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3D PRINTING
Printer
power Could 3D printing be opening the way to new creative ideas and innovation for the onboard hospitality market? Jo Austin gets under the layers of this fast emerging technology
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or many people 3D printing is a relatively new and misunderstood technology perhaps because of the word ‘printing’. We think of printing as the process of putting ink onto paper but this innovation is taking printing into a whole new level. The professionals call it 'additive manufacturing' (AM) and in layman’s terms it involves the skilful creation of a virtual 3D model of an object which is then 'fed' into the printer. The additive process refers to the building of that model layer by layer from bottom to top using tiny droplets of the chosen 'material' until it forms the solid item.
The printers can use a wide variety of materials from plastics, metal and ceramics to wax and even chocolate, and all with a diversity of colour that means they are beginning to make a real stir. Depending on the type of printer, the materials used may start as liquid, powder or a solid form and are then fused, cured or melted together to make the solid object. Generally all parts of a specific item are printed in one material, although there are also multi-material machines for specialist jobs. While there is talk of everyone soon having a 3D printer in their own home, there is still a long way to go before 3D printing is used in
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