HP DesignJet 3D Printer Is Here, but We Still Can’t Afford It [3D Printing]

When Hewlett-Packard promised to make 3D printers more affordable for the masses, I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean bums like you and me who just want to print 3D models of bacon, Patlabor and Olivia Munn (not necessarily in that order) will be able to get one. But yeah, HP’s Designjet 3D printers will be for sale starting this May, although for now they’ll only be sold in Europe.

The printer “turns three-dimensional CAD drawings into tangible prototypes by extruding partially molten ABS plastic in extremely fine layers one atop the other, forming the entire 3-D model in a single piece from the ground up.” The Designjet 3D can only print using ivory-colored plastic…

…while the Designjet Color 3D can print using up to 8 different colors.

I hope in the future we can just download an image of anything we want and then print it in 3D. But that will probably result in the rise of collectible toy pirates.

HP says that retail prices for their 3D printers will start at ISL 64,933.96 (€13,000) (approx. ISL 65,363.87 ($17,500 USD)). If that’s too rich for your blood, you could always just spend ISL 3,735.08 ($1,000) on a Makerbot.

[technabob via Popular Science via Geek]

3D printer uses bio-ink to create the first 'printed' human veins [Medicine]

It sounds like science fiction, but researchers from the University of Missouri have a 3D printer that could one day recreate human organs by using a cocktail made from human cells. If your liver was failing, for instance, cells from your liver could be used to print a healthy one, or cells from your heart could be used to create a new heart, and so on.

Right now, all of that is still a long way off. What has been done, however, is recreate a human vein using 'bio-ink,' or the liquid sludge that's produced using human cells and printed onto 'bio-paper.' This paper slowly dissolves as the layers of ink bind and start to take on the shape us humans would recognize.

Gabor Forgacs, the man who created the Organovo NovoGen prototype printer, told NPR that the blueprints for the organs, or 'schemes' as he calls them, can be created using x-ray technology and the like, giving researchers an outline and floor plan to each organ. It's not as simple as it sounds, though, and you probably won't hear about printed organs replacing a failing liver. Human testing could begin within five years, according to Forgacs, whose team is currently perfecting the process to print out a human vein.

Each vein starts as a series of circles and then, like layering flattened donuts one on top of the other, the entire stack creates a cylinder — a vein.

NPR has an interview with Forgacs you can listen to here.

[DVICE via Inhabitat]

Invetech Delivers World's First Production Human Tissue Printer [Medicine]

Or, as they call it, a '3D bio-printer.' Essentially, it allows scientists to build tissue cell by cell. It's that cool sci-fi medical stuff we all dream about.

'Scientists and engineers can use the 3D bio printers to enable placing cells of almost any type into a desired pattern in 3D,' Murphy said. 'Researchers can place liver cells on a preformed scaffold, support kidney cells with a co-printed scaffold, or form adjacent layers of epithelial and stromal soft tissue that grow into a mature tooth. Ultimately the idea would be for surgeons to have tissue on demand for various uses, and the best way to do that is get a number of bio-printers into the hands of researchers and give them the ability to make three dimensional tissues on demand.'

The system includes software that enables engineers to build a model of the tissue before layering cells with laser-calibrated print heads. So, it seems pretty similar to a standard 3D model printer. Hopefully, most of us will live to see the day when we can have new hearts and livers printed on demand. That would be handy. Teeth would be great in the short term too. That whole Polygrip lifestyle where corn cobs and apples could lead to disaster does not seem appealing.
[Gizmodo via Livescience]