Re: Popcorn RP

From: Marshall Burns (Marshall@Ennex.com)
Date: Sat Feb 05 2000 - 18:59:03 EET


>Lex Lennings wrote:
>
>> now all RP processes are in fact one-way processes:
>> ...
>> A formative prototype (ideally) could be evaluated and then changed,
>> or even change (in real-time) with the CAD-model.

Lex,

    Yes, but this is not necessarily limited to formative processes. In my
article, Growing Autofab into the 21st Century, in Rapid Prototyping Report
(see http://www.Ennex.com/publish/199403-MB-GrowAutofab.sht) I talked about
the use of "smart materials" to do "real-time fabrication," where the fabbed
product changes its geometry in response to certain stimuli. Examples from
nature:

        -- Formative: Muscle is the ultimate smart material (so far),
allowing people and other organisms to change their shapes at will, with
limitations imposed primarily by their skeletal systems.
        -- Additive: Certain animals grow a thicker coat of fur annually to
protect them from cold weather, then ...
        -- Subtractive: When the weather warms up, they shed the extra fur.

    Future fabbed products could be in constant contact with their
environments and be able to take up new material, shed unneeded mass, and
reorganize their shapes and structures as circumstances changed or according
to changing instructions of their designers.

Best regards,
Marshall Burns
President, Ennex Corporation

Marshall@Ennex.com
Los Angeles, USA, (310) 397-1314
http://www.Ennex.com

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