from enhanced precision and quality in dental restorations when compared to traditional lost wax investment casting methods. You can find out more about dental technologies and additive manufacturing systems from Renishaw by visiting its website or contacting one of the company’s 60 worldwide offices by going to www.renishaw.com/en/worldwide-locations--6438

*presently implant bridges only

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[news]

BIS COMPETITION REWARDS INNOVATIVE IDEAS WITH £750k PRIZE The UK government’s Department for Business Innovation and Skills (Bis) has awarded £750,000 in prize money for innovative ideas that have been turned into a reality. The 2013 Fast Forward Competition saw some 77 entries from universities and other institutions putting forward their proposals for ground-breaking projects that could transform the country’s business and services sector.

At total of 12 entries for the competition were awarded prizes of between £12,000 and £90,000 coming from areas including healthcare, design, clean technology, social enterprise, construction, engineering and aerospace. Lord Younger, Minister for Intellectual Property (IP), commented: “It is vital for universities and industry to find new ways of working with different partners in new areas and supporting growth. These projects embody that mindset and I congratulate them on their success.”

LONDON TO BE HOME TO WORLD’S LARGEST 3D PRINTING STORE London is set to become home to the world’s largest 3D printing store next month. According to iMakr, the outlet is based in Farringdon, in the heart of London’s designer district near to Silicon Roundabout. The store — which has a floor area of 2500 sq ft spread over two levels — will showcase the latest in 3D printer technology, stocking a range of personal 3D printers from major US, European and Asia manufacturers. The iMakr store will also boast the very latest in 3D printing technology, 3D scanners, 3Dprinted products, supplies and accessories. Moreover, the iMakr store will host regular events and stage demonstrations and workshops for those interested in learning more about the revolutionary technology. Founder and CEO of iMakr Sylvain Preumont stated: “3D printing is all about physical machines making physical things. People need a physical store to see, touch, feel and engage with the technology. That’s what the iMakr store is all about.”

DWS DENTAL APPLICATIONS DWS dfab desktop and dfab chairside are two models of the dfab concept — reportedly the smallest additive manufacturing system for dental applications in the world. Compatible with intra-oral scanners and any CAD file in STL format, the system uses a composite cartridge system and user-friendly software. The company also offers TEMPORIS biocompatible materials designed for long term dental crowns and bridges. A nano-ceramic photo-polymerisable composite of IIA class and has been patented by DWS. TEMPORIS materials are available in different colours and can be shaped trimmed and polished. www.dwssystems.com

www.imakr.com

http://news.bis.gov.uk

Arcam launches Q10 for industrial implant production Arcam’s new EBM system, Arcam Q10, has been developed in close collaboration with leading implant manufacturers and the development is partly financed by Vinnova. The system is designed to meet the implant industry’s need for ease of use, productivity, accuracy and quality assurance. The Arcam Q10 replaces the Arcam A1, the current industry standard for additive manufacturing of orthopedic implants. The orthopedic market is one of Arcam’s two main markets. The EBM technology is used for implant production since 2007, and more than 30,000 EBM-manufactured orthopedic devices have been implanted worldwide. The market share of EBM-manufactured implants is growing steadily.

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Arcam Q10 includes several new features for industrial volume production, including increased productivity, higher accuracy, and Arcam LayerQam, a new camera based monitoring system for continuous quality assurance.

www.arcam.com

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Image © chensiyuan / Wikimedia Commons

SINGAPORE TO INVEST $500M IN 3D PRINTING Singapore’s government has announced that it is investing heavily in 3D printing. Over the coming five years, the country will be digging deep to develop the technology, injecting a total of $500 million (£330.3 million, €390.4 million) into advanced manufacturing techniques in order to maintain its competitiveness with its south-east Asian neighbours. One of the primary contributing factors in decision-makers’ reasons for investing in 3D printing is Singapore’s ambition to become the

From www.tctmagazine.com BLOG ROUNDUP high-tech capital of the Asia-Pacific region. Included in the investment is a pledge to commence work on “exploring the potential of building a new 3D printing industry ecosystem” in the country. Moreover, part of the multi-million-dollar cash injection will be steered towards developing training initiatives to help workers and engineers define and utilise next-generation manufacturing technologies. www.gov.sg

THE 3D PRINTING REALITY DISTORTION FIELD The key to making the most of any new technology is to understand what it’s really capable of — and that’s not happening with 3D printing, so says Joris Peels... http://mytct.co/joris1

3D SCANNING ON YOUR SMARTPHONE Engadget have announced the semi-finalists to their Insert Coin Awards, a competition aimed at independent innovators. The winner of the invention-fest receives a cash prize, an Engadget review plus all of the publicity that comes with that exposure in order to help them get their product to market. Amongst the diverse selection of ten semi-finalists, including radiators, swimming robots and keyless doorknobs is Moedls, a 3D scanner for your smartphone. There have been a few variations on the Kinnect theme, but very little in terms of comprehensive capture on your phone. Autodesk and others have 3D image capturing apps and devices for your phone but they aren’t technically ‘scanning’. Coupled with a line laser and rotating platform the app captures a point cloud and exports out a fully meshed model for users to then build upon or potentially 3D print. The image shows a head model being captured using an iPhone 3GS’ 3.2 megapixel camera, so with the release of the Android app you could potentially put this 3D scanner kit together for relatively little cost. Inventor John Fehr designed the kit to capture

MARKET ROUNDUP: WHICH 3D PRINTING PLAYERS HAVE BEEN LAYING GOLDEN EGGS? Over Easter the top three 3D printing market hens appeared to be happy in their coops. But while one spent the week scratching about the farmyard, the other two have been laying potentially golden eggs. Rose Brooke rounds up how the biggest 3D printing players performed on the markets at the end of Q1. http://mytct.co/easterroundup

his daughter’s art sculptures in digital form, the prototype he put together cost him under $300. The Dutch software engineer-cum-inventor had previously attempted to launch an eclectic mix of projects on Kickstarter including a successfully funded magnetic catapult and an unsuccessfully funded app for storing sensitive documents and photos. Moedls are seeking funding via Kickstarter, they are looking $105,000 investment. Funding ends on the 2nd May. www.moedls.com

MARKET ROUNDUP: RALLIES, REBOUNDS AND... ROBOTS? A recap on market activity across the 3D printing industry. http://mytct.co/marketrup 3D PRINTING MARKETPLACES: DAVIDS AND GOLIATHS We’ve seen a new marketplace on pretty much a daily basis at the moment, will any of these startups be able to take on the might of Shapeways, Sculpteo, iMaterialise et al? http://mytct.co/davidgol DAN DoES LIVERPOOL DoES Liverpool, a collaborative workspace hosted one of their twice monthly Maker Nights so Daniel O’Connor went along to see what they were...well...making. http://mytct.co/dandoes

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[GRIMM]

Justifying AM, a Tool for Change WORDS | TODD GRIMM, PRESIDENT, T. A. GRIMM ASSOCIATES

ith all the talk of a revolution, it would seem that justifying a shiny, new additive manufacturing (AM) system would be an easy endeavour. How hard can it be to pry open the corporate wallet to purchase a tool that will “change manufacturing forever?” It turns out that many find it quite a challenge, and the difficulties aren’t limited to AM novices. The challenge is so commonplace that Mark Barfoot, Vice President of the Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG), and I have been asked to lead a how-to session at the April AMUG conference. Revolutions aside — those that are aware of my position know that I believe in evolution versus a massive change in a relatively short period of time — justifying AM is still a compulsory process. And it isn’t good enough to just show a positive return because AM is competing for limited funds, perhaps in the annual capital expenditure (capex) budget. You will be successful when you can show that a dollar spent on AM yields more corporate and financial gain than the same investment in another piece of machinery. This becomes difficult as a result of soft, somewhat intangible gains and a bias towards the gains deliverable by upgrading or adding to the existing arsenal of traditional tools. Situational Awareness To those that want an AM machine, the benefits are obvious, making justification a given. But that is mere opinion — and one that some will not support — until the value is proven through facts and hard numbers that illustrate the corporate gains. There are several challenges, but the two most common stem from the uniqueness of what additive technologies can do. For product development, the obvious value in accelerating schedules, detecting and avoiding errors and improving product quality are soft justifications. The cause and effect link of AM to profits are indirect and dependent on many other factors and operations. This nebulous nature places a justification in jeopardy unless there is a management-level champion/that supports the initiative and blesses the “if –then” relationship.

For manufacturing, the tried-and-true improvement measures of higher throughput, lower cycle times or reduced scrap don’t necessarily apply to AM. New machine tools, for example, don’t have the hurdle of fundamental justification. The need and value are a given. So, adding or replacing a non-AM machine hinges only on showing an incremental gain. AM lacks that historical financial perspective. The core benefits of AM yield new advantages that have yet to be monetised in such a way that they are a given. To address the difficulties, the most common justification approach — to have hard, tangible numbers with a direct cause and effect — is to show the savings of an in-house solution over outsourced AM work. This is a sound approach, but the return on investment may lack size and significance. Saving tens of thousands of your local currency may be a pittance when compared to more sizable returns for other capex acquisitions. 13

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[GRIMM]

The Approach To increase the odds of getting to “Yes,” an AM justification needs a multi-faceted approach. Start with the business case. Yes, the numbers are a critical component, but the important starting point is to frame AM in the context of problem:solution where the problem (or opportunity) that AM addresses is of high priority to the business. For example, if the company is seeking top-line revenue growth, gear the business case towards showing how AM will contribute to increasing revenue. Conversely, if the prime directive is cost-cutting, frame the business case to show how AM reduces expenses. Seek guidance and mentoring in writing a business case. If delivered in an engineering-orientation of technical details and every-base -covered, it will likely fail. Instead, construct a concise document that highlights the problem or opportunity; states possible courses of action (not just AM); reveals the pros, cons and risks of each; and then calculates the financial return. The entire document must be written in the language of those that have the decision-making authority. And it must convert the key benefits of AM into monetary gains. For those monetary gains, propose only those that are tangible, have a relatively strong cause and effect, and yield significant financial returns (significant compared to other capex proposals). For example, AM proposals showing £100K returns have lost to those that yield higher gains for less expense. This may be frustrating, but it makes sense: would you invest £1,000 for a 10% return (£100) or £500 for a 30% return (£150)? Another example, AM can save lots of engineering time, but what is the defensible return? Will those engineers now produce better products or will they make more products, and how does that directly contribute to greater net income?

The Secret To get to large returns that are defensible, the secret is to find a way to place AM in the manufacturing process of high-volume products. Saving a few minutes per piece over a one-million unit production run is far more significant than saving a few hundred hours of engineering time. The good news is that you don’t have to use AM to make finished goods to show these gains. There is a less demanding, less risky proposition that nearly every company may use. What is this secret? It lies in jigs, fixtures and organisational aids. With the defensible assumption that the ease and efficiency of AM will yield more of these items to be used throughout the production chain (incoming materials through quality control), huge returns are possible. For example, if a newly implemented fixture reduces operation time by one minute per piece, AM shows a return of £3,000 (€3,500; $4,500) per 100,000 units (assuming a burdened labour rate of £18.00 (€22; $27). If three lines crank out 250,000 pieces each per year, those AM fixtures yield £22,500 (€26,500; $34,000) per year. Now, multiply that savings times the number of opportunities that exist. Just consider how many more jigs, fixtures and organisational aids are needed but never made due to the time, cost and effort to produce them through traditional methods. Even small and mid-sized companies can find hundreds of opportunities. And that can add up to hundreds of thousands of GBPs/Euro/Dollars, maybe even millions, in savings from just one AM machine. Justification is challenging, but if you approach it through the eyes and minds of management and produce a significant, yet believable and defensible return, you can get a “Yes” on acquiring that coveted AM machine.

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[JORIS]

A Blank Canvas Van Gogh, Zola and 3D Printing WORDS | JORIS PEELS

must confess to something. I once had in my possession for a few days an Objet machine. There were several canisters of free material and a colleague and I could make whatever we wanted to. For free. I was overwhelmed with all I could create. My mind raced, boggled, bubbled. I searched for inspiration in the things surrounding me, wracked my brain for things I found beautiful or wanted. I searched high and low through Thingiverse for other creations I could print out or adapt. Then I listlessly sat before 3Dtin, caught in the headlights of infinite possibility. We ended up printing a few things but didn’t even finish one canister. And the liquid gold (or should I say mercury for modern day alchemists transmute mercury into gold with some regularity) went back to the nice people from Rehovot. 3D printing had given me the ability to create all I wanted — for free — but on the day the best I could do was print out some sunglasses and leave layer after layer of unrealised dreams, litres of unmade thoughts. I’d previously written about the Blank Canvas Problem and had participated in many a meeting to try to resolve it, but here I fell victim to it for the first time. The ability to create everything you want, and everything you could want just as you should want it, is one of the core dreams our industry can fulfill. It is the dream being sold to millions as we speak. But, “Botcave, we have a problem.” Standing in the way of this dream is not so much hardware, more so software but most of all the Blank Canvas Problem. In order to explain this phenomenon, I refer you to Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo written on the 2nd of October 1884, quoted from Vincent van Gogh—The Letters, emphasis is in the original.

n’t be afraid to do I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must into some lapse to d afrai not , times something wrong some that they’ll achieve it think e peopl many — good be To kes. mista you said so in the past by doing no harm — and that’s a lie, and mediocrity. Just slap to , that it is a lie. That leads to stagnation s staring at you with canva blank a see you something on it when some sort of imbecility. stare from a blank You don’t know how paralysing it is, that do anything. The canvas canvas that says to the painter you can’t painters so that they has an idiotic stare, and mesmerises some turn into idiots themselves. s, but the blank Many painters are afraid of the blank canva painter who dares — canvas IS AFRAID of the truly passionate can’t.’ and who has once broken the spell of ‘you

Vincent touches on a number of problems that all creators or people that want to create suffer from. We are all in some way afraid of failure, of not doing well or not accomplishing a task. This limits our creativity while our fear of the limits of our creativity paralyses us. Yet this fear actually keeps us in our comfort zones, keeps us from experimenting and keeps us from excelling. At the same time we are frozen by the endless possibility

