WHAT CAN 3D PRINTERS CREATE

Designers use 3D printers to quickly create product models and prototypes, but they're increasingly being used to make final products, as well. Among the items made with 3D printers are shoe designs, furniture, wax castings for making jewelry, tools, tripods, gift and novelty items, and toys. The automotive and aviation industries use 3D printers to make parts. Artists can create sculptures, and architects can fabricate models of their projects. Archaeologists are using 3D printers to reconstruct models of fragile artifacts, including some of the antiquities that in recent years have been destroyed by ISIS. Likewise, paleontologists and their students can duplicate dinosaur skeletons and other fossils. Check out our gallery of simple and practical 3D printer objects.

Physicians and medical technicians can use 3D printing to make prosthetics, hearing aids, artificial teeth, and bone grafts, as well as replicate models of organs, tumors, and other internal bodily structures from CT scans in preparation for surgery. A good example is Project Daniel, which 3D-prints prosthetic arms and hands for victims of the violence in Sudan. Also, 3D printers being developed that can lay down layers of cells to create artificial organs (such as kidneys and blood vessels) are already in the R&D phase. There's even a place for 3D printing in forensics, for example to replicate a bullet lodged inside a victim.

Information available at: pcmag.com