No More Zoo Of Broken 3D Printed Objects - A New Software Will Give Them Strength!

[Opmmur]

Objects created using 3-D printing have a common flaw: They are fragile and often fall apart or lose their shape.

"I have an entire zoo of broken 3-D printed objects in my office," said Bedrich Benes, an associate professor of computer graphics at Purdue University.

The printed fabrications often fail at points of high stress.

"You can go online, create something using a 3-D printer and pay $300, only to find that it isn't strong enough to survive shipping and arrives in more than one piece," said Radomir Mech, senior research manager from Adobe's Advanced Technology Labs.

Click on image to enlarge
Bedrich Benes is working with Advanced Technology Labs of Adobe Inc. to develop a computer program that automatically strengthens objects created using 3D printing. View larger. Credit: Mark Simons/Purdue University

The 3-D printers create shapes layer-by-layer out of various materials, including metals and plastic polymers.
Whereas industry has used 3-D printing in rapid prototyping for about 15 years, recent innovations have made the technology practical for broader applications, he said.

"Now 3-D printing is everywhere," Benes said.

"Imagine you are a hobbyist and you have a vintage train model. Parts are no longer being manufactured, but their specifications can be downloaded from the Internet and you can generate them using a 3-D printer."

The recent rise in 3-D printing popularity has been fueled by a boom in computer graphics and a dramatic reduction of the cost of 3-D printers, Benes said.
Researchers at Purdue and Adobe's Advanced Technology Labs have jointly developed a program that automatically imparts strength to objects before they are printed.

"It runs a structural analysis, finds the problematic part and then automatically picks one of the three possible solutions," Benes said.

Findings were detailed in a paper presented during the SIGGRAPH 2012 conference in August. Former Purdue doctoral student Ondrej Stava created the software application, which automatically strengthens objects either by increasing the thickness of key structural elements or by adding struts. The tool also uses a third option, reducing the stress on structural elements by hollowing out overweight elements.

"We not only make the objects structurally better, but we also make them much more inexpensive," Mech said. "We have demonstrated a weight and cost savings of 80 percent."

The new tool automatically identifies "grip positions" where a person is likely to grasp the object. A "lightweight structural analysis solver" analyzes the object using a mesh-based simulation. It requires less computing power than traditional finite-element modeling tools, which are used in high-precision work such as designing jet engine turbine blades.

"The 3-D printing doesn't have to be so precise, so we developed our own structural analysis program that doesn't pay significant attention to really high precision," Benes said.

Future research may focus on better understanding how structural strength is influenced by the layered nature of 3-D-printed objects. The researchers may also expand their algorithms to include printed models that have moving parts.

The paper was authored by Stava, now a computer scientist at Adobe, doctoral student Juraj Vanek; Benes; Mech; and Nathan Carr, a principal scientist at Adobe's Advanced Technology Labs.

 

[Opmmur]

3-D-printed airplane takes to the skies

University of Virginia

The 3-D-printed unmanned aerial vehicle, "dressed" in the colors of University of Virginia. 3-D printers are already being used to create machine parts and small toys, but engineers have now used the technology to build an entire vehicle: a plastic, unmanned airplane that actually flies.

The plane, created by engineering students at the University of Virginia (U.Va.), has a 6.5-foot wingspan, and was made from assembled printed parts.

University of Virginia

University of Virginia engineer David Sheffler and students Steven Easter and Jonathan Turman pose with their 3-D printed plane.

The team tested their creation during four flights in August and early September at Milton Airfield near Keswick, Va. The aircraft, which is only the third 3-D-printed plane known to have been built and flown, achieved a cruising speed of 45 mph.

3-D printing is already proving to be a valuable tool in teaching students, said David Sheffler, an engineer at U.Va. who worked with students Steven Easter and Jonathan Turman to create the aircraft.

[How 3D Printing Could Become Commonplace]

“To make a plastic turbofan engine to scale five years ago would have taken two years, at a cost of about $250,000,” Sheffler said in a statement. “But with 3-D printing we designed and built it in four months for about $2,000. This opens up an arena of teaching that was not available before. It allows us to train engineers for the real challenges they will face in industry.”
— via University of Virginia

• 3-D Printing Goes Mainstream
• 10 Incredible 3-D Printed Products
• Coolest Vehicles You'll Never Get to Ride

 

[Opmmur]

How Mail On Sunday 'printed' first plastic gun in UK using a 3D printer- and then took it on board Eurostar without being stopped in security scandal

• Weapon capable of firing a live round smuggled on to packed Eurostar
• Reporters passed unchallenged through airport-style security
• Pistol produced using £1,700 machine to 'print' its components

By Simon Murphy and Russell Myers
PUBLISHED: 15:56 EST, 11 May 2013 | UPDATED: 19:13 EST, 11 May 2013

The Mail On Sunday today exposes the massive international security risk posed by a gun that can be easily made with new 3D printers.