About the author: Joris Peels is a business development, strategy, product deve lopment and marketing consultant to the 3D print ing industry you can read his blog at http://voxelfab .com/blog/, follow him on Twitter @voxelfab or email him joris@voxelfab.com

of it all — just like I was. Vincent suggests a rather simple “just do it” solution to this problem. We must all embrace failure and learn from it in order to grow. And since we have a technology that is ideally suited to letting us all fail quickly and often this should be a wonderful guide to us. It is this Blank Canvas Problem that will keep everyone from 3D printing on the desktop or in businesses. It is this issue that keeps companies from using services or people from designing things. We need the machines to work, materials have to be better and cheaper, software has to be easier but above all we need to be able to get people to actually make things without inhibition or fear of failure. If someone is inspired enough to create their own belt buckle, triggered enough when they freeze up and guided inappreciably in this process then we will all be successful. If they feel confident they can do it, then many will do it. There are perhaps 2.4 billion Internet users. These could all be our customers; these could all make things in some way using our technology. But, not if they are not inspired or do not have the right tools. On the other hand we could make a perfect selfreplicating multi-smaterial metal printer for $500 tomorrow and still only a few million CAD & 3D modeling experts would be able to use it. This machine would still sit idle in the dens and workshops of many who bought it and this machine would still be practically unusable to the vast number of home and business users. And even if the perfect intuitive 3D modeling application were available for free then still most people would sit idle, staring at the ideal 3D printing app and the ideal 3D printer unable to come up with anything to make. Creativity comes about through constraints. Dilbert can be consistently funny for decades because it is a cartoon constrained to

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[JORIS] a few panels, a few characters and constant themes and recurring responses. If Dilbert creator Scott Adams was given a full page of a newspaper to express himself on every week he would not be able to sustain this creativity. We have a technology were you can make so many things that people feel inhibited to make anything at all. We will depend for ultimate success on changing core human behavior and letting people overcome their fear of failure while letting them get inspired. If we are successful in ameliorating the Blank Canvas Problem we will be successful. It is this issue rather than anything else that is holding back 3D printing. Zola The tragedy of the quote on the previous page is that Vincent goes on and equates the blank canvas experience to life staring man in the face like a blank canvas and explains how he won’t succumb to this. He then outlines how the buying public for art could increase tenfold, how painters should sell directly to the public and encourages his brother to “act young and be daring” before closing off with, “do a great deal or die.” At this point you might look at this quote as one of a romantic and passionate artist striving to create. There are some issues with this however. In the same letter Vincent refers several times to Mouret, a character in the Émile Zola novel Au Boneur des Dames. “Were a few Mourets to emerge who bought and sold other than the old routine”, and “if you aren’t an artist in painting be an artist as a dealer, just like Mouret.” The excellent Van Gogh biography Vincent: The Life equates much of this to a “fantasy of self ” by Vincent based on literary character Octave Mouret’s capacity to act (much of my thinking here about van Gogh is take from The Life but I’ve also read The Letters so its difficult for me to tell where one idea ends and the other begins). According to Vincent: The Life “Vincent even adopts as his own motto Mouret’s leering slogan: “Chez nous on aime la clientèle” (Here we love our customers).” Mouret is a seductive salesman who creates a fantastic department store, a true icon of consumerism set up to seduce women into needlessly purchasing more and more things while bankrupting other local businesses.

From Au Boneur des Dames: than the facts he had already Of supreme importance, more important thing else led up to it, the Every an. Wom of n itatio given, was the explo g up goods, the low prices pilin of ceaseless renewal of capital, the system reassured them. It was that s price ed mark the e, that attracted peopl was Woman they were it ly, fierce so Woman the shops were competing for g her with their dazin after ins, barga their with ng continually snari they were an flesh; weak her in s displays. They had awoken new desire mbing in the succu ed, yield tably inevi she h whic to n immense temptatio seduced by coquetry, finally first place to purchases for the house, then ld, by making luxury tenfo sales asing incre By e. consumed by desir for spending, ravaging y agenc le terrib democratic, shops were becoming a extravagances in latest the with hand in hand ing household, work , Woman was shops the in if, And sive. fashion, growing ever more expen s, surrounded by nesse weak her in ored hum and queen, adulated ous queen whose subjects trade attentions, she reigned there as an amor a drop of her own blood. with whim every for pays on her, and who

So yes Vincent is urging us on in being creative, in overcoming the blank canvas but his main motivation comes forth from an intense desire to conquer and subjugate, to get his due from markets, to be successful. In perhaps being a type of hero that would appeal to Ayn Rand or a “call to power” type of character as we find in the novel The Cloud Atlas. For much of his life Vincent was obsessed with creating an iconic image, with creating that one perfect image. Part of this was an artistic ambition, part had to do with acceptance by his parents and part had to do with an intense desire to be successful.

He wanted his creations to be admired and loved. His tireless practicing, his lust for invention, his experimentation with technique, they were all functions of this. He wanted to be loved. Mouret’s devilish appeal and success appealed straight to Vincent’s vanity and ambition. In other words just because no one buys your paintings, you’re the original starving artist, you make beautiful work and you cut your ear off doesn’t mean you can’t be a prick. Also, just how prescient can one be? Just how stunning is Zola’s paragraph in predicting our current mass consumption and mass manufacturing society? How clairvoyant are his predictions on the temptations of marketing, desire, “ever more expensive”, “the ravaging household”, all of it, aren’t we all now “adulated and humored in” our “weaknesses” an “amorous queen whose subjects trade on her.” How incredible for something like that to have been written in 1883. In a sense it is we who fight the Mouret’s of this world now. It is our technology that can let consumers take back the ability to make things and resist consumerism. 3D printing is a possible solution to much of the waste occurring in the world today. If we can recycle our own 3D prints and recycle waste and turn it into 3D printing material then we could accomplish closed loop recycling in the home. The initial steps of this are being taken by such inventions as the Lyman Extruder, Filabot and Filament Maker (filament extruders or grinders combined with extruders). By letting people consume and make whatever they want and recycle what they no longer want we could reduce our impact on this planet and truly change the world. It is we that could break man free from the chains of consumerism and over-consumption. Not by saying “no you can’t do that” but by saying, “go ahead make whatever you want, guilt free.” With regards to having your cake and eating it too, we are the only party in town. To me this is the central promise of our industry and the most significant thing we have to offer the world. Love the new geometries we can make, love the ability to customise your own things, love patient specific medicine, love faster to market, love better product development, love low volume production all of that is wonderful. But, people we have a shot at saving us from ourselves. If we just don’t screw it up. In a sense there are Mourets among us. In taking a dim view of myself I might classify myself as more that kind of an individual than the shopkeepers around the corner. These Mourets in our industry can be our salvation or destruction. They can be the people that push the needle, push the envelope and really increase demand and adoption of this technology. These persuaders are a different breed to the researchers, inventors and engineers that have hereto predominated in this industry. They promise what they can get away with, rather than what they can deliver. They can push your company out of business, out fund raise you, out-compete you with razzle-dazzle and naked ambition. They can crush your well-intentioned solid work with over-claim while dreaming of private jets. These people could actually roll out this technology worldwide, give it billions in investment and millions of more customers, or we could, due to their unrealistic promises collapse like a bad souffle. Welcome to Au Boneur des Dames, where we Love our customers.

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[AMUG]

Adopt and Adapt AMUG Conference 2013

he 2013 edition of the AMUG conference is rather a special one as it marks the 25th anniversary of an organisation that has had nearly as many names as TCT! And just like the changes to TCT’s moniker, the AMUG’s evolution mirrors the evolution of the industry as a whole — it’s a case of adapt or die in this fast-paced industry. And adapting is what the AMUG is all about. Not just internally where the team behind it strives to navigate the shifting sands of the wider community (including opening the group up to users of all AM technologies) but through its mission to “…educate and advance the uses and applications of AM technologies.” Adopting AM technologies also requires adaptation — of designs, of workflows, of business processes — and one of the only ways to keep ahead of the curve is to use the experience of those who have gone before you to ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes. While the conference sessions will undoubtedly deliver information that would justify the trip alone it’s the conversations you have over lunch or at the bar in the evening that brings the real value to attendees. Learning from your mistakes is good, but learning from the mistakes of others is where the smart money is. Conference Highlights The AMUG President, Gary Rabinovitz, will open day one of the conference before the keynote speaker Randy Illiff takes to the podium. In a break from the tech-led keynotes one usually associates with industry conferences, Randy’s presentation will be titled ‘Aligning Cultures: The Ironic Art of Successfully Managing Product Development Projects’. This move is perhaps a recognition of the fact that the question about whether or not to introduce AM is now moot in the minds of the organisers and the real question is how best to adapt your processes when you do introduce it. Other day one highlights include Jon Cobb’s introduction to the ‘new’ Stratasys, which should give an update to the position of direction of the post Stratasys-Objet merger entity. The rest of day one consists of a number of difficult choices; silicone moulding, SLS, FDM and PolyJet are all covered across the afternoon sessions — just one of the reasons that the AMUG is urging users to ‘bring a colleague’ to harvest all of the information available. The first day proper is tailed by the exhibition and technical competition.

Additive Manufacturing Users Group www.am-ug.com

Day two jumps straight into the technical nitty gritty with ASTM F42 and NAMII updates from Carl Dekker and Ed Morris respectively. Before lunch the European Ambassadors Graham Tromans and Stefan Ritt will give their updates to the predominantly (but by no means exclusively) North American audience. The afternoon session highlights include a presentation on printed circuitry from Optomec and Stratasys; 3D printed inserts for injection moulding; and a hands on stereolithography maintenance session. The evening sees the hotly-anticipated awards ceremony and AMUG Dinner — the location for which will be a secret until the night, as always. Wednesday’s highlights come from Sauber Motorsport’s Rolf Leuenberger with a presentation on AM in motorsport as well as Spaceclaim’s Roman Walsh who will talk about geometry preparation for AM. Thursday sees the housekeeping for the ASTM and the AMUG itself in the morning, where attendees get the opportunity to put their feedback to the organisers about everything from the breakfast buffet selection to the diversity of presentations. The rest of Thursday is taken up by hands-on sessions across Materialise’s Magics software, PolyJet and stereolithography to name a few. The full conference programme can be found at http://mytct.co/AMUG2013

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[Show Preview]

Advanced Manufacturing Show Preview Delcam will demonstrate the latest version of its FeatureCAM feature-based CAM software. The new release incorporates a number of new stock model options that allow users to increase productivity, improve surface finish and reduce tool wear. Other enhancements in the 2013 R2 release include new methods for the generation of html set-up sheets, and improvements to turning and turn-mill programming. Renishaw will be offering visitors the chance to view its vast array of manufacturing technologies on the show floor, including milling, metrology and additive manufacturing. Trac Measurement Systems will display its comprehensive metrology offerings at the event, including the company’s ability to design, manufacture, build, test and support both standard ‘off the shelf ’ inspection gauges and machines plus special purpose equipment. WNT (UK) will use its stand at the Advanced Manufacturing show to promote new developments in titanium machining. These developments have been brought about by the arrival of the latest addition to WNT’s solid carbide high-performance cutter range Ti-HPC. The Engineer Conference: The Engineer conference will showcase some of the most compelling and inspiring examples of manufacturing technology from both the UK’s established and emerging engineering sectors. Featuring speakers from industry and academia, the conference stream will provide a snapshot of the diversity of UK industry and give visitors insight into the manufacturing strategies of some of the UK’s exciting companies.

Conference Highlights: Bob Joyce, Group Engineering Director, Jaguar Land Rover:

Bob Joyce will examine the role innovation in engineering and technology has played in JLR’s success. He will give an engineer’s perspective on its ambitious launch programme, how it has advanced new technology in its vehicles and how it has adopted new methods of construction and materials to achieve major weight savings and environmental advantages. Richard Hague, Professor of Innovative Manufacturing, Director, EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing:

Prof Richard Hague will discuss the advantages additive techniques bring, highlight some of the latest advances and applications in the field and speculate on how big a role additive techniques will play in the future Mike Banach, Senior Research Manager, Plastic Logic; Dick Elsy, CEO, High Value Manufacturing Catapult; Seena Rajal, Founder and CEO, 3D Industries and the Future Manufacturing Forum; Phil Reeves, Director, Econolyst:

Panel discussion on future manufacturing methods. New techniques such as additive manufacturing, new technologies such as plastic electronics and new ways types of internet-enabled interactions between customers and suppliers all promise to disrupt the manufacturing landscape. But what will the winning technologies be, what are the unknowns and what role will traditional methods continue to play? And what strategies do we need to have in place to face whatever the future throws at us?

What The Advanced Manufacturing Show — the new show from Centaur Media’s MWP — aims to provided a platform for boardlevel decision makers, production and quality engineers to get to grips high-productivity solutions to enhance manufacturing performance, efficiency and quality. The event will showcase worldclass advanced manufacturing technologies across machining, tooling, laser, metrology, design and more. The Advanced Manufacturing Show will be colocated with the Subcon Show and a technology and innovation conference led by The Engineer.

When 4–6 June 2013

Where The NEC, Birmingham, UK

The Advanced Manufacturing Show www.advancedmanufacturingshow.co.uk

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the benchmark in 3D printing Expand your creative possibilities by molding GLUHFWO\ IURP \RXU &$' Ă&#x2019; OH 2XU VXSHULRU 3D printing technology eliminates the interim step of in-house prototyping. You ZLOO KDYH OHVV KXPDQ HUURU RQ Ă&#x2019; QLVKLQJ DQG your time-to-market advantage will not be matched. The precision of our 3D printers is proven to be unparalleled in the industry.

