Objet is a Leader in Engineering because: 3D Printing May Herald the Start of a
New Industrial Revolution
Despite how novel 3D printing may sound, at least one player has been successfully producing and selling 3D printing solutions for over a decade. Objet is one of only a handful of leading players in the 3D printing market. They currently have offices in the US, India, Europe, Japan, China and Hong Kong and an established customer-base that includes many of the relevant Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. And they believe they are just at the cusp of what promises to be quite literally a new industrial revolution.
The company’s 3D printing systems are based around a unique, patented application of inkjet technology. At its simplest, it involves the jetting of specially formulated photopolymer resins. Using this technology, designers and engineers can create whole 3D prototypes and functional parts from nothing, layer by layer, directly from their standard CAD design software – as they watch.
One thing that particularly stands out when you handle Objet’s 3D printed models are that they actually look and work like the products they aim to mimic – a huge advantage over other modeling techniques. Designers and engineers can actually hold, feel and test the functionality of their prototypes rather than gingerly handling or observing poorly built approximations.
A toy car printed on one of the high-end Objet Connex 3D printing systems looks, feels and plays like a toy car. It has a rigid body with smooth surfaces and fine details. The wheels are able to revolve and are so finely detailed you can see the tread in the tires and the bolts of the alloy rims. And the incredible thing is that these parts were not assembled – they were homogenously ‘grown’ into place along with the rest of the car, having been printed in a single build run.
Another model, of a small pill box, even has a proper living hinge of a rubber-like material and a snap-fit lid that can be opened and shut as often as you like. Industry watchers all agree that the potential for 3D printing technology is almost limitless. Objet currently has design customers in a number of market sectors including education, medical and medical devices, dental, consumer good and electronics, automotive, toys, and footwear.
Dental labs are using 3D printing to evolve to the digital age, with Objet 3D printers able to automatically build flawless stone models of teeth directly from oral scanning devices that would otherwise require hours of manual work by a dental artist.
Major Hollywood films such as Iron Man, Avatar and Coraline all used Objet’s 3D printers to build true-to-life mock-ups of their animations for pre-screening. Architects can rapidly churn out 3D scale models of their building designs with far more accuracy,
speed and detail than cardboard could ever achieve, and a whole range of consumer manufacturers and toy companies now build and test prototypes featuring hair-thin details, moving parts and smooth surfaces – enabling them to resolve design defects well before they get knee-deep into production.
And the future? Objet is now focusing on evolving the capabilities of their photopolymer materials even further, bringing them into the functional realms of simulating real plastics.
Their other focus is on scaling the capabilities of their high-end 3D printers further towards the desktop
market. With Objet’s new, low-cost desktop 3D printers every designer, product developer and engineer can
now utilize the power of rapid prototyping to get their products to market faster at significantly lower cost.
Objet Ltd., is a leading provider of high quality, cost effective inkjet-based 3D printing systems and materials. A global company, Objet has offices in North America, Europe, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and India.
Objet’s 3D printing systems and 3D printing materials are ideal for any company involved in the manufacture or design of physical products using 3D software or other 3D content. Companies using Objet’s solutions can be typically found in sectors such as consumer goods & electronics, aerospace & defense, automotive, education, dental, medical and medical devices, architecture, industrial machinery, footwear, sporting goods, toys and service bureaus.
Founded in 1998, the company has thousands of customers worldwide including a substantial share of the relevant Fortune 100 and Fortune 500. Its award-winning technology (12 awards in 5 years) is based upon over 110 patents and patent pending inventions.
For more information, visit us at www.objet.com