We built the weapon, which is capable of firing a live round, from blueprints available on the internet – then smuggled it on to a packed Eurostar train.

Two reporters passed completely unchallenged through strict airport-style security to carry the gun on to a London to Paris service in the weekend rush-hour, alongside hundreds of unsuspecting travellers.

Reporter Simon Murphy carried the plastic gun on to a London to Paris service in the weekend rush-hour

Once on board the packed 5.31pm Eurostar train on Friday, the reporters were able to assemble the pieces to create a fully functional firearm, and pose for pictures close to unsuspecting passengers

The pistol, capable of firing a deadly 0.38-calibre bullet, was produced in under 36 hours using a revolutionary £1,700 machine to ‘print’ its components. And because all the parts are plastic, they did not trigger the metal detectors all Euro-star passengers must pass through.

Last night, the train operator began an urgent investigation into the security breach as experts called for airports and public buildings to review their procedures in light of our revelations.
The Mail on Sunday pieced together the 16-part pistol – called The Liberator by its creators – after downloading the designs. They were originally published by an American university student, who proved the design works by successfully firing a bullet on a shooting range.

More...

• Blueprints for 3D-plastic gun remain freely available online despite State Department forcing the company behind the weapon to remove it from their site
• Blueprints for 3D-plastic gun downloaded 100,000 times in 2 days before the State Department orders the site to take down the weapon designs

The blueprints have since been downloaded more than 100,000 times and are now widely available, despite attempts to remove them.

Made entirely of plastic except for a small firing pin and ammunition, the gun presents a huge problem for security services around the world, as it can be broken down into parts that do not set off metal detectors and may not show up on conventional body and bag scanning devices.
To test the procedures at St Pancras International Station, the gun produced by the MoS was split into three pieces and concealed in the clothing of two reporters who bought standard class tickets to Paris.

We then walked through the usual security procedures, manned by UK Border officials. We placed our luggage and metal objects, including loose change and watches, in plastic trays which were then passed through airport scanners. But although we were carrying parts of a potentially deadly weapon, we were able to walk through a metal detector without triggering the alarm.

While some passengers were patted down by security guards, we proceeded unchallenged to passport control, manned by French police.

Once on board the packed 5.31pm Eurostar train on Friday, we were able to assemble the pieces to create a fully functional firearm in just 30 seconds, and pose for pictures close to unsuspecting passengers.

We did not attempt to smuggle the firing pin or bullet for safety and legal reasons, but small metal items could be easily concealed.

Last night, security experts and politicians said they were horrified at the implications of our investigation. Lord West, the former Labour security Minister, called for a review to see how the ‘extremely dangerous’ weapons could be better detected.

But he said he was ‘not surprised’ that Eurostar checks had failed to spot the weapon because they were so hard to detect. He said: ‘What we need is a review of how we can look at these things and how we can discover them more easily. That will take work and it will cost money.
‘These weapons are extremely dangerous because they are very difficult to detect with the methods we normally use. This is going to be a real problem, no doubt about it. People are going to have to rethink whether we need more checks.’

A Eurostar spokeswoman said last night: ‘Eurostar has a high level of security, with a number of checks as specified by the authorities in order to protect the integrity of the Channel Tunnel. We take any issue relating to security very seriously. We will be investigating immediately to fully understand the nature of this issue with our security partner which carries out checks on our behalf at St Pancras. We will also investigate the matter with the Department for Transport, who oversee our security operation, and specify the checks that need to be undertaken.’

The Transport Department said the UK had ‘one of the strictest transport security regimes in the world’ and added: ‘This is kept under constant review in response to new or emerging threats, but we do not comment on specifics for obvious reasons.’

Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas spent the last year designing the weapon. A self-styled libertarian, he argues that everyone should have access to guns, and said last week: ‘I recognise the tool might be used to harm other people .  .  . it’s a gun. But I don’t think that’s a reason not to do it.’

The US State Department last week rushed to ban the plastic firearm, but security sources fear the worst after the document was uploaded to file-sharing websites.

One user, DakotaSmith, wrote: ‘This is the first in what will be an avalanche of undetectable, untraceable, easy-to-manufacture weapons that will turn the tables on evil-doers the world over. Share and enjoy.’

Reporter Simon Murphy puts the 3D gun together in the Eurostar toilet

Firearms experts advised The Mail on Sunday not to test whether the weapon would fire due to safety and legal concerns. But the lapse in security will shock travellers.

Chris Yates, an aviation security analyst, said: ‘If Eurostar security can be breached in this way, then so can airport security processes.