To view our full suite of 3D printing solutions and upcoming trade shows please visit: www.envisiontec.com

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[Massive Dynamics]

What is

Massive Dynamics’ products In the five short months between October 2012 and February 2013 Massive Dynamics has “launched” or stated its involvement in five products:

? Our editorial team’s attempts to learn more about Massive Dynamics led reporters Rose Brooke and Daniel O’Connor on a wild goose chase. Here we report our findings on one of the most mysterious companies to hit the headlines of recent years. WORDS | ROSE BROOKE & DAN O’CONNOR

CT has been around for decades now, our sister site Personalize has been running for close to a year. We see countless press releases materialise on the web — especially regarding the hyped-up world of 3D printing — all of them offering new services or products, which we are duty-bound to report. Therefore, when a press release from Massive Dynamics1 (OTCQB: MSSD) appeared on March 6th announcing the news it is acquiring Hong Kong-based PrintForge 3D, it was written up and posted on the site2 as normal. Though we weren’t the only media outlet to use Massive Dynamics’ releases, which have been picked up by Reuters3, Bloomberg4, CNBC5, 3Ders.org6 and 3D Printing Industry7 to name but a few. An email from a potential investor asking for more information on PrintForge 3D, sparked our curiosity. Nowhere can we find any evidence of PrintForge 3D existing prior to Massive Dynamics’ press release. An attempt to get in touch with Massive Dynamics for further information failed owing to the lack of any contact details for marketing or publicity personnel. The only means of contacting Massive Dynamics is through its CEO Oscar Hines via an address in California and a telephone number that rings to voicemail. The company also has this handy little note on the site8, serving to discourage any potential tricky questions being posed. So we were led to wonder; what is this company, and why can we not get in contact? What do we know about Massive Dynamics? Massive Dynamics’ website says it is a “designer, developer and manufacturer of accessories and equipment for Apple, Android PC devices and long-range wireless technology”.

The publicly-traded company — which is not to be confused with Massive Dynamic, of the television show Fringe by JJ Abrams — was founded in Nevada on March 15th 2011. Until July 11th 2011, when it entered into a Services Agreement with Horizon Tower LLC, it was a socalled shell company9. As a publicly-traded business, its records have to be in the public domain and they can be found via online SEC filings10. In its most recent report for the final quarter of 2012, the company said to date it has “limited operations and revenues” and has “incurred losses from operations”. The business is currently based in Cupertino, California, where it has a short-term lease for premises paying $1,027 per month.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Frogpad - a sticker and software that transforms your Apple TrackPad into a small keyboard/mouse combo. Though you cannot find any trace of the Frogpad on Massive Dynamics’ actual site, Massive Dynamics’ logo is plastered all over the Frogpad site11.

Telipad - an interesting device that turns a tablet into a smartphone. According to an advert (Fig. 1) it has sold up to 200,000 Telipads, though nobody has seen one and the contributors at MacRumors12 find the concept hilarious. Another advert has a clearly Photoshopped image of an iPad mini. (Fig. 2)

CocoBlue - an iPhone 5 charging case and the only product advertised on their site that actually has a place to buy it. These sorts of charging cases are nothing new and are available at pretty much every phone shop in the world. Interestingly CoCoBlue is also a Chinese company that seems to sell a product very similar to the Telipad13.

First Web 4.0 Android Tablet available in Early 2013 apparently, the product claims to receive data without touch or sound... it has been delayed14 and nobody we can find has seen a prototype.

PrintForge3D - the latest item in Massive Dynamics’ portfolio apparently weighs just 19 lbs (8.6 kg) and wowed people at a Chinese machinery exhibition... more on this later.

The hunt for Oscar Hines CEO and president Oscar Hines took over from former CEO and president Don Calabria and secretary of the company Frank Hariton on August 31st 2012. Mr Hines is now sole director, CEO and corporate secretary and receives $5,000 per month for his services. Mr Hines is 50 and has a corporate background. He served as the director for ITT Technical Institute (though we’ve seen him linked to a different ITT) and has also run businesses in the health and beauty industry. We tried to contact ITT Technical Institute to ask about its former Director of the Year15 without success. Furthermore, attempts to find a means of contacting Don Calabria failed. However, we did speak to Frank Hariton, of Hariton Law16 in White Plains, New York. Mr Hariton told our reporters that he had “never heard” of Oscar Hines and had not been involved in Massive Dynamics for “over a year” or 25

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Designed for pr production oduction The Ar cam Q10 rrepresents epresents the 3r d generation EBM technology Arcam 3rd technology.. It is a manufacturing equipment specifically designed for pr oduction of small to production medium-sized components with fine detail, such as orthopedic implants.

Features Features include: r Higher productivity productivity r Impr Improved oved resolution resolution r Ar Arcam cam LayerQamâ&#x201E;˘

www.arcam.com

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[Massive Dynamics] “maybe two years” despite Mr Hines’ taking over his role eight months ago. Mr Hariton had no contact information for Oscar Hines, nor did he know the company is involved in 3D printing, because it was in the cell phone tower business when he was involved in its operations. Mr Hariton revealed he has had nothing to do with Massive Dynamics since the “vehicle company” that took it over paid him and Mr Calabria an “eight-figure sum” in the deal. Mr Hines is a tricky man to pin down and numerous emails and calls to the various numbers and addresses have yielded nothing but radio silence. Such an absence of Internet presence is hard to fathom, particularly as Mr Hines has an enthusiastic quote to share on each press release Massive Dynamics sends out, and they are being published with increasing regularity. Real-View3D and the Chinese Machinery Fair On March 12th, Massive Dynamics reported17 that it is working with “renowned technologist” Jonathan J Howard, the US Air Force-trained director of Real-View 3D18. “We are gearing up with an outstanding team of designers and engineers lead by JJ Howard. With a team of this pedigree we are excited about bringing our customers the very best innovations,” Mr Hines remarked. Attempts to contact Mr Howard and his team at Real-View 3D in Rochester, NY, failed. Moreover, on March 18th, Massive Dynamics revealed it showcased its 3D Rapid Prototyping PrintForge 3D printer at the 13th Annual China Machinery Fair in Xi-an19. Our team of industry experts travel internationally to expos throughout the year, and yet they have never heard of the Annual China Machinery Fair in Xi-an, nor could we find any website or news about the event. Another lead evaporated. Kylemore Corp Editorial interest at TCT and Personalize gave us license to put some time into examining Massive Dynamics.

Our hunt to find out who is backing Massive Dynamics led us to Kylemore Corp, which bought an enormous 90 per cent stake20 in the company right before Oscar Hines took over from Don Calabria and Frank Haritan — and it is possible this is the company that provided both gentlemen with their “eight-figure” payoff. The top result in a Google search for Kylemore heralds an article from Promotion Stock Secrets21, in which Kylemore is reported as being an offshore company in the Marshall Islands22 — a tax haven. The article outlines concerns regarding Chimera Energy Corp and its involvement with Kylemore. Further research into Chimera and Kylemore uncovered this feature23 from Seeking Alpha. The mythological hybrid Chimera24 — which is a mythological beast comprising of bits of lion, serpent and goat — is the name given to a company associated with fracking and energy. It was suspended25 by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US on October 25th 2012 “because of questions regarding the accuracy of statements by Chimera in press releases to investors concerning, among other things, the company’s business prospects and agreements”. Chimera is the name of the nefarious drug central to the plot of Mission Impossible II. Massive Dynamics is similar to the name of the overarching corporation in Fringe — but this tenuous link to popular culture is being treated by us as coincidence. However, there are numerous other similarities between Chimera and Massive Dynamics that set alarm bells ringing. Like Massive Dynamics, Chimera had a sole officer — Charles Grob — and was given significant funding by Kylemore in the form of a $100,000 loan at 15 per cent interest in 2011. Kylemore bought 90 per cent of Massive Dynamics’ shares last year. Massive Dynamics also received a $250,000 loan last year and it was agreed with its unnamed lender that its credit agreement be cancelled on January 15th 2013, rolling the arrangement into a new agreement not to exceed $500,000.

If you would like to see Massive Dynamics’ share activity for yourself, see the graph on www.otcmarkets.com26. Since Kylemore’s involvement in Massive Dynamics, its stocks rallied from $0.0493 to $1.01 in a single day in September 2012. Shares have since leveled off, still those who speculated at the $0.0493 rate have profited handsomely. Like Massive Dynamics, Chimera has virtual offices and there are startling similarities between Massive Dynamics’ investor page27 and the investor page on Chimera’s website28. Furthermore, both companies’ websites are registered by Domainsbyproxy.com29 — a service preventing the registration of IP addresses and domain names from being traced — and both have published press releases regularly via Business Wire. In the week of our investigation Massive Dynamics published a press release every day — a modus operandi that Seeking Alpha highlighted in relation to Chimera30. Finally, Chimera — also a former shell company — is registered in corporate tax haven Nevada, like Massive Dynamics, where incorporated companies do not need to disclose shareholder identities and corporate offices may be held by a single person. So what exactly is Massive Dynamics? Seeking Alpha’s report lambasts Chimera and interrelated Nova Mining Corp as “scams” and the author’s conclusion is to stay away from both businesses, as they have “no tangible value”. Given the total inability to contact anybody related to Massive Dynamics and its work today, the worrying data in its last quarterly figures, not to mention the links with Kylemore and the similarities between our findings and Seeking Alpha’s damning report of Chimera, we feel obliged to publish our findings for our readers to interpret. Massive Dynamics is welcome to contact our editorial offices with any comment on its business and developments.

References — all pages accessed 21/03/2013 er/ acquire-hong-kong-based-3d-printer-develop ctmagazine.com/articles/massive-dynamics-to20130320 +BSW 108 Z1ka+ Bw6d5 1: http://massivedynamicsinc.com/ 2: http://www.t idUSn amics ive-dyn -mass 3: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/ca m/id/100563321 4/a_ 5a5YAWBWgU.html 5: http://www.cnbc.co 4: http://www.bloomberg.com/article/2013-03-1 d-printer-developer-printforge-3d.html quire-3 s-to-ac ynamic ssive-d 05-ma 01303 6: http://www.3ders.org//articles/2 www.massivedynamicsinc.com/contact.php ssive-dynamics-3d-printing-division/ 8: http:// 7: http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/03/04/ma knet/secdocuments.aspx?symbol=mssd m/stoc star.co l 10: http://quicktake.morning 9: http://biz.yahoo.com/e/121119/mssd10-q.htm mors.com/showthread.php?t=1509496 .macru forums ecdocuments.aspx?symbol=mssd 12: http:// 11: http://quicktake.morningstar.com/stocknet/s mics-Engages-Renowned-3D-Technologist e-Dyna Massiv 74/en/ 20051 13031 me/20 usinesswire.com/news/ho edynamicsinc.com/mar12-2013.php 13: http://cocoblue.com.cn/ 14: http://www.b t.php 16: http://haritonlaw.com/ 17: http://massiv 15: http://massivedynamicsinc.com/managemen edynamicsinc.com/mar18-2013.php massiv http:// 19: om 18: http://www.real-view3d.c 00238/mssd8k_090412apg.htm 09120 14697 34/000 20: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/15195 n/1000435718-KYLEMORE-CORP..html .com/e vessta http:// 22: / -today tch-list ergy-corp-chmr-added-to-our-wa -simultaneous-scams-part-1-chmr 21: http://promotionstocksecrets.com/chimera-en er-click-ads-help-this-houston-promoter-run-2 23: http://seekingalpha.com/article/808601-pay-p -simultaneous-scams-part-1-chmr r-run-2 omote ton-pr er-click-ads-help-this-hous 24: http://seekingalpha.com/article/808601-pay-p order-of-suspension-of-trading ration-corpo 0/29/2012-26609/chimera-energy 25: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/1 massivedynamicsinc.com/investors.php http:// 27: t D/char k/MSS m/stoc ets.co 26: http://www.otcmark ault.aspx tml 29: https://www.domainsbyproxy.com/Def 28: http://www.chimeraenergyusa.com/investors.h eiving-investors ue-dec -contin nd-lies tions-a abrica ct-as-f ra-energy-part-ii-pemex-denies-contra 30: http://seekingalpha.com/article/829951-chime

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All Star Cast

[GRAINGER AND WORRALL]

WORDS | JIM WOODCOCK

rainger and Worrall Ltd are experts in casting, especially complex and high-strength castings. This is why the company makes engine blocks for some of the most prestigious automotive brands in the world including Bentley, Aston Martin and — believe it or not —engine blocks for the all-American high-octane speed-fest that is NASCAR. One of the latest tools in the company’s formidable arsenal is a 3D sand printer; not as a design aid or a development tool, but as part of a true manufacturing production line. Traditionally the beating heart of British manufacturing, the UK’s West Midlands has been amongst the hardest hit by offshoring, recession and — some would say — unrelenting government apathy. But as Charles Darwin deduced, these life-ordeath challenges have killed off the weak and left behind only the strong. In this case Grainger and Worrall has not only survived but grown and prospered and has a global client base that would leave most companies green with envy. Founded in 1946 and still owned by the Grainger family, Grainger and Worrall runs two sites in the UK totalling 17,500 m2 with further representation in the US, Germany, Italy and China. This global footprint combined with customers in the aerospace, automotive, defence, marine, motorsport and power generation industries are the keys to the longevity of the company. A spread of clients with different lead-times, contract lengths and phases of activity helps to balance the books across otherwise lean times. Truly a full-service partner, Grainger and Worrall has in-house capability from design support and engineering to production including tooling, rapid prototyping, casting and machining for development, pre-series and small series production. Sand printing is not a new venture for Grainger and Worrall; they have used sand printing from bureaux for over 8 years. Over this time, they evaluated various sand printing systems looking for a system which offers best performance, speed and flexibility. 18 months ago, they began testing with the HHS system from ExOne. Over the course of the following year, they helped refine the process and after repeatedly seeing the additional benefits the system offered made the decision to bring the system in house. Teamed with dedicated 3D printing and casting experts, Grainger and Worrall are already helping to develop the process and capabilities of the machine. The system integrates with the existing depth of knowledge and resource offering the company’s client’s real leadership and choice, be it conventional tooling, printed or a pragmatic hybrid solution. Housed in a new purpose built production room, the S-Print is fed by two huge sand silos in an adjacent room. The size of the build volume (800 mm x 500 mm x 400 mm) and the speed of operation (9-10 hours per full job box) means that the S-Print swallows up a lot of sand, which takes up a lot of room — quite how much may not be apparent until seeing the machine in operation. In addition to this, the company runs three ‘job boxes’ (removable build chambers), meaning the printer can effectively produce parts 24 hours per day with minimal downtime. The company uses a special low-expansion sand blend, mixed in precisely controlled proportions. Mixing of the sand occurs at the point of use so the ratio of ingredients can be controlled on a build-by-build basis. The low-expansion sand maintains geometric stability throughout the casting process — which by its nature includes high temperatures that would cause standard printed sand parts to expand and crack. The sand mix can be combined in

