
HP 3D printing - zwieback
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/commercial-printers/floater/3Dprinting.html?jumpid=va_byvp82s73w
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soggypenny
"Shortcomings of the STL format in terms of processing time and object
dimensional precision are a barrier for the production of complex, high-
precision parts ... this format only allows geometric representation, so it
does not allow voxel-by-voxel information to be carried from the CAD software
to the printer. To realize the full potential of 3D printing, the roadmaps of
3D printers and 3D CAD software must be aligned, and the roadmaps must be
accompanied by a change to a more information-rich file format."

To me, this right here is the heart of the white paper. If they want their
machine to stand apart from polyjet (Objet) technology by printing with per-
voxel control of multiple materials (very similar to Objet's digital materials
[0]), then they're going to have to create a new workflow for engineers to
design with (which was not detailed in the whitepaper other than this
mentioning of a new kind of file format needed to handle the design
information). Particularly, is the design workflow going to allow for finite
element analysis (FEA) of both geometry and material? People are already
creating CAD software that will allow for user-friendly FEA of geometry [1],
but I'm not sure if anyone is working on FEA of both geometry and material. If
HP can develop that solution, that right there would be a legitimate
breakthrough.

[0]: [http://www.stratasys.com/materials/polyjet/digital-
materials](http://www.stratasys.com/materials/polyjet/digital-materials) [1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU3W-RrJDT4#t=327](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU3W-RrJDT4#t=327)

~~~
juanre
I am working on this product. It really is awesome: the level of excitement
among the engineers reminds me of the HP of 15 years ago. And I completely
agree with your assessment. Figuring out the right workflow is going to be the
cornerstone, not only for our printer but for the future of the industry.

~~~
polguixe
Where is the development happing? SF or Barcelona?

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juanre
Barcelona, with teams in Palo Alto and San Diego.

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9999
Key words from the video: could, imagine, future, possibilities

Words lacking from the video: can, will, does, now, reality

~~~
scottcanoni
THIS. They need to add a "buy now" button or a "pre-order" button. A price
estimate would be nice.

~~~
wmf
I don't think many people will click the "buy now" button on a $100K+ printer.

~~~
FrankenPC
It's only $100! Thew cartridges are $100,000.

~~~
bobbles
This is all I can think of when using HP printers. They will saturate the
market and then destroy aftermarket 3d printing materials with DRM

~~~
datashovel
Agreed. I can only hope that today is a new era, where open source software is
mature enough, and manufacturing of tools is ubiquitous and cheap enough that
a large company like HP will not be able to manipulate the market the way
they've been able to in the past.

~~~
yuhong
I don't think it is likely these days anyway, especially when it is not a
consumer product.

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Animats
HP is getting this right. HP has a long history of understanding what goes on
at the nozzle of an inkjet. Intuition fails at that scale; you have to do
fluid dynamics calculations. HP did that decades ago.

They propose to lay down not only material, but an extra solvent where they
need to tweak the properties a bit. That's borrowed from the printing press
sized printers where accurate color on non-gloss paper is desired.

Being able to construct materials with non-homogeneous properties has
potential. Mark Cutkowsky at Stanford has done that to make gekko feet for his
climbing robots. That was done by loading up a "color" 3D printer with
plastics with varying properties. But that machine couldn't mix the plastics;
you could just switch between them. Full variability of material properties
could be useful. It's going to be hard to talk about at the user interface
level, and the first UIs will probably be kind of clunky.

STL is really an output format, like PostScript. You don't want to work in
STL; you want to work in a constructive solid geometry system, like SolidWorks
or Autodesk Inventor. In systems like that, you can move a hole. Try that on a
mesh.

~~~
Pxtl
The challenge is that solid modeling programs are very difficult to learn and
they're expensive proprietary software. I've used one and half the class
didn't "get it".

We need cruder sculpting tools for mass market use - some folks need
Illustrator, some folks need Paint.NET. Obviously the latter problem is easier
to solve and I'm hoping we'll see more democratization of 3D printing through
more tools at that end.

I've always hoped to see Wings3D get more love in this field, but Wings is
written in Erlang so that restricts how many developers can meaningfully
contribute. Wings is polygonal, but it's a subdivision modeler so it means
that all the models are inherently volumetric which makes it appropriate for
printing - no possibility of an "open" object.

~~~
Animats
Autodesk's CEO says most people won't do real 3D modeling starting with a
blank screen, but they'll color and rescale existing 3D models, then print
them. His daughter makes dollhouse furniture that way. So they're building
low-end tools that are much simpler, like 123 Design. 123Design is really the
Autodesk Inventor engine with a dumbed-down UI, a different file format, and
built for 32 bits and one CPU. There are even mobile versions.

Autodesk did this to get more people thinking about how to design in 3D. The
idea is to teach the mindset and workflow needed to get work done in a
constructive solid geometry system. A lot of people don't "get it" at first,
but after a while it makes sense to build up an object through a series of
operations.

