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Multi-material 3D printing guided by machine vision

A 3D printer uses machine vision to solve a problem that has plagued 3D inkjet printers, increasing the range of materials that can be used, and enabling the rapid production of complex objects such as a robot hand.
  1. Yong Lin Kong

    1. Yong Lin Kong is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.

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Advances in additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, have generated increasingly powerful capabilities for producing geometrically complex structures that could not be made using conventional manufacturing processes. However, seamlessly integrating different materials into a single high-resolution 3D-printing process remains a challenge, especially for materials that have disparate properties. Writing in Nature, Buchner et al.1 report a 3D-printing platform that can rapidly adapt its printing parameters in real time by acquiring topological information about the object being constructed using a powerful machine-vision system. This approach, which the authors call vision-controlled jetting, expands the palette of materials that can be used in inkjet 3D printing, opening the way to the fabrication of geometrically complex, multi-material constructs with high throughput.

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Nature 623, 488-490 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03420-9

References

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Competing Interests

Y.L.K. is an inventor of 3D printing technologies; patents US Continuation-in-part 11,239,422 B2 issued 1 February 2022; US Patent 9,887,356 issued 6 February 2018; US Patent 9,517,128 issued 13 December 2016; International Patent Application PCT/US2023/021054; US Provisional Patent Application 63/579,496.

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