different proportions with different additive depending on the work being undertaken. The system also has little waste as unbound sand can be recycled and used again in the system. After casting, the sand can be reclaimed and used once more in the conventional foundries sand supply. The low-expansion sand mix is paired with a high heat strength (HHS) binder to form the cores and moulds directly from the CAD data. The HHS binder and low-expansion sand means the company can create highly accurate intricate structures (such as thin walls) that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. The other major advantage with the HHS binder is the ability to cast iron and steel parts, something which is normally unachievable with standard furan sand printing. Furthermore, the cores and moulds are available for casting work straight away. The cores and moulds are destined for use in the six foundries Grainger and Worrall operate in Bridgnorth: an Aluminium foundry, Iron foundry, short-run foundry, large mould foundry, motorsport foundry and a foundry dedicated to a single client. Combined with the companies finishing technologies and extensive validation equipment this set up allows delivery of production-ready parts from one-off to runs of up to 10,000 scheduled parts. The final stage in the production cycle is the validation of the cast parts. Here the company employs an impressive array of technology to ensure that each part is free from defects. Externally a GOM scanning system and five co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs) are employed to ensure dimensional accuracy but these are of limited use for examining and validating internal structures (which engine manufacturers are reportedly quite keen on).0 A pair of industrial grade 450kV X-ray computed tomography machines are used on site for validation of complete parts including checking internal structures and voids within the cast. The CT scanner can also be used to in reverse engineering work taking a solid part and recreating a faithful replica of all internal and external features. Real-time x-ray, digital endoscopes and more are available too. In 2012, Grainger and Worrall added two awards, the Queen’s Award for Innovation and an R&D100 award for ceramic sand inserts. They continuously push new material development with real world application and operate with a culture to enable and innovate in the toughest sectors of their market. This is shown with their global presence in the most demanding fields of automotive engineering which includes Formula 1 and NASCAR.

Grainger and Worrall Ltd www.gwcast.co.uk 29

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:28 Page 30

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TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 31

[AdAM]

Centre for

Advanced Additive Manufacturing WORDS | JIM WOODCOCK SIDEBAR 1

AdAM Academics n Prof. Neil Hopkinson (Ce ntre Director) n Prof. Iain Todd (Adv. Me tallic Systems, Director of Mercury Centre) n Dr Fredrick Claeyssens (Bioprinting Technologies) n Dr Patrick Smith (Printin g Technologies) n Dr Candice Majewski (Po lymer Technologies) n Dr Kamran Mumtaz (Me tal Technologies) n Dr Mathew Gilbert (Design for AM) n Prof. Ric Van Noort (De ntal AM)

As if Additive Manufacturing wasn’t ‘advanced’ enough, academics at The University of Sheffield, UK, have formed AdAM — the Centre for Advanced Additive Manufacturing. Heading back to his old university, Jim Woodcock took a look at what the group was up to.

he Centre for Advanced Additive Manufacturing (AdAM) at The University of Sheffield is involved in additive manufacturing technologies and related disciplines. Covering a huge array of processes, materials and applications the group is driving forward research with a truly commercial eye. AdAM was formed as a research group within the university and recently won ‘Centre’ status. The Centre partners with some big names too — BMW, Boeing and Materialise all feature in short films created by the Centre while much other on-going work with SMEs and OEMs across a huge range of sectors is subject to confidentiality. Professor Neil Hopkinson is Centre Director and works with a group of seven other academics (Sidebar1) covering everything additive from inkjet printing to electron beam melting as well as applications such as dentistry and design processes for AM. Amongst the most interesting machines in the AdAM labs is something you’re not likely to see anywhere else — the high-speed sintering system that Professor Hopkinson began development of while at Loughborough University. This system combines the ease of operation of a ZPrinter with the part quality of SLS and the speed — it is claimed — of injection moulding. The system works by depositing infrared absorbing ink onto a bed of powdered polymer much like an ExOne machine deposits binder onto a sand or metal powder. Behind the laser an infrared lamp scans the newly formed layer. The heat energy from the lamp is selectively absorbed by the binder causes the polymer particle to sinter together. The system has been in development for some time now but the AdAM team are actively speaking with commercial partners interested in taking the technology to the next level. During my visit to AdAM I was struck by the fact that the metals processing technology (located in the Mercury Centre) was predominantly Arcam electron beam melting (EBM) machines. The 3 Arcam machines are joined in the Mercury Centre by a Renishaw SLM 125 for research on selective laser melting. It is the speed of the EBM systems when compared with the SLM systems — 55–80cm3/hr for EBM vs. 2–10cm3/hr for SLM — that makes the process a prime candidate for many manufacturing applications. Within the Mercury Centre EBM technology is being used in the manufacture of parts for end users including Formula 1 teams with success. AdAM aims to execute productive research by fusing the expertise from different disciplines. The team and its research spans many different departments, disciplines and sectors often in projects that are interdisciplinary in nature. Work is also undertaken across a wide range of technology readiness levels, from basic research which often involves expertise from the pure sciences, to applied research in close collaborations with industry. AdAM has access to over £3M worth AM equipment (Sidebar2) as well as a plethora of design, testing and analysis equipment.

SIDEBAR 2

AM equipment available at AdAM n 3 x Arcam Electron Bea m Melting machines (housed in The Mercury Centre) n Pro beam K40 Electron Beam Welder (housed in The Mercury Centre) n Renishaw Selective Las er melting SLM 125 (housed in The Mercury Centre) n EOS Laser Sintering P10 0 (housed in The Departm ent of Mechanical Engineering) n High Speed Sintering Pro totype (housed in The Dep artment of Mechanical Engineering) n Objet Inkjet Printing Ede n 260V (housed in The Dep artment of Mechanical Engineering) n MicroFab Jetlab 4x1 (hou sed in The Department of Mechanical Engineering) n Aerosol Jet (housed in The Mercury Centre) n Microstereolithography (housed in The Department of Materials Science and Engineering)

Centre for Advanced Additive Manufacturing www.adamcentre.co.uk

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 32

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TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 33

[i2M]

EARLY ADOPTERS

Anonymous WORDS | JIM WOODCOCK

In the bad old days the perception of a service bureau was of a company that made what you sent it. Maybe they’d invested in some equipment like a ‘rapid prototyping machine’ into which your file was loaded and the resulting model was packaged and shipped. Maybe they subcontracted the work out never saw the file or the part. These days however it’s all about adding value, especially if you’re targeting high-end users with exacting standards.

nnovate 2 Make (i2M) is the brainchild of Mike Kelly and Ian Campbell, both veterans of the additive manufacturing industry back from the days when it was all about rapid prototyping. These days however the industry is much more diverse and the opportunities — particularly in the manufacturing and production space — seem unlimited at the moment. Leading the way forward with true additive ‘manufacturing’ are the metals technologies… but how do companies even get started with a new technology like this? Mike Kelly explained: “Having been involved with 3D Printing since its very early days, I see the adoption of metalsbased applications as the next logical step. There’s work to do, but I wanted to grasp the opportunity to be at the forefront of the next revolution. i2M’s remit is to support its partners through initial adoption of the technology and onwards into production. This is a very different approach to what our partners have found in the traditional market space.” In many ways additive technologies are seen as something of a black art; a situation not helped, it must be said, by the vendors themselves. The sustained hype around ‘3D Printing’ has been good for generating interest in AM but equally has muddied the waters about the technologies, their benefits and their

Left to right: Mike Kelly, Ian Campbell and Bruno Le Razer

limitations. For the high-tech industries that i2M are targeting this lack of clarity could stand in the way of adopting a new technology that could have a real and positive benefit. Bruno Le Razer, formally of 3T RPD (see last months issue) and EOS UK is an expert in metals technologies and their applications. He has joined i2M as Chief Technical Officer and explained: “When I saw Mike and Ian’s innovative approach with their clients, I immediately wanted to be a part of the new team. The potential for wider adoption of AM is very exciting and I’m particularly looking forward to using my AM experience in implementing our production process and materials development programs.” The company has established itself in an impressive facility in Leamington Spa and already has the first equipment in and running. The first thing that one notices however is the packaging crate for the EOS M280 that sits in the production area out of view. The crate has not been left in the lobby however; the team has ‘upcycled’ it into desks! As Ian and Mike explained: “The M280 comes from Germany very well packaged and we would have been disappointed if all that good material had gone to waste once it had been used to ship the machine — hence we used it for desks!” Given the struggle the team faced when it came to getting the company off the ground this ‘upcycling’ would seem to be good from an environmental standpoint but also for the balance sheet. As Ian explained: “Raising the finance to get i2M off the ground has been a huge personal challenge. The potential for additive manufacture was evident to me the very first time I saw it but I knew translating this into a commercially viable business would be a long and difficult task. Launching Innovate 2 Make Ltd was a momentous day for Mike and myself and we are relishing the new challenges ahead of us as we take this exciting technology into industry.” On the whole i2M’s business case would seem to be sound today and certainly sound for the future. The number of companies that could benefit from AM but are put off by the seemingly high barriers to adoption must be huge, and a certain degree of ‘hand-holding’ is still needed to get the benefits of the technology across. Many of the companies that would have traditionally been labeled bureaux are today becoming much more than that, with the potential to help clients in the design, prototyping and production stages — which can only be a good thing for the future of the technologies.

Innovate 2 Make www.i2m.co.uk

[US Bureau Locator]

Armstrong Mold Tel 001 (315) 437-1517 Web www.armstrongmold.com

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 34

Contact: Jim Bartel Location: 8081 Wallace Road, Eden Prairie, MN 55344 Tel: 001 (866) 882-6934 Email: godigital@redeyeondemand.com Web: www.redeyeondemand.com RPD Equipment (In House): FDM, PolyJet Typical Turnaround Time: 1-5 days Average Shipping Time: Priority Overnight

Contact: Adam Galloway Location: 940 North Shore Drive, Lake Bluff, Il 60044 Tel: 001 (847) 615-8900 Email: adamg@gpiprototype.com Web: www.gpiprototype.com RPD Equipment (In House): 3 EOS Machines: 2 - M270, 1 - M280 Typical Turnaround Time: 5 - 7 days

Contact: Scott McGowan Location: 28309 Avenue Crocker Valencia, CA 91355 Tel: 001 (888) 311-1017 E-mail: marketing@solidconcepts.com Web: www.solidconcepts.com RPD Equipment (In House): PolyJet™ high precision 3D printing, Stereolithography® (SLA) models and patterns, Z-Corp® 3D Color Prints, Selective Laser Sintering® (SLS), Direct Metal Laser Sintering® (DMLS), Fused Deposition Modeling® (FDM), ID-Light™ lightweight parts, CNC models and patterns, QuantumCast™ advanced cast urethanes, and Composites. Typical Turnaround Time: from 2 days Average Shipping Time: Shipping time depends on customer needs

Solid Concepts Inc.

RedEye On Demand

GPI Prototype and Manufacturing Services.

Contact: Mark Barfoot Location: 809 Wellington St. N., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G4Y7 Tel: 001 (519) 749-6622 E-mail: sales@hyphenservices.com Web: www.hyphenservices.com RPD Equipment (In House): Prototyping: Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Stereolithography (SLA), PolyJet, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), 3-4-5-axis CNC machining centers; Environmental Testing: Vibration, Thermal, Tension and compression, Sound, Shock and drop, Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)

Hyphen

Contact: Scott Young Location: 9233 N. Dixie Dr., Dayton, OH, USA Tel: 001 (937) 890-9292 Email: sales@bastech.com Web: www.teambastech.com RPD Equipment (In House): SLA, MJM-plastics & waxes, Zprinters, CNC, Rapid Tooling, Urethane Casting, Model Making, Injection Molding, Engineering Design, 3D Scanner, SRP Typical Turnaround Time: Next day +, varies with process Average Shipping Time: Customer defined Comment: 23+ years experience in RP parts, tooling & manufacturing, we help our customers make the right RP choice for both service and equipment. 3D Systems and Roland DGA authorised reseller.

Contact: Mike Littrell Location: 125 Erick Street Suite A115, Crystal Lake, IL 60014 Tel: 001 (847) 639-1000 E-mail: info@buildparts.com Web: www.buildparts.com RPD Equipment (In House): FDM, POLYJET, SLS, SLA and full model shop in house Typical Turnaround Time: 1-2 days Average Shipping Time: Same day service is available

C.Ideas

Contact: Bob Summa Location: East Syracuse NY Tel: 001 (315) 437-1517 Email: sales@armstrongmold.com Web: www.armstrongmold.com RPD Equipment (In House): Yes Online Quotation/File Upload Service: Yes Typical Turnaround Time: 1-4 weeks Average Shipping Time: 1-3 days Comment: Functional Metal and Plastic Prototypes

Armstrong Mold

Contact: Brian Ford Location: 301 Perimeter Center North, Suite 500, Atlanta, Georgia 30346 Tel: 001 (770) 901-3200 Email: quote@quickparts.com Web: www.quickparts.com RPD Equipment (In House): SLA, SLS, 3D Printing, Cast Urethane, CNC Machining, Injection Molding, Metal Casting Typical Turnaround Time: 1 - 5 business days Average Shipping Time: Priority Overnight Comment: Quickparts offers patented instant online quoting and a wide variety of solutions. Experts in Rapid Prototyping, CNC Machining, and Injection molding.

