Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Flexible mesh = cloth?!

Experiments at LMNts Tech Studio are demonstrating the feasibility of printing flexible materials. Using their high-end commercial Objet 3D printer and 3D modeling software, they designed and printed a kind of miniature ball-and-socket joint. 
They linked many of these joints together in a mesh. A Flexible Mesh. 
But wait - isn't fabric a flexible mesh? It is, just at a much higher resolution. Are the LMNts folks taking some tiny steps toward printing fabric? We think they could be. 
Now we're imagining yet another category of 3D printed items: clothing. And that's a pretty big space. 
Via LMNts and Ponoko