I thought you guys should see this. I couldn't beleive my eyes when I first stumbled across this amazing new process this evening but it's true and there's a lot of info about it on the net.
Just thought I'd get some imagination juices running in the forum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0m1cVqNsRA

and here's a lovely texan guy putting the thing into plain English...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL0faK3FM4o

Perhaps the whole decal printing thing might take on a new set of parameters after you've got your head around this process.

What do you think guys?

 

one step closer to atificial inteligence.....sick machine, I can see it making another one...

 

And here's another that might help you understand what you're seeing. This is truly ground breaking!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5scCMxuciY

 

That's ****ing incredible. Very cool.

 

And the first chick to make a ***** with it get's fired right? lol im sorry but someone had to say it you know you would make a copy of all the ***** in Hollywood :P

 

Yeah now you come to mention it, perhaps the machines are programmed to come alive and start reproducing themselves. Yikes! it's the start of a take over of the human race. Mind you if you neede a new set of plastics for your old girl..... hmmm or a custom version....hmmmm and double hmmm!!!!

 

I can think of one pair that I'd be happy with on my mantle piece...

never mind the whole damned towns worth. But then it is possible....
It may create a world wide shortage of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene.

 

Old news to me, I've been aware of them and always thought it would be great to use one. Now if your really wanna crazy idea, check out what NASA has been playing with!

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronauti...tron_beam.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrWHwHuWrzk

 

Interesting thesis Henry.............ABS[trade name] is derived from the big boys petro chemical plants..i know ive moulded with it for 29.5 years,the Auto industry would collapse without ABS plastics

 

Pretty cool stuff. I've had several opportunities to get prototype parts made using similar processes (SLA and SLS). Parts are dimensionally accurate (i.e. able to meet tolerances of production injection molding process) and are great for fit/finish analysis but are rather fragile, so not 100% functionally representative. The process for "growing" (as they say) these parts is pretty expensive. Could be as much $1000-$2000 for a small part. The neat thing you can do is have one made and then "pour" a silicone mold around it. The silicone mold is good for ~ 50 parts and can produce parts with different materials (ABS, Polypropylene, Nylon, etc) which come close to matching the properties of the production intent material.

If anyone is ever interested, I can recommend a couple different prototype shops around here that I've used in the past. If you don't have math data, they can even help you with the design (for a price, of course).