They're still struggling with how much to dumb it down. In beta, 123Design was
more powerful than it is now, but more complex. It's been dumbed down; you
don't get to see or manipulate the tree of CSG operations that created the
object any more. Now there's 123Design at the bottom, Fusion 360 (which does a
lot of work on Autodesk's servers rather than locally), and Inventor, for
serious engineering.

So the "cruder sculpting tools" are here. For real sculpting, there's Autodesk
Mudbox, which tries to simulate clay modeling. (I haven't used that; I don't
have the sculpting skill.)

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vlunkr
I would love an affordable 3D printer. But I don't really trust HP to do that.
I already got rid of my 2D HP printer because I was sick of paying insane
prices for ink cartridges. And I swear every time I printed something on that
thing it would complain that another cartridge was low.

~~~
joshu
That's ok. They occupy a different plac in the cost vs reliability spectrum.

~~~
jotm
If their 3D printers are as reliable as their 2D printers, I may as well burn
my cash :-)

~~~
Tloewald
I assume you're implying that their 2D printers suck. Even so, a 3D printer
that was as reliable as a terrible 2D printer would be ridiculously awesome
right now.

~~~
jotm
Yes, not only is the ink overpriced as hell, they can't even manage to make
their office inkjets work without completely dying after a few thousand pages.

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Agustus
In one web page, we are able to see all the problems with HP vs. a start-up's
minimal viable product:

* Employees used to make HP webpage: 1. Web Designer for responsive web page, 2. Industrial Designer (Printer Design) 3. 3D Graphics for video 4. Audio Editor for video 5. Audio Talent for video, 6. Copy editor for corporate speak (probably one for video and one for webpage) 7. Legal department for footnotes. This is all before a single product can be purchased. Compare this to an MVP where there is a video demonstration of the product and how you fit with it.

* Video does not show a single printing machine doing just an imagination of what can be, suggesting this is a corporate video for shareholders instead of users.

* The product is not available for purchase and there is no time line to expect purchase. There are a number of 3d printers available to purchase right now, no need to wait for this printer to come out.

* From the paper and soggypenny's quote: "shortcomings of the STL format..." is a great reason to introduce an AutoCad / Microstation / Sketchup plugin software to easily render for a 3-D format.

* Call to action "Connect with Us" takes you to a multi-line e-mail form for their internal databases. Compare this with an MVP that just wants your e-mail and your name.

HP, great step forward in your effort to try and recover from potential
insolvency. Please look at your competition before getting my hopes up and
dashed in one web page.

~~~
jacquesm
They're doing MVP a bit better than you think. They start with the sales
pipeline and if they don't get the number and quality of prospects up to where
they want it they can adjust their vision _before_ they go through expensive
builds. On top of that they are heading off a whole pile of would-be-buyers
who will now postpone their 'brand-x' purchase until they see what HP really
has to offer.

This is not nearly as stupid as you make it seem.

~~~
Agustus
You bring up a good point jacquesm. When you think of it as HP trying to
identify market segments, the connect to us form includes company information
and position. You could database possible applications.

I do not feel they are stupid, just noting the amount of monies poured into
this website for a non-functional product for a company that is desperately
seeking revenue. Can HP R&D make it to 2016?

~~~
efriese
You're assuming that the people who built the site could be working elsewhere
in HP producing revenue. HP already employs the content creators and lawyers,
so they are already spending the money whether this site is created or not. HP
has a huge sales engine and customer base, so marketing new products like this
is perfect for getting feedback while producing the product.

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nickpinkston
Say what you want about it being vaporware, but this actually does look pretty
promising as a new 3DP process.

~~~
spacefight
Yes, indeed. The whitepaper details the process:

[http://h10124.www1.hp.com/campaigns/ga/3dprinting/4AA5-5472E...](http://h10124.www1.hp.com/campaigns/ga/3dprinting/4AA5-5472ENW.pdf)

~~~
nickpinkston
Yea, that's what got me excited!

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dmritard96
"solution is built on HP’s proprietary synchronous architecture and multi-
agent printing process."

I will always be annoyed when I see proprietary as a touted piece of marketing
speak. Its not a feature, its a problem or at best a dissapointment

~~~
wmf
Would you complain if they said "innovative" instead? Because almost all
innovations start out proprietary and in many cases are only created because
ownership of the technology can pay back its cost.

~~~
dmritard96
perhaps. I would agree that many things start proprietary because owning the
IP is where a lot of the value is, but, as a consumer, the fact that it is
proprietary presents no additional value to me. If I was investing I might see
it as a good thing. Instead I read it as: check out our new device for selling
you 100 dollar cartridges that will only be available from us.

~~~
wmf
Writing "proprietary" instead of "innovative" is one example of a company
looking at things from their own perspective instead of the customer's
perspective. Unfortunately that's so endemic [1] that many people have learned
to automatically translate it and don't see it as unusual.

