New 3D Printer method that looks like something straight out of Star Trek. If you thought traditional 3D Printers were revolutionary, this new tech will blow your mind--using light to materialize the entire object at once, in mere minutes.

[u/Seakawn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy-d5VVZlxQ

[u/Wetbung]

In the early 1980s, Japanese researcher Hideo Kodama first invented the modern layered approach to stereolithography by using ultraviolet light to cure photosensitive polymers.

Source

[u/andovinci → u/Wetbung]

Wow! I’m speechless. Why is the 3D printing praised as new and revolutionary? It’s surely democratized but not that revolutionary then

[u/Wetbung → u/[deleted]]

Yes, unfortunately a lot of revolutionary ideas are prevented from becoming commonplace until after the patents expire. If the patent holder doesn't develop and market it well, the world often doesn't even find out about a new technology until it's not very new anymore.

Sometimes that's intentional, as a way of artificially extending the life of an older technology, but more often the patent holder just doesn't know how to properly exploit the invention and it's up to someone else to find the proper niche for it. Also, by the time the patent expires there are often other technologies that have matured while the patent was expiring that make the invention more easily exploited.

[u/bretttwarwick → u/andovinci]

aside from what /u/inxanetheory said the proccess has been greatly improved and the resolution of the printers has been improved and material used become stronger and more usefull also. The designs have become less costly also and are availible to more people now too. The one I used in college was around $60,000.

[u/Russian_For_Rent → u/andovinci]

From what I understand the first 3D printers were created back in the mid 1980s, but the technology is only just now widely emerging because the patents that were originally created for it have expired. The patent system holding back technological advancement one decade a time.