Though we remain a long way away from being able to transmogrify matter into a chocolate sundae on command, a team of real-life researchers has created a 3-D printer that can create entire objects simultaneously instead of creating them one painstaking layer at a time like most printing techniques. So begins a story about a significant breakthrough for 3D printing -- potentially revolutionizing the design and manufacture of all kinds of things, including prosthetics, lenses, and running shoes -- made by
scientists at Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The new method of printing custom 3D objects is called Computed Axial Lithography, or CAL printing, and it creates objects that are smoother, more complex, and printed nearly instantaneously. Describing how it works, with video projections of a 3D object fed into a rotating cylinder filled with synthetic resin,
assistant mechanical engineering professor Hayden Taylor, the study's senior author, says: "As the container rotates, the pattern that's projected changes, so over time the amount of light that each point receives can be controlled. ... Spots that receive a lot of light solidify, while those that do not remain liquid." Link to video. For more on this, see our press release at
Berkeley News. Stories on this topic have appeared in more than 100 sources around the world.