As technologies are increasingly advanced, 3D printing has been more popular than ever. So what is 3D printing? Can everything be printed with 3D printing technology? What do all walks of life do by using 3D printing? Let’s do an exploration. 

Building a house. The first 3D printed house in Netherlands is rented. 

What will real estate developers do with 3D printing technology? The answer is, off course, building a house. Recently , in Netherlands, the first 3D printed house was formally put to use. What does the house look like ? Is it comfortable to live in this house? Let’s have a look. 

The simple building in the picture above is the first 3D printed house in Netherlands. From the outside of this printed model, you can see the concrete textures layer by layer. Whole process of this house printing is just like making and decorating a cake. Huge nozzles line up the concrete neatly and pile up layer by layer to form a wall. Recently the house have found its host.

It is known that this building is a sample at a 3D printing room in Netherlands. Also there will be four more 3D printed house coming into being in the future. 

3D printed houses began to be sold in many parts of US.

US real estate developers also hold a positive attitude towards 3D printing technology. In Austin Texas, the first number of 3D printed houses ranging from two-bedroom units to four-bedroom units were sold two months ago. Starting prices are 400 thousand dollars. In New York, another real estate developer demonstrated they printed a house at a surprising speed. Only 3 people completed building a house unit which consists of 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and a garage, covering an area of 1500 square feet in total or 140 square meters. It attracts a lot of buyers as it costs 300 thousand dollars, an equivalent to the prices of local newly-built houses units. 

Manufacture organs. Israeli researchers successfully printed a complete”heart”.

2 years ago, Israeli researchers successfully printed a complete”heart” with 3D printing technology, the first cases of printing a heart ever in the world. This heart is almost as big as that of a rabbit. Researchers employ a special kind of gels as “ink”, human organs and cells as raw materials to finish “printing”. They said that as scientific research developed, printing organs with 3D printing technology would be possible. 

Restoring cultural relics. The combination of head and body of the Buddha Statute in Longmen Grottoes has been realized.

A Buddha of Immeasurable Life of Fengxian Temple at Longmen Grottoes has been scattered for about 100 years. Last year witness the combination of head and body of this Buddha Statue by digital 3D printing technology. This Buddha Statue was built after 700 A C. Experts predicted that the head was stolen in 1920s and is collected by Shanghai Museum. Researchers collected 3D data, establish 3D models and reshape the head of this Buddha Statue. As a result, the restoration of the complete statue come true. 

What is 3D printing?

More importantly, 3D printing technology also applies to aerospace and defense. It seems that everything can be done with 3D printing technology. So what is 3D printing?

Lu Bingcheng, an academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering said academically, 3D printing is additive manufacturing. Components are superposed layer by layer in the process of manufacturing. It can make a complicated 3D models of a component a 2 dimensional one. Then a computer-based control can be easily conducted. No matter how complex the component is, the related program is same.

Is it possible to print everything ? 

3D printing technology also applies to clothes production, cultural relics restoration, house building etc in addition to aerospace because there are various kinds of materials for 3D printing. So what materials can be employed for 3D printing? Is it possible to print everything?

Lu Bingcheng, an academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering said that any kind of materials including plastic, metals, ceramic, cement and even chocolates can be used for 3D printing. Since 3D printing is explained with such a concept, objects in any complex shape can be manufactured.