[1] see [http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-mistakes-of-web-
manag...](http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-mistakes-of-web-management/)
from 1997

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spacefight
Let's wait a bit then:

"Availability of the end to end HP 3D printing system is planned in 2016, as
the product and HP partners’ solutions meet the requirements and quality stand
ards that HP customers expect."

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smoyer
Maybe it's just me but seeing the cartridges in the front of that printer
reminds me of why I bought a laser printer and ditched my (HP) inkjet printer.
The supply cost for a 3D printer that uses plastic filament is significantly
higher than buying the same weight of beaded plastic used in injection
molding. I suspect buying HP's cartridges to be the same order of magnitude
more expensive. They like the consumables business ... why would they change?

~~~
donpdonp
exactly! I saw those cartridge slots and thought its the same HP strangle-hold
all over again. HP lives for vendor-lockin. Locked in to the data format,
locked into the cartridges, and whatever else they can think of.

I do have tons of respect for the abilities of HP's research dept to make just
this kind of printer. Its fantastic and thrilling to think of the research
resources of HP moving 3D printing forward. The HP suits will make sure the
attached business model imprisons the technological gains.

~~~
sliverstorm
As I understand it, that's only because consumers weren't amenable to paying
the real price of the hardware up front. Much like video game consoles. If the
manufacturer didn't have the game market locked down, they would have to sell
the consoles for several hundred dollars more, which strangles demand.

The lock-in model is, in many cases, an effective way at reducing the front-
loaded nature of captial expense. The lock-in is defended because if it
vanishes halfway through the market play, the whole play fails.

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jianshen
Anybody working on this project here? I'm genuinely curious if they've
invented some new photopolymer resin that cures faster.

Current 3D Printers need to make the same leap as desktop printers did from
dot matrix to laser in speed and fidelity to really change peoples' minds
about their utility.

Either way, congrats HP on diving into the deep end of the pool here.

~~~
craigching
juanre posted up above:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8529401](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8529401)

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huuu
This is a strange page.

From the video:

    
    
      Terry Wholers: "We are in the early days of 3D printing"
      Carl Bass: "The far more interesting thing is going to be industrial uses..."
    

Terry is very wrong. 3D printing is not new it's over 30 years old. In the
video it almost sounds like he has never seen 3d printing before.

Carl Bass (Autodesk) seems to understand what is going on. He is talking about
the industrial uses of 3D printing.

And that's why I think this page is strange. People in the industry already
know about multi-material 3D printing sometimes called PolyJet.

Edit: Looks like HP is using these steps to print:

    
    
      1 lay down a layer of material(s)
      2 spray a binder over the layer
      3 bind the layer by applying energy (UV curing?)
      4 goto 1

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MrDosu
I think you misunderstood the point. He is saying there is a lot of room for
invention in 3D printing technology with large margins for improvement.

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thorntonbf
I can't even imagine how expensive consumables for an HP branded printer will
be!

Mind you, there's a lot of room for innovation in this space. I just don't see
HP as being positioned to really expand the technology in any meaningful way.

~~~
zwieback
One of the things HP is bringing to the table is very wide print bars, e.g. a
whole "page" can be printed in one pass.

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vessenes
They sort of lost me when their promo video showed computer renderings of
circuit boards. This feels a long way off..

~~~
lnanek2
They do claim their printers will allow control over electrical properties: >
with control over part and material properties beyond those found in other 3D
printing processes, from texture, friction, strength, and elasticity, to
electrical and thermal properties, and more

So you should be able to say one part of the board you are printing is
electrical and one part is not. That said, none of this is selling now, so it
is all just a marketing gimmick.

~~~
spyder
Yes it's just a long-term vision:

 _" The long-term vision for HP Multi Jet Fusion technology is to create parts
with controllably variable — even quite different — mechanical and physical
properties within a single part or among separate parts processed
simultaneously in the working area..."_

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kirk21
Still quite vague... 2016 launch. On the plus side, several materials are
discussed (even metal).

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rileytg
Am I the only one who sees the main image is photoshopped!?

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wyager
Will I have to buy official HP brand plastic cartridges?

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_almosnow
"HP Multi Jet Fusion technology enables the world to realize the full
potential of 3D printing—in highly functional parts—with control over part and
material properties beyond those found in other 3D printing processes, from
texture, friction, strength, and elasticity, to electrical and thermal
properties, and more."

If what they say it's true, this thing will rock.

~~~
legohead
Printer will cost $100. The building material is $500/lb though.

~~~
_almosnow
Yeah, I was expecting that when they mentioned something along the lines of
"leveraging years of experience in the consumer printing business".

~~~
zwieback
It's an enterprise product, e.g. the printer will be expensive and the service
will be accessible to consumers via service providers.

There's a general consensus that the hobbyist market is well served but
there's room for service providers of high quality 3D printed parts.

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nsajko
[http://www.peachyprinter.com/](http://www.peachyprinter.com/) is a
photolithographic printer in beta stage development which is aiming to sell at
a similar price.

~~~
fudged71
... no. Not even in the same category. Not even close to the same price range.

