Index of Messages

1. Glenn Whiteside to List
2. Raymond Lee to List
3. Todd Reese to List
4. Ron Clemons to List and Whiteside
5. Rob Haut to List, Whiteside, and Clemons
6. Rob Lott to List
7. Juergen Bauer to Whiteside and List
8. Terry Wohlers to Whiteside, copy to List
9. Dan F. to Lee and List
10. Martin Koch to Rees, copy to List
11. Clemons to Whiteside, List, and Bauer
12. Marshall Burns to Clemons and List
13. Paul D’Urso to List
14. Elaine Hunt to D’Urso, copy to List
15. D’Urso to Hunt, copy to List
16. Clemons to List and Burns
17. David Leigh to List and D’Urso
18. Brad Fox to Lee, copy to List
19. Christian Lavigne to List
20. Nick Osborn to List, Ricardo Silva, and Michael Rees
21. Daniel Davis to Nick Osborn and List
22. Nick Osborn to List and Davis
23. Yakov Horenstein to List
24. Ken Miller to List

Glenn Whiteside to List

Just saw some new Doritos corn snacks called "3D's" available in "Nacho Cheesier" and "Cooler Ranch" flavors. The shape has 3 corners and is puffed out in the middle (from what I can tell by the picture on the coupon). My question is, has RP been used much in the design of food products or medicines? For example, design of a new snack chip or design of a pill that is easier to swallow, etc. Although I wouldn't want to be the one to test a new "Stereolithography" snack chip or pill!

Regards,
Glenn Whiteside

Raymond Lee to List

Hello

A few years ago we used SLA to make a visual prototype of a "Freddo Frog". Freddo Frog is a chocolate snack in the shape of a frog character (an Australian favourite). We also had to do the 3D CAD solid modelling from an artist 2D impression. After our clients approved the SLA master model, we then made a silicone tool and cast several "real" chocolate samples.

Great thing about RP and food is that you get to ask for samples before the project... and the make your own samples after the project...!

Kind regards
Raymond Lee

Silhouette Designs Australia Pty Ltd
Unit B 5 Lynch Street
Hawthorn Victoria 3122
Australia
-
Telephone: +61 3 9819 4422
Facsimile: +61 3 9819 4408
Email: raymond@rapidweb.com.au
Internet: www.rapidweb.com.au

Todd Reese to List

i always thought it would be cool to fill a dtm machine with nestle's quik, and make solid chocolate bunnies for easter. anyone from dtm have those parameters? i do recall a company that used sla to prototype pills in the past.

todd

Ron Clemons to List and Whiteside

Once upon a time we SLS'd a couple of candy parts for M&M Mars. We produced a heart and an Easter egg and dyed them brown. They turned out pretty good with lots of tiny details. They didn't taste worth a hoot though!

Ron

*******************************
Ron Clemons
Dir. of Marketing
Harvest Technologies
http://www.harvest-tech.com
******************************

Rob Haut to List, Whiteside, and Clemons

I have heard that parts from the Z Corp. RP machine that uses starch and a cellulose binder might be edible. Although I'm not sure if the current formulation is very healthy to ingest.

Rob Haut

Rob Lott to List

>>>Once upon a time we SLS'd a couple of candy parts for M&M Mars. We
produced a heart and an Easter egg and dyed them brown. They turned
out pretty good with lots of tiny details. They didn't taste worth a
hoot though!

But it's a taste you can get used to!

Juergen Bauer to Whiteside and List

A friend of mine once filled some sugar powder into an EOSint laser-sintering machine. It all ended with a big mess; In other words: this approach still needs some parameter optimisation.

Regards, Juergen

Juergen Bauer, Siemens AG, EC CS A PD
E-Mail: Juergen.Bauer@spy.siemens.de
Adress: Siemensstr. 13, 67346 Speyer, Germany
Phone: +49-6232-30-2501; Fax -2110
http://www.siemens.de/ec/eccs/auto/index.shtml

Terry Wohlers to Whiteside, copy to List

Therics produces custom pills using 3D printing technology from MIT. They are one of five licensees. The jets deposit both binder and medicine, making it possible to produce unique configurations that release medicine at predetermined intervals. This is a fascinating application of the technology, and it begins to open the mind as to what might be possible in the future.

