Skip to main content

Disney Discovers How To 3D Print with Fabric


We have seen 3D printers produce objects from plastic and even metal. But the Magic Kingdom is living up to its name with the announcement that it has designed a 3D printer capable of printing with fabric. A group of researchers at Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon and Disney Research unveiled the invention in a paper last weekend.
According to the researchers, the device is capable of forming precise, but soft and deformable 3D objects from layers of off-the-shelf fabric. Among the objects the research team produced were a fabric bunny, a Japanese doll, a touch sensor made of fabric, and a smartphone case with an embedded conductive fabric coil for wireless power  reception.
Touch-Sensitive, Wireless Power
To form each object, the printer uses a single sheet of fabric to create each layer of the object. The printer cuts this sheet along the 2D contour of the layer using a laser cutter and then bonds it to previously printed layers using a heat sensitive adhesive. Surrounding fabric in each layer is temporarily retained to provide a removable support structure for layers printed above it. This process is then repeated to build up a 3D object layer by layer.
According to the researchers, the printer is capable of automatically feeding two separate fabric types into a single print, which allows specially cut layers of conductive fabric to be embedded in soft prints. The printer can use that capability to create touch-sensitive objects built from fabric in a single, unified printing process. In addition to touch sensitivity, the printer can also build objects that support wireless power as well.
Disney Research says the new process can create objects with the full range of characteristics normally associated with other products made of fabric, including the ability of material to drape over objects and to have variable flexibility. The device can print an object out of multiple fabrics, and can also manipulate the level of deform ability.
Connecting Your Socks to the Internet
The technology is still in its infancy, with printing times remaining extremely long and objects limited to only two separate fabrics. But the applications are potentially widespread. In addition to creating soft objects like dolls, the paper’s authors also alluded to the potential for devices based on their invention to allow people to print customized articles of clothing, as well.
Perhaps even more groundbreaking, the ability to create clothing embedded with conductive materials and touch sensitivity, the technology opens the door to producing clothing that is connected to the Internet of Things.
“We believe our printer opens new opportunities in forming interactive and functional 3D printed objects which are flexible and soft to the touch,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “This in turn adds a new tool to the HCI toolbox which expands our capacity to build interactive objects that reach the user in new (and more familiar) ways.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Top Link Shortening Websites to Make Money Online

While there are many ways to make money online, I believe making money by URL Shortening is one of the best for newbies. Just shorten URL, people click on it and you make money. Quite fantastic, isn’t it? Today I am going to present before you the top legit URL shortening website that you should choose to make money online. I have taken care of many factors before ranking them, like Page Rank, Alexa Rank, My Experience etc. I’ll keep on updating the list when it is needed. Before jumping to the Shorteners I would like to explain the factors on which ‘Top Legit Shorten URL and Make Money Online Sites’ list is based: Page Rank:  Page Rank is the one factor that Google uses to rank websites on their search results. Page Rank of a site can be anything between 0 and 10. Page Rank is generally given on the basis of quality of site and backlinks it has got. Alexa Rank:  Alexa Rank shows the relative popularity of website over internet. Less is the Alexa Rank, more the si...

Comcast Deal May Be Dead, But Cable Consolidation Will Go On

Even if Comcast's $45.2 billion bid for Time Warner Cable is dead, consolidation among the companies that pipe in our TV, phone and Internet will carry on. Combining the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. cable companies would have put nearly 30 percent of TV and about 55 percent of broadband subscribers under one roof, along with NBCUniversal. That appeared to be too much concentration for regulators. Bloomberg News and The New York Times both said Thursday that Comcast is planning to drop its bid, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. Comcast and Time Warner Cable declined to comment on the reports. But cable companies are likely to keep merging as online video options proliferate, the number of cable and satellite TV subscribers slips and costs rise for the shows, sports and movies piped to subscribers. At the same time, there will be more competition for young customers seeking stand-alone Internet and mobile video offerings and cheaper TV channel packages. T...