

The next 3D printing revolution - cstross
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/11/the-next-revolution-will-not-b.html

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antimagic
"What am I missing?"

Well, mostly I would criticize that much of the analysis is based around the
cost of making clothing. But buying basic clothing (t-shirts, simple pants
etc) is cheap, even from a developing country perspective these days.

In the developed world, we pay for brand, for design, to be fashionable. The
price we pay for a garment has only a slight relation to the cost of making
the garment. As such, the economics of printable clothing is not going to make
a major difference.

In fact it's worse than that. Fashion is often used as a signifier of wealth.
If the world discovers that it's expensive to make hand-sewn clothing, and
cheap to print it, you can bet your bottom dollar that the wealthy people of
the world will _only_ wear hand-sewn garments. These are the people that set
fashion, which means that every 20-something fashionista will be looking to
copy them, which means that they too are going to have hand-sewn garments.
It's the future equivalent of the fact that today's rich and famous don't show
up to the Oscars in a jean and t-shirt (well, unless they're trying to make
some kind of ironic statement, and even then you can bet that it'll be a
designer pair of jeans and t-shirt, costing in the hundreds of dollars)

I'm not hugely fashion-conscious, but I have friends that sit in a bar and
tell me whether or not the girl two seats up has a _real_ Versace handbag, or
a cheap knock-off (it's scary - enough to make me never buy a knock-off!). If
you know what you're looking for, you can see the difference, and people that
care about fashion do know what they're looking for.

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chongli
_But buying basic clothing (t-shirts, simple pants etc) is cheap, even from a
developing country perspective these days._

Clothing is cheap but it's often manufactured in highly unethical working
conditions. Factories burn down or collapse, killing hundreds of workers and
maiming many more. It's a really terrible situation and I'm sure many
companies would love to have an affordable means of automating this problem
away.

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alex_c
I'm always fascinated by suggestions that one solution to unethical working
conditions is to eliminate the jobs entirely.

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chongli
Every job is slated for automation eventually. The idea that jobs are a good
thing to have around is widespread but wrong, in my opinion. Jobs are a relic
of the pre-automation era of civilization.

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unwind
Really interesting. Also, please s/I infer that that/I infer that/, ftw.

Personally I have a really hard time with the suggested future scenario:
looking at clothes on a screen/magazine/shelf is at least one order of
magnitude more "meh" than trying them on, for me. But perhaps the store could
also have some kind of "generic medium" pre-printed editions that you could
try on.

Of course, perhaps that doesn't make sense at all, since with the magically
super-fitted Clothes of the Future, the fit will be so fantastic that trying
something non-fitted stops to make sense for typical designs. It'll be
interesting.

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bagosm
I don't see why I would want to print every t-shirt I am going to wear, and
there are lot of considerations too.

The first one is material: If I am going to wear something I certainly don't
want it to harm my health. Having possibly toxic plastic on me all the time is
a thing I would very much like to avoid. Pure wool just can't be replaced.

The second is the actual final shape. Ok maybe the shirt would fit better if
it was printed, but surely wearing something that fits your skin is not always
flattering or desirable. There are days you need more room for extra garments
too.

The last thing is that I really hope its durable, which silly string is not.
If it's durable enough I can see it having a very big success in all other
areas discussed.

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jlees
The point on dress patterns not scaling linearly is an important one,
especially in the plus size range. It's also true that proportions vary even
within the same dress size. I'd love to see Stross' model of the store-as-
scanner, made-to-measure clothing come true -- though I've seen a startup
which measures body proportion in the comfort of your own home, so maybe the
stores would be more for final fit and finish, if the cost works out.

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kirk21
Mind = blown. This could mean: 1) No shopping needed: you print your clothes
in the morning 2) No need to wash your clothes. You can dissolve them, clean
them chemically and reprint you clothes.

This could affect a lot of industries and companies...

Have you seen this video?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKZuPPjoxHQ#t=201](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKZuPPjoxHQ#t=201)

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ffrryuu
Question, is it possible to print something like chain where nothing holds up
the other parts?

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lambda
Depends on the method used to print.

If you use selective laser sintering (which is what Shapeways uses), what you
do is keep on adding layers of a fine powder, then us a laser to fuse them
together in the places where you want your object. The powder supports the
object, so things like a chain are entirely possible to print. When you're
done, you drain the powder away and have your completed object (which you may
then do further finishing on like sanding or painting).

Other 3D printing methods like extrusion may be able to do so, if they have
two nozzles and can print both the final material and some supporting material
that could be melted or dissolved away.