Location: 3020 Red Hill Avenue Costa Mesa CA 92626 Tel: 001 (714) 641-7111 and 001 (888) 496-3406 Email: info@dinsmoreinc.com Web: www.dinsmoreinc.com RPD Equipment (In House): Rapid Prototyping (SLA®, FDM®, SLS®, DMLS® & Polyjet™), Product Design & Development, CNC Machining, Injection Mold Tooling: Rapid Aluminum Tooling, Injection Molding, Metal Casting and Rapid Metal Fabrication, RTV Molding & Plastic Casting Typical Turnaround Time: TBD Average Shipping Time: 24-48 Depending on quantity and complexity

Contact: Chaera Stone Location: 19503 E 6th St., Tulsa, OK 74108 Tel: 001 (918) 266-1004 Email: cstone@approto.com Web: www.approto.com RPD Equipment (In House): Stereolithography, Selective Laser Sintering, Fused Definition Modeling, Cast Urethane / Silicone Molding, CNC Machining, Rapid Metal Castings Typical Turnaround Time: Additive Manufacturing 3-5 days Metals 10-12 days Average Shipping Time: Standard Overnight

Bastech, Inc.

Quickparts – A 3D Systems Company

Dinsmore & Associates INC.

Amercian Precision Prototyping LLC

 

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 36

[Hyphen]

Product Development,

Hyphenated Having spent the last decade building up an enviable collection of prototyping and testing equipment and expertise, Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc. has decided to open up its prototyping and testing facilities to everyone. Maybe it’s time to Hyphenate your development cycle. WORDS | JIM WOODCOCK

ttentive readers may be able to cast their mind back to an article we ran in TCT last year about the development of a medical device used for real-time tracing of blood vessels. The Christie VeinViewer projects an image onto the patient’s skin, revealing the underlying vasculature and blood flow. This ability to identify veins in a noninvasive, real-time manner helps with phlebotomy on very young, old or uncooperative patients. The company behind that system is Christie, whose impressive prototyping and testing systems would have been the envy of many a reader. Until now. Why until now? Because now the team at Christie is opening up their extensive testing and prototyping facility to the world with a new company: Hyphen. Operating as a division of Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc., Hyphen bundles all the development and testing equipment and expertise that Christie has been developing for the last decade, and opens it up to third parties. For anyone considering using Hyphen for either prototyping, production or testing it’s perhaps useful to recap what the Hyphen team uses, and to what ends. The development phase that has led to the launch of Hyphen as a separate company started back in 2003 when Christie invested in a Stratasys Titan FDM machine. Managing Director of Hyphen, Mark Barfoot, who joined parent company Christie back in 2000 — explains the company’s thinking behind deploying 3D printing as a rapid prototyping tool: “We use 3D printing to iterate and optimise designs. We will design, prototype, test, evaluate, redesign, prototype and test again so that we are sure we’re producing the best parts.”

Barfoot continued: “Ten years ago we were really looking for ways to build our prototypes earlier in the cycle. We wanted to try out new designs earlier and not end up late in the product design cycle, when at the PPR (Production Pilot Run) stage, and find that the design doesn’t work or that there is a problem. Often we had to wait for an injection moulded part to show up, then find that it didn’t fit, leading to a cycle of tooling changes, etc. Those problems could easily delay a project by months. Over the last 10 years we have worked to ensure that we can produce these parts in-house and have prototypes the same day or at the latest within a week. We found that we were able to iterate and optimise out designs, which is something we try and instil in our engineers — they take a design and don’t live with the first version. We encourage them to iterate and prototype it again and again to ensure it’s the best part they can get.” So how has this amazing transformation been achieved? By using just about every technology available to the team over the last decade. Over the years, Christie has invested in Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), PolyJet, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Stereo Lithography (SLA), and metal-working processes including 3-axis, 4-axis and 5-axis CNC machining. The development of 3D printing technology and the team’s expertise has led to the team expanding its ambitions, as Mark Barfoot explained: “The other area that we are looking at is adding some low-volume production parts. This is an area where we have in the past made a few parts here and there for custom systems or individual projectors. With the technology the way it is at the moment it is great for two areas: larger parts for a low-volume production run or small components — smaller than a coffee cup — for larger-volume production runs.” Perhaps the major factor that separates Hyphen from the classic service bureau is the company’s extensive testing capabilities. The comprehensive environmental testing laboratory can identify field failures and testing issues early in the product development lifecycle, and mitigate risks. Continues on p39

tct [21:2]

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 37

[Hyphen] Blending technologies: this working prototype ‘blends’ the four main additive technologies in use at Hyphen: PolyJet, FDM, SLA and SLS.

See a video of the blender being assembled and operated at http://mytct.co/hyphenvid ue white for details 1) PolyJet Lids — black rubber-like and opaq the properties of the production material 2) PolyJet Jug — clear material mimicking levels of detail high with 3) PolyJet Cuff — durable materials like final injection moulded parts most g, stron yet eight 4) FDM Buttons — lightw st large build envelope for large parts 5) SLA Body — good finish and accuracy, for snap-fit and press-fit interlocks le suitab 6) SLS Base — strong and durable,

6 37

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 38

our Quickly Quickly transform transform y your cc ate 3D 3D designs designs into into a accurate working working models models nable d esigners a nd e ngineers S tratasys 3 DP rinters e Stratasys 3D Printers enable designers and engineers heir 3 Dd esigns iinto nto u niquely tto oq uickly ttransform ransform ttheir quickly 3D designs uniquely odels, p arts a nd p rototypes. rrealistic ealistic p hysical 3 Dm physical 3D models, parts and prototypes. You can touch and feel designs allowing you to easily revise them and achieve design per fection, resulting in a fast time-to-market. For expert expert advice and an support, call T Tri-Tech ri-Te ech 3D â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the leading distributor tor of Stratasys 3D printers.

TELEPHONE: 01782 814551 | VISIT T:: W W W W.. T R I T E C H 3 D D.. C O O.. U K

tct [21:2]

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 39

[Hyphen]

Continued from p37

Mechanical testing includes analytic testing services and full reporting for a wide range of mechanical testing including:

n n n n n n n n

package testing modal analysis sine and random vibration testing shock pulse and impact/drop tests sound pressure/sound power measurements sound quality analysis operating and non-operating temperature tests tensile and compression failure load limits

Hyphen’s electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) laboratory can perform full-scan, radiated emission testing and measure radiated electromagnetic noise compatibility to:

n n n n

FCC, Industry Canada, CISPR, and several IEC and EN standards.

Beyond this the team has the ability to perform the testing and provide support for troubleshooting any EMC problems the testing reveals, covering: n EMC radiated and conducted emissions, and n EMC immunity with surge, EFT and ESD generators.

Opening the doors to such an Alladin’s Cave of prototyping and testing equipment is all very well of course, but even the most simple 3D printing technique requires some specialist knowledge from the design stage through to production. Luckily Hyphen has this base covered too, with training in prototyping and environmental testing available either at Hyphen’s facilities or at a client’s facility. This is an important offering not only to ensure that clients are able to extract as much value as possible from the variety of technologies, but also as a wider educational drive for the industry. i

Hyphen www.hyphenservices.com

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 40

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[3D Labs GmbH]

A Model Patient:

Fast and accurate visualisation of 3D anatomical models via Scan-LED-Technology

3D Labs GmbH www.3d-labs.de

D anatomical models are used by medical facilities and universities to teach doctors in training or to help educate patients. The visualisation of 3D patient information from CT data can also quite often reveal anatomical characteristics that would otherwise have been missed. There are big advantages to using this approach; physically reproducing the patientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s anatomy preoperatively allows the responsible surgeon to come to an even more precise diagnosis through the insight that the anatomic model offers. Importantly, the technology that is used to build the anatomical models can handle a huge amount of information to keep the complexity of the specific pathology at the final result. Besides a better insight through a complex anatomical model, surgeons along with the operational team can also practice their surgical strategy ahead of making the first incision. Anatomical models made out of high-quality resin allow surgeons to drill into it, pre-bend plates or even saw specific parts. Continues on p43

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$OO SRVLWLRQV DUH EDV 6KHQ]KHQ 6RXWKHUQ \RXQJHVW PHWURSR $WWUDFWLYH VDO DQG ZHVWHUQ F LQFOXGHG & WKH VHPL W K H V H P L Q R Q I D V W

tct [21:2]

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 43

Continued from p41

The result of this preoperative modelling and training is a fully prepared surgical-team including an efficient treatment plan. In addition a secondary procedure can be planned if some complications start to occur. The pros are, on one hand, that less time is needed to perform the complete surgery. On the other hand, the surgery’s accuracy and efficiency is increased to ensure a better outcome for the patient. There are various additive processes on the global market used to manufacture medical technology products depending on the necessary applications. The only question left is — what kind of technology gives the most value for the investment? One of the newest 3D printing systems is the M120 – SLT, an adaptation of the classical stereolithography and DLP projection systems. The Scan LED technology brings together the advantages of the established generative manufacturing processes in terms of process flexibility, material selection, precision of build, operational comfort and costs according to 3D Labs. To ensure all these advantages the machine concept of the M120 has been purely developed for precision applications. The core consists of a resin vat where the elevator arm is located along with the building platform and the coating system. The exposure head moves in a XY-direction above the vat and projects an image onto the surface of the resin in order to trigger the photopolymerisation. After each finished layer the coatingsystem flattens the respective resin layer. The distinction between classical stereolithography and Scan-LED-technology is the structure of the exposure head. In place of a laser the M120 is equipped with a DLP LED-based UV-light source with 1.5 W output at 365 nm as a radiation source. An advantage of this is the fact that high lateral resolutions – a pixel has an edge length of 32 µm – are attained over a large build platform. In regards to the vat size it is possible to use an available space of 600 mm x 400 mm x 250 mm and a layer thickness from 50–150 µm. As key-feature both systems have been designed as open systems without RFID coding of the materials. Accordingly they remain flexible in the choice of materials, which is the one step towards rapid manufacturing and even the beginning of series productions. The only thing chemists should be aware of is the wavelength of the UV-LED lightsource with 365 nm along with +/- 5 nm tolerance. A greater tolerance will cause destructional faults because of a discrepant curing-time. To work straight out of the box with the M120 — without developing a new material — there is a specially designed material already available for printing medical and anatomical models. The so-called Scan LED resin FotoMed LED.A is suitable for the manufacture of objects in the field of medical technology. Furthermore the end products are biocompatible and they meet criteria regarding irritation, sensitisation and cytotoxicity for biological assessment of medical products (DIN ISO 10993) that allow the surgical team to take the anatomical models right into the operating

[3D Labs GmbH]

room. There are different ways in which the anatomical models can be sterilised by means of ethylene oxide, gamma and also steam. Due to their low water absorption, parts from FotoMed LED.A can also be steam sterilised over longer periods (> 15 min). After this sterilisation-process the material will reportedly remain dimensionally stable. A medical laboratory in Germany tested a special steam sterilisation scenario to establish firmly the operation room suitability and the overall material quality as well as stability. A universal-canula was consecutively steam sterilised ten times, using a standard-cycle of 134 °C. Afterwards there were reportedly no serious dimensional. A team from a German based med-tech company used the M120 to build an anatomical model of an adolescents lower leg. He suffered a fibular fracture and the appropriate surgeon wanted to test the plates prior to indertion. The 3D-model of the lower leg was split into units of meaning for an optimal placement on the building-plate with the parts built overnight. With an adjusted layer-thickness of 75 µm it took only 0.83 seconds to build a tile with the dimensions 60 mm x 30 mm plus recoating time. But how fast or slow the overall build will be completed can be controlled on the system itself by changing the layer-thickness. For a vessel-test it would be wise to take the highest possible resolution. After that there are two certified processes left before assembling the pieces – cleaning in an ultrasonic-bath and post curing. After the lower leg pieces were put together the surgeon could decide how to bridge the defect. The surgical team figured out a way of fixing the fibular fracture with minimal damage to surrounding tissues. Another company specialised in the dental-sector used the M120 to print a complete human head using a clear resin and the teeth in a dental material, so that the student team at that company could train and test different courses of action to refine their capabilities and materials. Apart from medical and anatomical models the material is also extremely suitable for the manufacture of surgical patterns or operation models, for example. On demand there is a possibility to start another certification process to test the toxicity of the FotoMed LED.A for use in patient specific implants like palmar plates for complex pathologic fractures. 43

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Inside 3D Printing W World orld Tour Tour Chicago, IL McCormick Place Convention Center July 10-11, 2013

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TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:29 Page 45

[emerging markets]

3D Printing in the emerging markets WORDS | ROSE BROOKE

Are the emerging markets catching the US and Europe up as interest in 3D printing gains global momentum?

t seems that the race is on to adopt 3D printing technologies around the world. Investment honeypots such as the Middle East, China, India and Brazil may have the opportunity to grow their 3D printing sectors as the West struggles with stagnation. So how is 3D printing technology being used in these emerging regions and is the US’s position as the apparent number-one economy in the global 3D printing market at risk?

The UAE Taking 3D printing into outer space is being explored in the UAE, as the Abu Dhabi office of global architecture firm Foster and Partners is looking into how soil from the moon could be used as a material for manufacturing building parts. This is based on the European Space Agency’s plans, which is producing entire structures using 3D printing. Additionally, the UAE is home to many 3D printing startups, as well as big firms adopting the technology for new projects. One smaller operation is Dubai-based Precise Concepts, which has established a service called This Is Me. The company sells 3D-scanned and printed figurines of real people with plastic resin and colour printing technologies that use phototexturing. Precise Concepts Director Lothar Lohmann stated: “At the moment very few people know about 3D printing and its potential in this part of the world, which means there is not yet a lot of demand. It is, however, growing.” Market research firm Gartner found that adoption rates among businesses in the Middle East were on par with Asia and Europe in 2012 at around 10 per cent. This is a similar uptake to 2011 and indicates a solid demand for the technology. These figures have quadrupled from those recorded in 2009.

