One thing about working in the database industry: you don’t work in a vaccum. By that, I mean you generally don’t work solely on data issues, since data does not exist for its own sake, but rather for the sake of supporting a business, government agency, or some other organization. Data engineers who work with business systems and large scale enterprise applications must eventually learn about the businesses they work with, and in great detail. Lucky for me, too, since personally I just happen to be fascinated by just about everything.
Case in point: the recent advances in something called 3D printing. If you’ve never seen it in work before, the second video below won’t make any sense, so do yourself a favor and watch the first video, and see how computer-aided design systems can directly “print” fully functional three-dimensional objects, including tools, with moving parts, all at once:
Next, if you want to see how 3D printing can go beyond a simple crescent wrench, take a look at this stunning application:
That second video is what prompted me to blog about this subject today.
It’s remarkable enough to imagine that a space travel team could theoretically “manufacture” any tool they need in space with a minimum of a 3D printing machine and a supply of resin, plus the right software and knowledge of how to create whatever tool is required.
But in the second video, we see how a prosthetic manufacturer is challenged to deliver a significantly smaller set of complex prosthetics than what he has previously created. In short order, he is able to scale down the design, and switch to a lighter material that won’t burden the patient, and he completes and delivers the devices almost instantaneously – and is able to continue delivering scaled prosthetics as the patient – a growing child – requires larger devices over time. And he does it all in a virtual instant, via mail order.
Remarkable.