Having recently watched an ice sculpturer at work, I could forsee a laser to
melt/air blast ice away combined with a sprayer/cold gas blast to add
material where needed. The technology for using the resultant pattern for
molding for investment casting of metalalloys is established. Similarly, a
low melting polymer could be used. One would begin with either a large
enough block, or with a rough form of the desired part. Dream on!
At 08:59 AM 2/5/00 -0800, you wrote:
>>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
>
>
>
>
>For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
>
>
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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