‘Authorities should be extremely worried. The obvious danger is that if you have the ability to print out a gun on a 3D printer from a blueprint downloaded online, then the probability is that a terrorist has that capability as well .  .  . which could have devastating consequences.
They could potentially cause a problem at 38,000ft that would cause the aircraft to crash or be hijacked.’

Lord West added: ‘If you actually have to search people’s baggage and go through it all, travel becomes a misery and the terrorists, in a sense, have won. There has to be a balance.’

However, he said that more sophisticated scanners might be able to detect the 3D weapons.
All of the major parts of the model were made using a program which reads files that tell the printer how to create each component from layer upon layer of plastic.

The only other part of the gun is a 25mm metal piece, which acts as the firing pin, and can be purchased from any hardware store.

The pistol can only be fired once using a .38 calibre round before the plastic barrel has to be replaced.

The body of the gun was made in just a day with smaller parts taking only a matter of hours.
In order to comply with gun manufacturing regulations in the US, Mr Wilson purposely designed his weapon with a steel component in the handle to make it detectable.

But it is not essential, and the gun can still be fired without it.

The Home Office said: ‘The UK has some of the toughest gun laws in the world. Anyone wanting to manufacture or own a firearm, including one produced through 3D printing, would need a licence. Anyone manufacturing guns without a licence is liable to prosecution.’

The MoS, which carried out its investigations in the public interest, has now dismantled the gun.

The Liberator plastic gun is a simple single-shot weapon that fires a small .380-caliber bullet

​

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323158/How-Mail-On-Sunday-printed-plastic-gun-UK--took-board-Eurostar-stopped-security-scandal.html#ixzz2T3cH47SK ​

 

[Opmmur]

3-D gun printing: Here's the software that stops it

Defense Distributed via EPA

An undated handout image released on May 8, 2013 by Defense Distributed showing the parts of 'The Liberator' which is being touted as the world's first 3-D printable handgun.

New software has been developed that aims to restrict the manufacture of firearms that have been created using new 3-D technology.

The world's first gun made using 3-D printing — called "The Liberator" — was successfully fired on May 6 in Austin, Texas. In just three days the blueprint created by startup Defense Distributed to produce the plastic gun had been downloaded around 100,000 times, according to Forbes Magazine.

Anti-gun campaigners have criticized the project, whilst lawmakers in different U.S. states have moved to pass new legislation to prohibit the manufacture, sale and use of the digitally made firearms. And now Danish startup Create It REAL has produced software that it says blocks users from printing guns in the first place.

"The likely buyers are 3-D printer manufacturers who want to minimize their liability risk and offer a firearm parental control feature to their customers," Create It REAL's CEO Jeremie Pierre Gay told CNBC.

(Read More: 3-D-printed AR-15s aimed at gun control)

"The feature creates a unique digital fingerprint of the firearm ... the manufacturer could decide to block the print or to simply give a warning to the user of the potential danger."

The software has taken a year to develop. The firm realized there was a gap in the market after surveying end users and 3-D printer manufacturers. Gay told CNBC that his previous job working with Digital Rights Management (DRM) for technology firm Motorola served him well.

"[We realized] people are interested in the ability to put a lock on their firearms at home, the same should be possible on a 3-D printer as a parental control feature. I would say that this feature is customer driven even if they did not know they wanted the feature when we asked," he said.

"The possibility to make a firearm at home is not new, there are many plans on how to do it on Internet, the problem with 3-D printing is that it could become simply too easy, this feature makes it more complicated again."

Cody Wilson, the man behind nonprofit Defense Distributed was skeptical that the product would actually be able to prohibit the printing of guns, which are produced as separate parts and then assembled. "The Liberator" is printed with hard plastic and fires a standard .380 caliber bullet. The only non-printed piece is a common hardware store nail which is used as its firing pin.

(Read More: DIY Weapons: Start-Up Aims to Grow 3-D Gun Printing)

"Such software must walk a very fine line, of which I've no doubt it is incapable...It's interesting PR to the uninitiated only," the 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas told CNBC.

"'The Liberator' pistol is an assembly of over 17 parts, most of which individually would not set off a detection software unless the exact model was blacklisted. Think about it, springs, hammer, even the grip. These are not 'guns'."

'Wild West' Regulation

Both New York City and New York State have introduced legislation to curb the making of 3-D printed firearms or ban their use altogether and similar bills have been introduced in California. Linda Rosenthal, a New York State assembly member told CNBC that New York's bill is currently sitting with the Codes Committee after the legislative session ended on June 21.

"I have all intentions of pursuing this legislation next session," she told CNBC. "The controversy surrounding the passage of the SAFE ACT (the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act) will make passing any piece of gun-related legislation that much more difficult, but I think this is a very important issue that must be addressed before the technology becomes widely available."

