Designed your house - and you'd just like to print it out? Why not?
The feat was achieved by laying a fluid across a path calculated by a computer. These fluids rapidly harden to form a solid structure. These solid structures are continuously build up on, adding more and more layers of fluid mapped out by a computer. This happens over and over till the layered solids form walls, ceilings and floors.
The push to utilise the tech comes as Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai announced three years ago his vision for Dubai. His Highness opened an office in the emirates for 3D printing development.
“This two-storey building has been designed and executed with a number of spaces that can be used as rooms or offices,” said Hajri at an opening event to discuss the project in Warsan.
As far as I know, the earliest sf reference (not to mention the earliest reference period) that I know of for 3D printing is from Things Pass By, a 1945 story by Murray Leinster:
It makes drawings in the air following drawings it scans with photo-cells. But plastic comes out of the end of the drawing arm and hardens as it comes. This thing will start at one end of a ship or a house and build it complete to the other end, following drawings only.
(Read more about Leinster's Plastic Constructor)
Ah, how fondly I remember publishing my first article on printing out your own house - fifteen years ago! See Contour Crafting - 3D House Printer.
LiquidView Ersatz Windows, ala Philip K. Dick
'due to his bad financial situation he had given up trying to imagine that he lived on a great hill with a view...' - Philip K. Dick, 1969.
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