Terry

**********************
Terry Wohlers
Wohlers Associates, Inc.
OakRidge Business Park
1511 River Oak Drive
Fort Collins, Colorado 80525 USA
970-225-0086
Fax 970-225-2027
twohlers@compuserve.com
www.WohlersAssociates.com

Dan F. to Lee and List

FYI: 3D Keltool technology routinely creates inserts for customers who use it to mold chocolate - just one of the many commercially proven uses of the 3D Keltool process (injection molding, die casting are two more).

Martin Koch to Rees, copy to List

i could be wrong but it is my understanding that the first material that FDM / Stratsys used was a chocolate for a Disney project.

have fun

bye
martin

Clemons to Whiteside, List, and Bauer

Sounds like a way to produce rock candy like I ate as a kid. It was basically crystalized sugar. Who knows, as expensive as candy is at the candy stores, we may be able to build and sell the stuff competitively. What a job that would be! Sign me up for that quality control position.

Ron

> A friend of mine once filled some sugar powder into an EOSint
> laser-sintering machine.
> It all ended with a big mess;
> In other words: this approach still needs some parameter optimisation.

********************************************
Harvest Technologies (254) 933-1000
Rapid Prototyping Services
1000 Industrial Park Road Belton, TX 76513

Marshall Burns to Clemons and List

> Once upon a time we SLS'd a couple of candy parts for M&M Mars. We
> produced a heart and an Easter egg and dyed them brown.

Ron,

Is it possible to get a photograph or CAD file of those candies? It would make a great story for a public presentation on the uses of fabbers ("RP machines").

Regards,
Marshall Burns

*****************************************************************
Marshall Burns, President
Ennex(TM) Corporation
Fabbing the Future(TM)
10911 Weyburn Avenue, Suite 332, Los Angeles, U.S.A. 90024
Phone: +1 (310) 824-8700. Fax: +1 (310) 824-5185
E-mail: fabbers@Ennex.com. Web site: http://www.Ennex.com
*****************************************************************
***** Copyright (c) 1998, Ennex Corporation

Paul D'Urso to List

We used a 3D ultrasound to capture a fetal face, used biomodelling to manufacture a scaled down SL biomodel and then cast it in chocolate!

This made the perfect gift for mums baby shower.

Paul D'Urso MB., BS., PhD
Anatomics

Elaine Hunt to D'Urso, copy to List

At 09:33 AM 2/24/99 +1300, you wrote:
>We used a 3D ultrasound to capture a fetal face, used biomodelling to
>manufacture a scaled down SL biomodel and then cast it in chocolate!
>
>This made the perfect gift for mums baby shower.

Could RP be used to model birth defects to verify the extent of such before birth so a planning stage could be developed for either intensive care or surgical intervention? This could prove to be a very productive use of RP&M for parents.

Elaine

*******************************************************************
Opinions, suggestions, and other controversial matter VOID where prohibited.
******************************************************************
Elaine T. Hunt, Director
Clemson University Laboratory to Advance Industrial Prototyping
206 Fluor Daniel Bldg. Clemson, SC 29643-0925
864-656-0321 (voice) 864-656-4435 (fax)
elaine.hunt@ces.clemson.edu
http://rafiki.vr.clemson.edu/credo/persall/persall.html

D'Urso to Hunt, copy to List

> Could RP be used to model birth defects to verify the extent of such before
> birth so a planning stage could be developed for either intensive care or
> surgical intervention? This could prove to be a very productive use of
> RP&M for parents.

Yes.

The the idea of producing biomodels was originally for medical applications. The culinary application was an amusing tangent.

Please refer to our paper on the topic: Fetal biomodelling. Aust NZ J Obstet Gynaecol (1998) 38:205-7.