China China’s communist government has been investing in 3D printing for years, almost since the technology first came on the scene, with 20 years of public finances trickling into research and development. The superpower is, therefore, nothing if not an early adopter, and is now home to at least four dedicated 3D printing research centres: the Beijing Longyuan Industrial Stock; the University of Science and Technology in Huazhong; Tsinghua; and Xi’an Jiaotong University — while every university has started a 3D printing enterprise of its own. 24/7 Wall Street reports that a group of Chinese researchers has developed a 3D printing technique called Laser Engineered Net Shaping that can produce the high-density, metallic components for an aeroplane wing for 90 per cent less than it would cost to make it ordinarily. A report in CaixinOnline stated: “Researchers are still working on the technique’s stability and hope someday it can be used for ... mass production.” Currently China claims around 3.6 per cent of the 3D printing market, according to the Wohlers Report, lagging behind the two-thirds made up of the US, Europe and Israel. But this could change, as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in Beijing is planning tax incentives, standardisation and regulations for the industry to encourage the development of the new technology. Guo Ge, General Manager at China’s largest 3D printing systems producer Beijing Tiertime Technology, stated: “We’re a long way from starting another industrial revolution. But if more improvements can be made in materials and operational capacity, manufacturing will be transformed.” Continues on p46

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[emerging markets]

Continued from p45

India India is looking to put itself at the forefront of technology, but has the nation begun investing in 3D printing like its developing rivals? The country is keen to invest in technology, but very few of the firms setting up shop in its thriving business parks are emerging as 3D printing pioneers. As India is home to major hubs such as Tata Motors’ headquarters, it is unsurprising 3D printing is making its most confident steps in the automotive sector. Indeed, the Sahara Force India Formula One Team has signed a technical partnership deal with 3D Systems to develop 3D printing for making cars. The multi-year agreement will allow Sahara Force to use 3D Systems’ equipment reducing the manufacturing time for wind tunnel model components - something that has been in place in UK-based teams for many years. Senior Vice-President of 3D Production Printers at 3D Systems Kevin McAlea commented: “The opportunity to partner with emerging innovators like Sahara Force India provides tangible customer benefits that extend well beyond motorsports.” And in Chennai, 3D printing is being used as a project management tool. R (Partha) Parthasarathy has been 3D printing since 2010 to provide models of buildings at every stage for architects and developers, slashing the lead time and expenses required to produce these miniatures, as well as cutting wastage and inaccuracies. Partha has christened his service iKix, which prints a typical project in six-to-10 days using 3D Systems’ ZPrinter technology. But as a nation, 3D printing is not something India has taken up with fervor — yet. Canon India President Alok Bharadwaj told PrintWeek: “India being a small market in comparison to other countries, opportunities that can be scaled faster are on the radar. We are yet to see the effectiveness and successful proposition of 3D printing.”

tct [21:2]

Brazil As one of the top emerging economies in the world, Brazil’s 3D printing uptake is one to watch. The application of these technologies to orthodontics is becoming particularly successful there. In January, Stratasys announced that Compass3D, a leading provider of 3D Digital Solutions, has begun offering Stratasys 3D Printing Solutions in Brazil. Director of Global Dental at Stratasys Avi Cohen commented: “Brazil has a rapidly growing dental market and the digital dentistry market will match that growth as new dental practices purchase the latest systems and equipment.” 3D printing is also being suggested as a solution to rehouse Brazil’s vast population of shanty town dwellers. The Sydney Morning Herald reported this month that the growing “makers movement” is letting consumers become creators — and open-source construction kit WikiHouse.cc could be the facility that provides cheap accommodation to the millions of people who live in the immense favelas. In a similar vein, researchers at Michigan Technological University are experimenting with materials for making milk cartons and the 3D printers that could process them into 3D printing materials. A handful of major 3D printing players have taken an interest in Brazil. Objet has signed a distribution agreement with Anacom Electronica for the Brazil market, while Solidoodle is investigating selling its 3D printers in the country in partnership with Brazilian company Linotech 3D. So, like its emerging market counterparts the UAE, China and India, the industry is making inroads into Brazil, which is expected to become a major power in the coming decades. Nevertheless, the US remains the biggest 3D printing investor, with adoption rates hitting 15 per cent last year in the world’s number-one economy, according to Gartner. Still, as governments continue to up tech investment in the emerging markets, the developed world may see its funding plateau or fall so in the coming decade any one of these markets could overtake the world’s number-one economy. To access all the research links, please visit the URL bundle online: http://mytct.co/X8xRHC

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:30 Page 47

Advanced Tooling Production P r o d u c t i o n ooff ccost-effective o s t - e f f e c t i v e sseries e r i e s ttooling ooling inserts directly from electronic data

Think the impossible. You can get it. Thin You are facing multiple challenges: the need for optimized You ized cooling/heating cooling/heating performances of your mould, for cycle time reduction in injection moulding and die casting, for quality improvement of your complex end product. You You can can manufacture manufacture highly highly complex complex tooling tooling inserts inserts and and their their sophisticated sophisti c at e d cooling c oo l i ng ssystems y s t e m s in i n oone n e bbuilding u ildin g jjob, o b, with unique freedoms of design. This is e-ManufacturingTM: the the fast, fast, flexible flex i b l e and a n d cost-effective c o s t- e ff e c ti v e pproduction rod u c ti o n ddirectly irectly from from electronic electroni c data. data. With With EOSINT EOSINT M technology technology pprovided rovided bbyy EEOS OS yyou ou ccan an create create unimaginable unimaginable geometries g e o me tri e s iin metal. nm e t a l . EEOS, OS, tthe he worldwide worldwide leading lead i n g manufacturer m a n ufa c tur e r ooff llaser-sintering aser-sintering systems. www.eos.info/tooling www.eos.info/tooling

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:30 Page 48

[RP Tooling]

Revisting

RP Tooling WORDS | ROSE BROOKE

imes are changing at RP Tooling and since the last time TCT went through the doors at the West Midlands-based facility progress could not be more evident.

The tooling side of the business has been on the go since 2005 and now General Manager Paul Roe and Director Darren Withers are excited about what they believe is the next step for this growing business. We went to visit RP Tooling on a grey March morning, but the gloom of industrial Greater Birmingham was left at the door when Paul and Darren, whose boundless enthusiasm for what the future holds for the company came through loud and clear, greeted us. “A lot has changed since the last time you were here,” Darren remarked, getting down to business. “We have a new site and a new company. We are now two separate companies; RP Tooling and RP Moulding.” Originally, Darren and co-founder Julian Brett Mitchell ran the show, but now there are dozens of skilled employees working at the companies, which aims to set high standards for the industry. Indeed, the company has been asked to hold customer training courses and teach engineers in the way they work, reflecting the successful way the company does business. Currently, the plastics side of RP Tooling takes up 70 per cent of its incoming business, but the steady inflow of new projects does not mean Darren and Paul can rest on their laurels. Although they’ve never “drawn swords with the bureau”, as Darren put it, they see any other prototyping company as a competitor, but as the marketplace stands there is still room enough for everybody. “We always wanted to do [this type of work] here,” Darren said, noting that the company is happy to be considered something of an “unknown quantity” within the growing marketplace at present. The experienced tooling side of its operations is what gives the company its edge, as early indications have shown that tooling will expand along with moulding, even though some firms are leaving tooling behind to concentrate on moulding. “Tooling is really the essence of our work here and if we grow then we are bringing that with us just as much as the moulding,” Darren said, adding, “Moving on, what we want to do is concentrate on moulding just as much.”

tct [21:2]

A growing business with a solid three-decade reputation, but as RP Tooling expands it wants only to be judged on the quality of its business and not how much hardware it owns.

RP Tooling www.rp-tooling.co.uk

He explained another unique selling point in that RP Tooling offers clients the “whole package”, taking its customers from incorporating their data from a CAD file, through into production and into the post-moulding side of the business. It’s clear that when Darren says “we like to be involved in everything” that he means it. He stated: “We are proud of what we offer our clients. We have good equipment and a skills base that is second to none. We want to use this place as a source where our customers can come for the full service and only need to go to one place for that service.” RP Tooling is in a great place right now, with a solid 30 years behind it, the company is making sure it stays in touch with tooling and does not follow the crowd by leaving behind key services in favour of the most profitable emerging ones. Thanks to its 30 years in the business, the company believes it knows the market well enough to offer its customers the full picture and relishes the idea of offering the kind of personable, one-on-one relationship to clients many of its rivals do not, or cannot. “All of our services are here in the UK. We want our customers to enjoy being with us, for our people to enjoy the experience. We want to bring customers in and if we are still achieving that in 20 years time then great,” Darren said. “We have proven time and time again that in-depth dialogue at the start of a project produces greater success in the long-term,” Paul added. The General Manager expanded on how RP Tooling has proven to be a model business within the industry, but one thing the company does not want at this stage is to be pigeonholed. He explained: “We’ve proven to be a much better company to do business with but what we don’t want to do is put across an image of being a big company or a small company. For us, that’s not what it’s about. We don’t want people to judge us by how many machines we have in the shop - only the solutions and services that we offer.” Both Paul and Darren are clearly excited to start up a conversation with anybody with an interest in RP Moulding or RP Tooling. As our meeting drew to a close and discussions of how they were going to co-ordinate their team photo took us to the front door, it became evident that only a company in such a good place could imbue this sort of infectious excitement.

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[reverse engineering] Introduction

erhaps the most important limiting factor for driving AM and 3D printing beyond the development of the processes themselves is the generation of the required data. While development of CAD systems remains strong, many applications of the technology require digitisation of an existing object. Dentistry, covered in more detail within this issue, is one such application that is perfectly suited to AM but also needs new parts to gel seamlessly with existing parts — or teeth. Dental applications are demonstrative of the scope of 3D technologies touching everything from automotive manufacturing to the film and TV industries. While developments in contact metrology are incremental in nature (leading to highly reliable and refined systems) the biggest leaps of innovation are being seeing in contactless metrology and digitisation, namely white light and laser scanning.

Perhaps the most interesting of these developments in the last year has been the drastic reduction in cost associated with a burgeoning consumer market for scanning technologies. So far this year we have seen consumer 3D printer company Makerbot announce its Digitizer desktop 3D scanner at SXSW and CADScan3D desktop 3D scanner reach it’s £80k Kickstarter target. These devices take digitisation technology to a whole new potential user base and both companies will aim to have the devices on the designer’s desk and in the hobbyist’s shed. Scanning doesn’t even require specialist hardware anymore as a number of apps for smartphones and tablets exist that allow multiple images to be stitched together to form a 3D model. USbased Matterport employ a similar technique though on a larger and more complex scale for scanning of building interiors. While the models are not intended for manufacturing output they could theoretically be made watertight.

Car Makers Turn to Handy Solutions

ith the ever increasing need to develop manufacturing processes and reduce costs, the world’s leading vehicle manufacturers are constantly on the lookout for more flexible measuring solutions, enabling vehicles to be measured in ways that have never been possible before so engineers can understand more about the design and assembly of vehicles.

A typical example of current methodology is vehicle body measurement, which requires components and assemblies to be brought to a measuring room where they are measured on expensive and inflexible coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). This often means bottle-necks form, as a CMM is often slow and unsuitable for carrying out investigation operations. The HandyProbe optical CMM from Creaform is a handheld, wireless and arm-free portable CMM, comprising a handheld probing device that can measure to a high degree of accuracy in any environment. Key benefits of the system are the fact that it incorporates Creaform’s TRUaccuracy technology, which has the ability to monitor the measuring environment and dynamically track the object being measured. This effectively makes the system impervious to the measuring environment, so that it performs with equal speed and accuracy anywhere — in a measuring room, on the shop-floor, on the assembly line or inside a machine tool. TRUaccuracy is based around the system’s ability to automatically update the measuring coordinate system if there is any movement at all within the measuring environment, for example due to vibrations from nearby equipment such as stamping presses, or even if the part being measured is moved during measurement. This is achieved through the use a high accuracy optical tracking device, known as the C-Track, which dynamically tracks a few simple, low-cost targets that are applied to the object being measured. The position of the targets is triangulated continuously, such that any movement is recognised and updated automatically. This method also means the tracking device can be moved, thereby totally eliminating the problems often found using arms and laser trackers of being unable to see or reach a measurement point — the user simply moves the optical tracker to a convenient location and continues measurement.

Measurement Solutions www.measurement-solutions.co.uk 49

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[Verisurf]

Where High Precision Meets

Critical Thinking A

IT is a leading industrial automation company specialising in aerospace manufacturing solutions. Their customer list reads like a who’s who of the aerospace industry, including Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, British Aerospace, CASA, EADS, EDO Corp., Embraer, Fairchild, Dornier, Global Aeronautica, Hawker Beechcraft, Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Northrop Grumman, Spirit AeroSystems, and Triumph Aerostructures – just to name a few. At first glance, the process seems very straightforward and comprehensive. First the AIT team agrees to dates and deliverables on a per-project basis. Next they receive engineering input from which they develop the tools, followed by the tool design process. Once approved the designs go to their in-house fabricating department where the tools are machined, assembled, painted and checked for quality using Verisurf X software - easy, right? Not so fast. Let’s back up and take a closer looks at Engineering Input and Tool Design.

FIGURE 1 Using Verisurf Reverse software and a laser scanner the original roto r blade was scanned to capture point cloud dat a of the actual parts.

FIGURE 2 Verisurf Reverse Softwa re creates a triangular mesh surface from the point cloud data.

FIGURE 3 Verisurf CAD tools create s NURB surface model from mesh surface.

In today’s high-tech world, you would think engineering data used to design and build assembly tools would be readily available, but it’s not. Either the customer does not provide it, the data has been lost or corrupted, or in the case of a rebuild, the part being replaced is no longer the same spec as when it was new. “At AIT about 90% of our projects are new builds, the other 10% are rebuilds. Sometimes we get CAD data but often we get drawings or just the part being manufactured or assembled. In every case we need to apply creativity and critical problem solving to arrive at the final solution,” said Kampen. “For these challenges we like Verisurf software — it’s easy to ‘swim’ around the software. Verisurf is so dynamic we can take multiple routes to the end result.”

FIGURE 4 Veriusurf Analyze Softwa re verifies reverse engineered CAD surfac e model to original poi nt cloud scan data.

Continues on p53

FIGURE 5 l used A large Invar bond too for wing layup.