New York State should act as a leader to provide a national model for other states to follow, Rosenthal said, and welcomes the new software that she says is effectively the industry regulating its own behavior.

(Read More: How 3-D printers are reshaping medicine)

First 3-D-Printed Gun Fires ShotThe first shot has been fired from a gun made by a 3-D printer. NY Sen. Chuck Schumer said gun printing should be crime.

"It is important that industry and government partner with each other to address this issue. Neither acting alone will be able to accomplish enough to deter dangerous behavior....Given that no technology is foolproof, it is critical that the states have strong tools available to discourage wrongdoing and criminalize bad behavior," she told CNBC.

"3-D printing is a very new technology, and in terms of regulation, it is the Wild West out there."

Despite the issues surrounding the manufacture of firearms, 3-D printing — creating three-dimensional solid objects from digital models — is gathering momentum and is transforming everything from medicine to home goods. Printers that once cost $30,000 now are priced closer to $1,000 and have the potential to rewrite the rules of global manufacturing.

The market for 3-D printing was estimated at about $1.7 billion in 2011 and could hit $6.5 billion by 2019, according to research firm Wohlers Associates.

By CNBC.com's Matt Clinch; Follow him on Twitter @mattclinch81

 

[Opmmur]

Print Your AR-15 at Home
Mon 08 Apr 13 | 12:00 AM ET

CNBC's Brian Sullivan interviews Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old law student who is leading a controversial campaign to popularize software that helps make do-it-yourself guns and gun parts -- on a 3D printer -- that do not need to be registered or traced.

3-D Printed AR-15s Aimed at Gun Control

Print Your AR-15 at Home - CNBC

 

[Opmmur]

Want a 3-D printed metal gun? All you need is a million bucks
Devin Coldewey NBC News

Solid Concepts

All the parts necessary for a working gun were printed except for the spring and magazine — and bullets, obviously.

A handgun created via 3-D printing has set off a storm of discussion on the Internet, but perhaps the most important piece of the story has been left out of the headlines: the gun was made with highly advanced and extremely expensive industrial-level machinery. It's a proof of concept — not a new mode of production.

3-D printing techniques — even pricey ones that use metal instead of the increasingly affordable ones that spit out plastic shapes — have been known for their speed and convenience, but not necessarily their accuracy. If you want to make a spoon, sure, but a firing assembly for a handgun?

"There's a common misconception that laser sintering isn't capable of making things like this, that it's not strong enough or exact enough," said Scott McGowan, VP of marketing at Solid Concepts, the company that made the gun, in a phone interview with NBC News. "We knew different, so we wanted to make a working example."

So they did — and it appears to work as well (or even better, some who have tested it suggest) than a store-bought version of the gun, a Model 1911 .45 caliber handgun. The gun was chosen because of its relative simplicity and the fact that its design is now, after 102 years, in the public domain. The spring and magazine, and of course the bullets had to be bought. You can't print gunpowder (yet), but everything else was machine-made in house.

As attention getters go, this worked like a charm, but don't be worried that your next door neighbor is going to start printing out guns left and right. For one thing, "the equipment we have is about $750,000 for purchase," explained McGowan. "They can go for a million."

Even if you had the money, you'd need an industrial warehouse capable of powering the machine, which uses a high-precision laser to solidify powdered metals in a pattern determined by a 3-D computer model.

These rapid prototyping setups are often used by companies that want to perfect a design before manufacturing it overseas. They're very different from the sub-$2,000 desktop 3-D printers you can buy today, which lay down melted plastic in layers instead and were used to create the Liberator, the world's first working printed handgun.

You'd also need some special inert gases to fill the production chamber with, a skilled metalworker and gunsmith to finish the parts ("you haven't seen the pieces when they come out of the machine," said McGowan), and of course a federal firearm production license.

Solid Concepts

The gun survived firing 500 shots in a row with no damage or problems except a little discoloration from heat.
That last bit may be optional if you don't care about the law — but Solid Concepts is proud to say that what it created is not only the first printed-metal handgun, but one that's OK in the eyes of the law.

Even so, the company is not about to enter the gun business.

"We have some customers who are gun producers, but it's less than one percent of what we do," explained McGowan. "We just wanted to show that this technology is viable. This gun cost us many times more than it would cost to go out and buy one."

What it does do, however, is prove that the company's laser sintering process produces parts strong enough and precise enough to include not just in guns, but in satellites, medical implements, robots and so on.

Funnily enough, though printing the gun was something of a milestone, it's not a recent technical advancement that made it possible.

"The equipment we're using was available a few years ago," said McGowan. "I believe someone with a high level of expertise could have done it — but no one tried it."

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.