4D printing to pave way for shape-changing material

4D printing to pave way for shape-changing material
timesofindia.indiatimes.com...

LONDON: Imagine buying a dress online that takes shape in front of your eyes in your living room.

Scientists are developing 4D printing technology to pave way for 'smart' materials that can change shape by themselves.

Researchers are combining different types of plastics and fibres to create 'smart' materials that change shape when they come into contact with stimuli such as heat or water.

Objects designed in this way can expand, fold or unfurl into pre-designed forms after being printed, in a process dubbed 4D printing, 'The Times' reported.

Skylar Tibbits, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is pioneering the research with Stratasys, a digital manufacturing company.

"We asked if we could print things that change shape and change properties to behave in precise programmed ways. We call it 4D because it adds time [considered the fourth dimension], rather than printing static objects," Tibbits said.

Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, from Nervous System design studio in Somerville, Massachusetts, said he hoped to use 4D printing to create a dress that could be printed in compact form then unfolded.

Using a scan of the customer's body, the dress could be designed to fit perfectly and would be created with a series of tessellating segments.

A computer model would then compress the design into the smallest possible space to fit inside a normal 3D printer. The customer would simply download the design, print it and unfurl it.

This is a pretty cool article...now imagine if this could work? How will it change the way we live? What are the other possibilities of this technology? I hope not endless!

Get in the kitchen and print me a sandwich! I want it shaped like Sponge Bob.
It is neat technology. I would like to see it scaled up to where we can print entire buildings.

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

you can't really imagine a 4D object in the 3D world can you?
it's like if you were paper (2D), you would have problems trying to imagine a sphere a or a ball (3D).

edit://
I know there are other dimensions and that we are probably living in some 9D or 11D or whatever world (or maybe this world is just a holographic projection on the 2D screen), and I do get the string theory... I'm just trying to point out that something on 3D level cannot comprehend something else in the higher dimensions.

a reply to: Necrose

I can easily imagine a ball (3D) traveling through the air, in time (4D). I still don't really comprehend the 5th dimension.

a reply to: Necrose

You have been fooled. We currently live in a 4D world. Time is the fourth dimension.

a reply to: andr3w68

Time is merely an illusion, innit ?
Like..you never had and you will never have any other experience than the present experience...

a reply to: Necrose

Clocks are used as a measure of time to control people....but time itself has no limit...it goes into infinite.

reply to: skunkape23

Dude I love that song! Brought we way back....sweet.

As to the OP it's a catchy turn on words, causing a relavent change isn't a fourth dimension anymore than cranking the thermostat is lol.

Cheers

originally posted by: Necrose
a reply to: andr3w68

Time is merely an illusion, innit ?
Like..you never had and you will never have any other experience than the present experience...

No, time is real. It has a shape, a size, direction and can be measured.

It also has the cool function of stopping everything from happening at the same instant.

Just 'cause you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

Not to be a downer, but I imagine this technology being used exclusively by rich stuck up kids who don't/can't appreciate it. Printing a 4D dress? Only a very rich girl(at least early on) would be able to afford it, and chances are when it doesn't come out perfect she is going to bitch like crazy.

Its cool.

I don't see it as luxury or anything. It is just pragmatic. You order a dress online get this small envelope in your postbox (so it is cheap an easy transport) unpack it... 30sec in the microwave and you have your item. It would be nice if you can change it back to a small packet after washing. For storage.

I bet IKEA would love it too.

Cool stuff, reminds me of the old Mattel toy, the "Strange Change Machine" from back in the 70s, or "Shrinky Dinks".

Of course the title "4D Printing" is somewhat misleading because any 3-D object sitting on a shelf not only exhibits potential energy but exists for a duration of time and therefore is forth dimensional without any motion (out side of celestial motion). Technically you can't separate any 3-D object from its forth dimension or it wouldn't exist at all.

originally posted by: Euphem
a reply to: Skywatcher2011

Not to be a downer, but I imagine this technology being used exclusively by rich stuck up kids who don't/can't appreciate it. Printing a 4D dress? Only a very rich girl(at least early on) would be able to afford it, and chances are when it doesn't come out perfect she is going to bitch like crazy.

I don't think the rich would be exclusively using this technology as the quality of the printing would be like comparing VHS video to BluRay. I think the quality of clothing for example would be poor...far worse quality than "made in China" quality.

a reply to: Necrose

Is Time more an illusion than space?

originally posted by: Necrose
a reply to: Skywatcher2011

you can't really imagine a 4D object in the 3D world can you?
it's like if you were paper (2D), you would have problems trying to imagine a sphere a or a ball (3D).

edit://
I know there are other dimensions and that we are probably living in some 9D or 11D or whatever world (or maybe this world is just a holographic projection on the 2D screen), and I do get the string theory... I'm just trying to point out that something on 3D level cannot comprehend something else in the higher dimensions.

a reply to: Necrose



Neither the lower Dimensions.

Maybe time is the first of the dimensions. 1D if you will. But then 2D cannot be formed without adding 2 additional axis. X and Y.

So.................. 1D space is time. 2D space is actually 3 dimentional. 3D space is actually 4 dimensional. ( time, X,Y & Z.)

So....................the sequence is 1 dimensional / 3 dimentional / 4 dimentional. No 2 Dimentional.

Therefore...........Time alone ( pure time) is 1D, 3 dimentional is 2D. 4 dimentional is 3D.

So...................1D, 2D and 3D space are all purely hypothitical as we can't physically observe them. Making 4D much bigger and better than the others. And probably much funnier and has got more of a smile.