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tct [21:2]

TCT 21-2 QUARK8_Layout 1 04/04/2013 16:30 Page 53

[Verisurf]

Continued from p51

FIGURE 6

FIGURE 7

FIGURE 8

Helicopter Rotor Blade AIT needed to design and build a bond tool for installation of the skin on rotor blade rebuilds. The challenge was after use, the rotor blade envelope changed, compared to when it was originally built. AIT used Verisurf Reverse to reverse engineer the envelop and provide data so they could design and build an accurate assembly tool. Once designed they again relied on Verisurf software to check accuracy during the build process, and for final QC before shipping. “Virtually every tool or jig that leaves this place has a Verisurf inspection report attached to it,” said Kempen.

Large-Scale Bond Tools “Using Verisurf software we are able to save days, even weeks of machining time on large-scale bond tools,” said Kempen. Fuselage and wing skins are large complex surfaces with extreme tolerances. Typically, creating a face sheet that starts out at 1-inch thickness and is taken down to 0.5-inch will be reduced by less than 0.100” with each pass. The machine starts with the high points and works down. In doing this, AIT use to “cut air” for days until the machine finally got down to the uniform layers. Now they use Verisurf Reverse to create a reverse model that allows them to cut material 100% of the time. This literally saves days and sometimes weeks of cutting, 24/7. Compatibility AIT uses multiple brands and types of metrology hardware devices, but has standardised on Verisurf software partly because it drives virtually every device on the market. “We use almost every function Verisurf has to offer. The software is intuitive and very easy to use,” said Ledger. “We have also realised training efficiencies by standardising on the common Verisurf platform.”

FIGURE 9

FIGURE 6 The original CAD data was imported to Verisurf Software for analysis.

Final Inspection “For us, final inspection is the easy part, we use Verisurf in just about every aspect of our business,” said Ledger. n Reverse engineering parts to design tooling n Inspection of the egg crate before fitting the face sheet n Inspection of the face sheet before final welding n Final inspection before the tool goes out the door

FIGURE 7 Using Verisurf Reverse the CAD surface was scanned to create a point cloud model of the contoured surface. FIGURE 8 The software converted the point cloud data in a surface mesh model.

Verisurf Software, Inc. www.verisurf.com

FIGURE 10

FIGURE 9 Once verified, Verisurf Reverse was again used to create a new CAD surface model from the mesh surface model. The new surface model is used for intelligent CNC programming. FIGURE 10 With the new surface, the CNC machine tool path can now be programmed to cut material 100% of the time, eliminating days and weeks of cutting, 24/7.

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[Physical Digital]

NON-CONTACT METROLOGY IS

coming of age

Physical Digital www.physicaldigital.com

tct [21:2]

evelopments in AM and 3D Printing have tended to go hand-in-hand with those in 3D scanning, but the acceptance of each technology has been hampered by concerns about its ability as a serious tool. The time for noncontact metrology might now be upon us though, according to Physical Digital. As non-contact metrology solutions continue to advance they are being steadily integrated into the manufacturing mainstream in increasingly critical roles. Therefore, companies that have been perfecting these developing techniques for some time could find they are in a very good place when new systems fully break through into the industry — and Physical Digital is one company that believes it has such an advantage. TCT spoke to the Surrey-based company’s Dan Lainchbury, who revealed that thanks to the growing acceptance of these new technologies into the marketplace, Physical Digital’s 3D scanning services have never seen such demand. The company is approaching its tenth birthday and over the last decade it has been steadily expanding, specialising in 3D scanning and measuring. Recently, the firm has enjoyed something of a boom period, welcoming a greater influx of customers, adding to its workforce and taking on more machines. This may be to do with the fact Physical Digital is the only company in the country to own a GOM ATOS Triple Scan, a device offering high-resolution imaging and hig- accuracy scans and measurements. “We take down complex geometry and save it to STL files for the client and we relay information onto CAD data. We can do all quality work on CMMs. We are the only company in the UK to offer that to our customers,” Dan explained. Throughout the industry, non-contact measurement as an offering has now become the norm, as opposed to measuring parts manually. This type of component measuring is more accurate and — most importantly — is now accepted as standard in the car and maintenance sectors, an important milestone for any technology. Dan explained that Physical Digital’s work involves a wide range of clients, with the company dealing with everything “from the massive, to the guys in sheds and everything in between,” demonstrating how the drive for adoption is coming from multiple classes of user. Indeed, in the space of one week, the company worked on scanning parts for a vehicle production company based in Oxfordshire, military aircraft and individuals. “The work we do is diverse. We deal with complicated geometry and scan literally anything, and then we can make the scanned design into a very accurate 3D model,” Dan stated. “We can’t talk about much of the work we’re doing but some past projects include scanning a complete WWII Spitfire. So there’s exciting things ... and then we also do the mundane things like ergonomic toilet seats.” Most of Physical Digital’s work involves competitive benchmarking whereby clients provide components belonging to their rivals so they can get up to speed on what the competition is doing. In addition, the firm also provides scanning services for local customers that need accurate measurements they could not otherwise obtain, in order to work on their own manufacturing projects. As well as offering in-house scanning, Physical Digital provides a mobile scanning service utilising both the GOM ATOS and TRITOP optical measuring systems. “The important thing to remember,” Dan noted, “is there’s no one market and no one type of customer we deal with,” echoing trends across the digital manufacturing industry.

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0 R UH DERXW WKH )D UR$ U P IDP L O\ DW 0RUH DERXW WKH )DUR$UP IDPLO\ DW w w w.measu r i ng-a rms.fa ro.com www.measuring-arms.faro.com

More Mo re information in fo rmat ion

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[3D Reshaper]

Taming Scan Data Dealing with scan data can be a tricky affair. Clouds of millions or tens of millions of points are easily generated, but processing them can be a fraught affair. 3D Reshaper, a 3D scanner software solution from France-based Technodigit, part of Hexagon Metrology, aims to simplify this process at an accessible price.

Abilities of 3D Shaper n Process point clouds (automatic and manual cleaning and filtering) n Generate 3D modeling (with lots of features to repair or improve the mesh like smoothing, hole filling, sharp edge reconstruction, junctions…) n Extract 3D features like sections (planar, radial, freehand or along a curve) and geometrical shapes (with planar intersections) n Make 3D inspection and measurement and volume calculation (deviation colour map, inspection label, customisable reports, free measurement, etc.)

echnodigit’s 3D Reshaper is a point-cloud processor, 3D model generator and manipulator, and inspection and measurement tool for 3D scanners. he full standard package is €5700 (£4,800; $7,300) for a standalone package, but users can have the option to specify, for example, just the meshing engine and point cloud processing for a corresponding price. Additional modules are also available for the solution including texturing (applying a 2D picture to the 3D model); feature line, breaking line and margin line extraction; a CAD modeller for reverse engineering; and plugins for online data capture. All in the suite costs around €10,000 (£8,500; $13,000). The team behind 3D Reshaper is especially confident of its 3D meshing engine when dealing with large and ‘noisy’ point clouds. With this in mind the company is currently most active in the geosystems market (surveying, heritage, civil engineering, mining, tunneling, construction, geology, archaeology, architecture, etc.), the medical sector (dental CAD software) and industrial applications (inspection, reverse engineering, rapid prototyping) globally. STL files correction is almost automatically made during the file import into the software as 3DReshaper does not allow mathematically impossible neighbourhoods between polygons: each side of each polygon of the 3D mesh can not have more than one single neighbour.

The work of correction is therefore dramatically reduced with 3DReshaper, and the software helps to obtain files ready for rapid prototyping, which contain perfect integrity, no holes, and whose triangles are all oriented in the same direction. The software also enables users to create surfaces from measured points through a polygonal modeling (mesh made up of triangles) or in a second stage through Nurbs surface generation. A few parameters are enough, and make the process almost automatic. 3D modeling is quick even with a large number of points. Thus, you will be able to make several attempts with various parameters until obtaining the desired result. 3D Reshaper handles multiple data formats both native and ASCII, but the company has not targeted it’s growth through partnership as Nicolas Landrivon, Marketing and Sales for Reshaper explained: “We are a small company (even though we belong to Hexagon) and we have not focused our growth on building many partnerships with manufacturers of 3D equipment; but mostly on our technical knowhow. However you can easily see the strategic importance of providing a comprehensive and integrated offer for the rapid prototyping industry by looking at the wider industry. This is why we are not closed to enlarge our partnerships with 3D hardware manufacturers in this sector.”

3D Reshaper www.3dreshaper.com

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[Dental Update]

The Future of Dentistry

is Digital “The first digital revolution took place many years ago now with the production of dental restorations such as veneers, inlays, crowns and bridges using dental CAD-CAM systems and new improved systems appear on the market with great rapidity. Dental device manufacturing will experience a second revolution when layered fabrication techniques reach the point of being able to produce high quality dental prostheses.”

hen most people think of dentistry they see a white room, drills, people in white coats and usually a large bill. But beyond the day-to-day dentistry we all encounter lies a vast industry that touches upon everything from veneers for the perfect ‘Hollywood’ smile to facial reconstruction following disease or trauma. Dentistry has been one of the first industries to really deploy digital scanning and additive manufacturing in a meaningful way thanks in part to the bespoke nature, size and required properties for many of the parts. The use of CAD/CAM technologies through milling has become well established since the 1980s, when milling began, slowly, to be taken seriously as a manufacturing process that could drastically reduce the time scales of dental treatments. Today milling is used both as a ‘chairside’ manufacturing process in the dentists treatment room and as an outsourced process in either dedicated dental laboratories or centealised production centres. The ultimate goal is to move most if not all manufacturing to chairside, whereby all of the technology required for the scanning, processing and production is located in the dental surgery and can be used while the patient is still present, drastically reducing the time required to complete procedures. Milling in 3-axis, 4-axis and 5-axis form still retains benefits over AM techniques in terms of cost of initial adoption and variety of materials that can be processed. Milling can for example process metals such as titanium, titanium alloys and cobalt chrome; waxes and polymers for lost-wax casting; silica-based ceramics for veneers and inlays; infiltration ceramics (which are processed in porous state before infiltration with lanthanum glass); and oxide high-performance ceramics such as zirconium oxide. While processing of ceramics by additive means is possible it is not yet at the level where large-scale adoption is possible. The scope for polymer-based AM to impact on dental applications is large and growing, including dental aligners such as Invisalign, surgical guides and pre-surgical models. Another use of polymer AM is as an indirect step in the production of zirconium dioxide

Concept Laser build bed

Stratasys printed quadrant model

dental restorations. Here the printed parts are used to create bespoke models for the structures that then undergo heat sintering to create solid zirconia parts. These may be further processed with another ceramic coating for improved aesthetics. A study of CNC vs 3D printed patterns for thermoforming dental aligners was carried out in 2012 and concluded that both the best fit of the aligner to the teeth and the most rapid movement of the teeth into the desired position was observed with the CNC rather than the 3D printed device.1 This reported loss of accuracy must of course be countered by the increased throughput possible when using 3D printers with a great many models manufactured in a single build. 3D printing also lends itself to the production of wax models for lost-wax castings of dental artefacts, but this is really a fresh spin on an aging technology. Casting technology looks to be set Continues on p60

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Continued from p59

to lose out to direct manufacturing techniques in the future but for the time being it can hold its own based on the price and familiarity. Where the technology falls down is the long lead time required for multiple off-site processes to be undertaken, leaving the patient in a state of toothless flux. Direct metals AM is not only capable but in many ways perfectly suited to many dental applications including bridges and crowns, implant abutments and reconstructive surgery. The ability to directly produce one- or two-off parts in titanium, cobalt chrome and other difficult to process metals at a very competitive cost is what continues to drive AM into dentistry. While most machine manufacturers do not provide dedicated machines that allow the realisation of chairside AM, they do provide materials and machine set ups that tailor the systems to lab and production work. Germany-based EOS have been leading this field with compatriots BEGO GmbH for many years, with the first AM system installed over eight years ago, and more recently with BEGO’s US division based in Rhode Island. Bill Oremus, President of BEGO USA, explained: “We’ve realised that our present product line supporting lost wax is probably going to be obsolete in 10 to 15 years. The end of casting is approaching as the application of additive manufacturing to dentistry begins to alter the landscape.” Typical workflows for AM systems start with a scan of the patient’s mouth either directly with an intra-oral scanner or by scanning a plaster impression using one of a number of scanning solutions which ultimately generate an STL file. The file is then processed and sent to a production facility to be manufactured directly in the desired metal or alloy. The finished piece is then

shipped back to the dentist’s surgery Stratasys anti-snore device with the whole process taking as little as 48 hours, after which some minor finishing will be required before the veneering process. While similar workflows are possible with milling they process itself is less efficient, unable to cope with some geometries and large pieces — so called ‘full roundhouses’, bridges that encompass 9 to 14 connected copings. Chairside manufacturing using both additive and subtractive means is available with selective laser melting machines from the likes of Realizer and milling machines from Roland DG and others. Chairside workflows are further facilitated by intra-oral scanners that are capable of producing the required STL files directly from the mouth without first needing to take a mould. The concurrent development of 3D printing with 3D imaging can be seen most clearly in dental applications, specifically in modelling applications for pre-surgical planning. Without advances in computerised tomography (CT) scanning, X-ray imaging, white light and laser 3D scanning the virtual data needed for output by 3D printing would be difficult if not impossible to generate. The following pages outline how 3D printing and AM are being used in both polymers and metals to facilitate dental workflows. 1http://www.demajournal.com/article/S0109-5641(12)00456-3/abstract

paper published in 2012 by Richard van Noort in the Dental Materials The title and first opening paragraph of this article are based on a /abstract Journal http://www.demajournal.com/article/S0109-5641(11)00895-5

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The Heart of

Digital Dentistry

WORDS | AVI COHEN DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL DENTAL @ STRATASYS LTD

he manufacturing world is fast becoming a highly competitive marketplace and subsequently it is turning to 3D printing to meet the requirements of faster speeds to the market. This technology is already proving the ideal solution across various dental production challenges, as dental lab owners save costs and move quickly into the digital world. Consequently we have seen that as the cost of laboratory work is becoming a major factor in dental restoration planning and therapy, and in pricing, some forward-thinking dental labs are adopting digital dentistry processes to set themselves apart. And so in recent years, dental restorations based on software design have become common and most dental companies now have access to 3D printing, whether in the dental practice, laboratory or via production centers. This brings valuable benefits to dental companies including; access to new and almost defect-free, industrially pre-fabricated and controlled materials; higher quality results and reproducibility; data storage commensurate with a standardised chain of production and improved precision planning and efficiency. However, this has not always been the case. The traditional dental technician relies on steady hands and expert eyes to prepare orthodontic solutions – a manual process that can be time-consuming and imprecise, as well as requiring materials that may not provide the best durability or aesthetic appearance. As the industry moves closer toward a complete digital process, dentists can now focus on more strategic tasks within the workflow, whilst a 3D printer applies speed and accuracy in the development of dental solutions such as crowns, bridges, inlays, onlays, veneers and frameworks. The most common digital workflow is based on a few steps consisting of: Scan – using a 3D scanner, intra-oral scanner or impression scanner, CAD – where software is being used to design the end-product based on the scanned data, and CAM. This often includes transferred data to CNC systems using traditional milling. However, in a new era where 3D printing technology is surfacing, both dentists and patients can now benefit from an affordable and attractive option. Once the information is captured by an intraoral scanner, the dentist delivers the scan to a dental lab where 3D printers are used to craft the artificial dentition, most of which is now made from zirconium dioxide. In the past, gold and platinum had been the materials of choice.

