![]() Rapid prototyping went from a technology only available to top-tier industrial firms and research and development centers able to afford 3-D printers that cost several hundred thousand dollars to a desktop 3-D printer market dominated by RepRap derivative machines. The use of the open source hardware paradigm led to a rapid technical evolution, which resulted in aggressive cost declines. The recent open source release of the self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) 3-D printer has democratized digital manufacturing and rapid prototyping. This PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) library is free and open source and has potential for increasing the usefulness of online repositories to enable distributed manufacturing using consumer customized 3-D printable products. The results showed that novice users can adjust the available parameters according to their needs and save these to a new file on a website. It is demonstrated with a case study of the customization of 3-D printable external breast prosthetics. This study reports on the design, function, and validation of such software: the Free Open Source 3-D Customizer. There is thus a substantial need in the open source design community for a libre 3-D model customizer, which can be used in any design repository to democratize design. One solution to this is the use of an overlay on OpenSCAD parametric code, although current solutions force users to relinquish all rights to their own designs. Unfortunately, the average consumer is not technically sophisticated enough to easily design their own products. However, even more value can be obtained with distributed manufacturing using mass customization. Consumers can save substantial money by offsetting purchases with DIY pre-designed 3-D printed products. 3-D printing has entered the consumer market because of recent radical price declines.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |