達人密碼
作者：
說起3D，大家已經一點兒也不陌生了，本期《達人密碼》，就讓我們來見識一下3D打印機吧。
3D printing is essentially exactly what it sounds like， producing a 3D object by printing it layer by layer， and it’s now 1）catching on with those who need to create 3D models quickly and cheaply： designers who need to test the look and feel of their 2）prototypes and concept devices in the real world， artists wanting to bring 3）outrageous designs to life， and architects who need to create precision scale models of their building plans. There’s even talk that， in the future， buildings themselves will be printed section by section. And recently the technology has become cheap enough to go mainstream. You can design your own models on line， and then get them printed， packaged and posted straight to you. It’s even possible to print in colour.
The process starts with a scanner. Here it is. What you have are two lenses at the top， which are taking tens of photos every second， and down the bottom you have a 4）projector， which is projecting a 5）grid onto the subject—so I’ll show you what it looks like on the screen—and the grid is collecting 6）geometric data， so 3D data about the subject that’s being scanned.
All that data is then fed into this piece of software， which essentially 7）stitches all of those photos together. It uses the geometric data to form the 3D model of my head. Now it does need the human touch， hence Jake is here. He’s going to tidy up all the extra bits of noise， the random dots that have crept into the scan and also fill in a hole in my face， which we found. Once he’s done that， he adds the texture and the colour back onto the head， presses “go” and it sends all that information to the print station.