[Stratasys Dental] Stratasys Ltd has championed the change in the industry with its range of Objet Eden 3D Printers. Its PolyJet technology is designed to jet the company’s proprietary dental materials, VeroDent, layer by layer onto a build tray, until completion of the required model. The process produces fully cured models that can be handled and used immediately. In an industry where precision is critical, Stratasys 3D printing sets the industry standard for the production of high resolution 3D models. The PolyJet process results in 16-micron layers for smooth surfaces, accuracy, high-speed jetting allowing for greater productivity. Add the fact that it can be positioned in the corner of nearly any dental lab, a 3D printer can be a game-changing solution with instant results, improving the quality of dental restoration, manufacturing and placement. To summarise the moving trend: some day in the near future, we may look back at 2013 as the year when the dental laboratory industry passed the point of no return from a traditional manual workflow toward an all-digital design and manufacture process. In many respects, all digital dentistry is already here, and a growing number of laboratory owners have incorporated digital dentistry in some form into their strategic business models. For many dental professionals, this evolution has been a long-awaited and welcome a transition to more rapid and labour-saving CAD/CAM automation, improving quality and precision while keeping businesses competitive. Data capture systems launched recently have expanded the entire concept of digital dentistry for practices and laboratories alike. Through intense R&D, manufacturers have created 3D scanning systems engineered to capture data from the negative spaces inside tray impressions in the laboratory or even in the practice. With the precise, detailed 3D image of the impression, CAD software reconfigures the negative form into a positive 3D representation of the prepared teeth. Working from this virtual model, the technician can design any number of different components. This type of technology is often seen as a transitional step for laboratories that see the benefits afforded by digital dentistry, but who also want to accommodate clients who prefer traditional tray impressions. Consequently for dentists who are ready, willing, and able to integrate digital impression technology, systems are available, moving the digital process back to the oral preparation site. By scanning the actual tooth prep and creating a digital impression, the accuracy of the data capture is enhanced, and the digital restorative process begins sooner. For laboratories working with these progressive doctors, for many labs all that is required is an investment in design software (and corresponding training), with manufacturing of components outsourced to production facilities. From this point on, 3D printing technology provides the ideal solution, presenting the fast printing of accurate 3D models, required by dentistry. With more and more dental and orthodontics labs turning to 3D printing for precision and increased production, the dental landscape as we know it will never be the same.

Stratasys Ltd www.stratasys.com

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Replacement Technology for Replacement Technology How AM is displacing milling in the manufacture of dentures Developing dentures with the quality expected of a German manufacturer but at a price point that can compete with manufacturing across the BRIC countries looks at first glance like a pipe dream. Laufer Zahntechnik GmbH based in Mannheim, Germany, are attempting to achieve the quality without the cost by deploying additive manufacturing (AM) as part of a new orientation of its process chain.

Andreas Laufer: “In the medium term, prosthetic dental laboratories will all adopt generative technologies. The industrial approach of the concept will force all established and time-honoured technologies to be examined in terms of the unit costs.”

W i

Concept Laser GmbH www.concept-laser.de

hen it comes to manufacturing dental restorations conventional techniques such as mould-based casting or milling from the complete workpiece are often used, with milling currently being the most widely adopted technique. These manufacturing methods have weaknesses in terms of quality, time of processing, but above all tend to be expensive in relation to the unit costs. A milled unit may cost as much as €19.90 (£16.80; $25.40). According to Andreas Laufer, Managing Director at Laufer Zahntechnik, the dental laboratory is able to offer the same unit manufactured with selective laser melting (SLM) at a cost of €9.90 (£8.40; $12.70). At the end of the 1990s Andreas focused on CAD/CAM technology, initially in the area of milling. In 2003, his interest was sparked by the additive metal laser melting technology. At this time, this represented an entirely new approach to manufacturing the appeal of which Andreas recognised early on: “The possibility to move from skilled production by a traditional method to an industrial scale was now achievable.” This technology, which at the time was still in its infancy, promised a high degree of efficiency and economic viability taking account of the costs of employees, material consumption and machine costs. In addition, the time taken to process an order from when it is received through to delivery of the product to the dentist has been drastically reduced. Deploying AM also means less reworking is required, good quality coupled with high precision, density and, importantly, fit. Today Laufer Zahntechnick uses an Mlab SLM machine from Concept Laser. The learning curve As one of the pioneers of this technology for dental laboratories, Laufer Zahntechnick continuously optimised the internal processes in order to be able to manufacture products as cheaply as possible. For example, the company today manufactures its own build plates for the SLM process. “This allows multiple usage with a long life cycle of up to 40 use cycles,” explained Adnreas. Further technical progress was also made thanks to the further development of the CAMbridge software. This program allows, for example, automatic support generation and automatic positioning of the crowns and bridges on the build plate. The CAMbridge software places the dentures which are to be manufactured into position fully automatically in order to achieve a maximum packing density on the build plate. “The data

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[Concept Laser]

1 preparation can be carried out easily and conveniently. This saves time and money. The technology has now come of age. Today a dental laboratory can successfully complete the necessary initial training on how to use this CAD/CAM technology within just a few weeks,” said Andreas.

1. Quick implementation at the CAD/CAM workstation: Henry Müller designs the denture using the software DentalDesigner. 2. Clear user interface of the software DentalDesigner. 3. Manual milling reworking of the dental technician – detaching from the build plate, processing with a handpiece and veneering.

Paradigm shift for industrial fabrication The switchover to AM paid off for Laufer, whose aim right from the outset was to transform the traditional artisan fabrication into industrial production. With fully automatic AM, on average 80 units are fabricated simultaneously on one build plate per day. The enormous cost advantages of this method lie in the batch size. The labour costs can also be reduced significantly: Instead of employing six or seven dental technicians for conventional cast fabrication, only four employees are now required to produce the same quantity of product using AM. The fully automatic fabrication overnight not only speeds up the technical production time itself, but also offers an enormous saving in terms of time for dentists as service partners: They can take an impression of the patient in the morning and send it to the laboratory. At Laufer the associated plaster-cast model is then created and scanned in, and the denture is designed. Towards the end of the working day the build job, which is prepared with CAMbridge, is started on the Mlab SLM machine. Fabrication then takes place overnight. The next morning the denture parts are subjected to a heat treatment in-house and then detached from the build plate. There is then reworking of the individual pieces of work. This involves breaking off the support structures by hand and reworking the denture with a handpiece. After aroun 2–3 minutes, the denture is ready to be dispatched or can have a veneer applied when further work is carried out in-house. Dentists and patients really appreciate this time-saving procedure: Within the space of just two days, dentists can insert the dentures into the mouths of their patients. Future opportunities The current deploymen of AM at Laufer has demonstrated that it is possible to deliver high quality coupled with high speed while retaining manufacturing in the home market. But Laufer also sees lots of other opportunities for improving the process chain. The central point here is to generate the data via a “mouth scan” done at the dentist’s premises followed by printing of a plastic model. Why, according to Laufer, should it not be possible to replace the traditional plaster-cast model with a printed plastic model? This would allow two pieces of work to be carried out in parallel: The printing of the model to check the fit and the construction of the denture. “This would make the processing of orders even faster,” explained Andreas, “scan in the morning and then fit the denture the very next day – simply ‘production overnight’.” Laufer sees important changes on the

The Concept Laser Mlab machine

horizon with the materials too. Instead of finishing a metallic base with ceramic, as has previously been the case, it will be possible in future to employ high-strength full-plastic solutions whose processing will then also take place using generative means, with laser sintering. Laufer’s range of customers now includes around 500 dental practices.

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[Directory] To advertise here call Carol Hardy on 01244 680222 or email carol@rapidnews.com

TA K I N G D E S I G N T O P R O D U C T I O N STEREOLITHOGRAPHY (SLA) 3D PRINTING (OBJET) SELECTIVE LASER SINTERING (SLS) DIRECT METAL LASER SINTERING (DMLS) FUSED DEPOSITION MODELLING (FDM) VACUUM CASTING CNC PRECISION MACHINING (3,4 & 5 AXIS) PROFESSIONAL PAINT /FINISHING FACILITY t. 01786 464434 e. sales@camodels.co.uk

www.camodels.co.uk

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[Directory] To advertise here call Carol Hardy on 01244 680222 or email carol@rapidnews.com

New

Cube & CubeX 3D Printers

Tel: 01420 88645 www.cubify3d.co.uk

more than a magazine For the latest news, reviews and industry technologies

www.tctmagazine.com 65

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[ctrl–alt–del]

BLENDING 3D PRINTING AND THE REAL WORLD 3D printing has many practical uses; from fixing things around the home tocreating replacement skull fragments, but what about art? We’re not sure if a Yoda bust (of which there are more than people) counts as art but this creation by Greg Petchkovsky sure does. Blending a real object with a 3D print is something that artist Greg has been interested in for a while; this experiment with a sandstone block and Lego is absolutely terrific. Petchkovsky has detailed his process on Instructables (http://mytct.co/greginstruct). Starting with a chipped sandstone wall, a Canon point and shoot camera and Agisoft Photoscan software, Greg built up a 3D model of the sandstone block. From there he was able to design a blend of the wall and Lego pieces which fitted perfectly into the chipped block. The object was printed by Shapeways (confusingly in their ‘Sandstone’ material — known as ZPrinter powder elsewhere), being the perfectionist Greg is, he touched it up with

A sandstone block made from Lego? a little bit of paint and varnish, the results are quite spectacular, we look forward to seeing what’s next from this creative spirit.

Take a look at the time-lapse video from inception to the finished product. Remarkable stuff. http://mytct.co/legowallvid

MICROSOFT OFFICIALLY CONFIRM 3D SCANNING WITH THE KINECT We’ve known about the 3D scanning capabilities of the Xbox Kinect for some time now, the hackerspace cottoned on to it with months of the device becoming available. In fact this YouTube video (http://mytct.co/kinectvid) was posted within days of the launch.

At TechFest this week in Redmond, Washington Microsoft announced that using Kinect Fusion system users can officially now attach the Kinect to Windows 8 and use as a 3D scanner, Shahram Izadi Microsoft Research Cambridge’s senior researcher clarified: “The amazing thing about this solution is how you can take an off-the-shelf Kinect for Windows sensor and create 3D models rapidly. Normally when you think of Kinect, you think of a static sensor in a living room. But with Kinect Fusion, we allow the user to hold the camera, explore their space, and rapidly scan the world around them.”

MAKERS CORNER MAKE YOUR OWN ABS FILAMENT Filament extruders are big news in the consumer 3D printing community where the cost of ABS filament for FDM-inspired machines can put some users off. The Filastruder (http://mytct.co/filastruder) , Filabot (http://filabot.com) and the Lyman filament extruder (http://mytct.co/lymanfila) all aim to combat this by allowing users to DIY their filament. Given the low cost of ABS granules vs filament, how long before we see consumer, prosumer or even true professional machines that integrate filament production and jetting in a single machine? Read more online: http://mytct.co/DIYfilament

OUYA AND MAKERBOT — DOUBLE DISRUPTION Makerbot have announced a number of high profile partnerships of late including making customisable Nokia Lumia cases and a tie up with Autodesk and its 123D products. The Brooklyn-based company has also started working with disruptive gaming atartup OUYA, whose Android-based gaming console is tipped to be the next big (small) thing. Not much larger than a coffee mug = great for 3D printing, so it’s personalised covers ahoy. Read more: http://mytct.co/OUYAbot

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It became even more accessible late last year as amateurs and hackers alike were able to download Faro’s app SCENECT which is based upon the company’s professional laser scan software SCENE . SCENECT allows the user to attach the Kinect to a laptop fire up the app and professionally capture 3D objects. It was then, therefore, only a matter of time before Microsoft starting plugging the Kinect as not just a revolutionary, hands free, gesture controlled gaming device but a professional scanner too.

A decent quality consumer 3D scanner, like the NextEngine one would set you back as much as £3,000 ($4500, €3500), you can pick up a Kinect for around the £100 ($150, €115). Hopefully we’ll see some real quality scans at a super affordable rate very soon

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The Third Dimension. Discover more than you know. RAPID Conference and Exposition brings The Third Dimension—additive manufacturing—to life. The event showcases manufacturing applications for 3D printing and 3D imaging, the state of the industry from the experts, and countless opportunities to advance your business through learning and networking. The show floor is a visual, hands-on playground that will inspire the creativity in you and have you thinking outside the box. Visit sme.org/rapid to learn more and register to attend.

North America’s Definitive Additive Manufacturing Event

JUNE 10-13, 2013

Produced by

Including

Scan for complete RAPID event information

David L. Lawrence Convention Center Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

sme.org/rapid Photos courtesy of Morris Tech (left, right) C.ideas (middle left), and EOS (middle right)

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