Paul D'Urso MB., BS., PhD
Anatomics

Clemons to List and Burns

> Is it possible to get a photograph or CAD file of those candies? It
> would make a great story for a public presentation on the uses of fabbers
> ("RP machines").

The parts were logoed and bore proprietary data, so I will need to check with our contacts at M&M Mars. I will let you know what I find out.

Ron

*******************************
Ron Clemons
Dir. of Marketing
Harvest Technologies
http://www.harvest-tech.com
******************************

David Leigh to List and D'Urso

> We used a 3D ultrasound to capture a fetal face, used biomodelling to
> manufacture a scaled down SL biomodel and then cast it in chocolate!
>
> This made the perfect gift for mums baby shower.
>
> Paul D'Urso MB., BS., PhD
> Anatomics

This is going to be sick, but did you do the Cadbury Egg thing?

(hehe)
David K. Leigh
********************************************
Harvest Technologies (254) 933-1000
Rapid Prototyping Services
1000 Industrial Park Road Belton, TX 76513

Brad Fox to Lee, copy to List

Raymond and List:

Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Tooling has certainly opened up many exciting applications. My company (Rapid Tooling Technologies) just became the second 3D Keltool licensee in the U.S. We just completed a job building some Keltool inserts that will be used for making production chocolate candies.

RP and RT is affecting nearly every industry under the sun!

Regards,

Brad Fox
Rapid Tooling Technologies

Christian Lavigne to List

As you all know [I hope so :)] INTERSCULPT is the world wide event for computer sculpture, which take place every 2 years since 1993, both in France and USA. This Year we will have too contributions from GB and Hong-Kong. (see: http://www.toile-metisse.org/intersculpt/ ) the next is scheduled in October (some members of this RP-list are involved in it, like Michael Rees, Ian Gibson...)

During IS'95, in Paris, we have decided to use blocks of chocolate in a 3-axes milling machine. Alexandre Vitkine, infosculptor, designed a kind of "Babel Tower"; Christophe Berthelot, a "Maître-Chocolatier" realized a few blocks of chocolate; and we used a Charlyrobot milling machine.

We experimented that it is absolutely necessary to have the chocolate very cold! Moreover, it is recommended to let the machine's hood closed. Except if people are naked and want to lick up the chocolate on each others. To mill chocolate produce a lot of fine shavings. Believe me, it was faster to built the sculpture than to clean up the machine. We own no more this "ziggurath" somewhere in a refrigerator, because the TV journalist who have reported this event have decided to eat the sculpture.

We are greedy and we are thinking to repeat this with a RP machine: what device may accept chocolate powder?

About food and RP, I think that McDonald's could open our eyes on an other side of the topic. Inside a McDo we can find a laser cut stuff made from various powders and resins; but what is the process for the "bread"? There is some small bugs on the surface, and the body seems to be a "quick-cast". I'm sure that Rapid-Food machines are coming!

Bon appétit!

--
**********************************
Christian LAVIGNE
**********************************
Président de Toile Métisse
Secrétaire Général d'Ars Mathématica
Co-fondateur d'INTERSCULPT
http://www.toile-metisse.org/cl/
lavigne@toile-metisse.org
*
écrivain & artiste multimedia
robosculpture & télésculpture
conseil technologique
création de sites web
*
1, Cour de Rohan, 75006 Paris, France
tel: 33 (0)1 43 26 45 85 . fax: 33 (0)1 40 46 82 02
*
INTERSCULPT
http://www.toile-metisse.org/intersculpt/
*
TOILE METISSE
http://www.toile-metisse.org
*****************************************************

Nick Osborn to List, Ricardo Silva, and Michael Rees

Ricardo

We have built a wide range of scanned parts on 3D Systems SLA 250, Sanders MM6-PRO / MM-II and Helisys LOM 1015 / 2030 systems.

These parts range from life-size human heads through to replicas of ancient artistic artefacts, sculptures, figurines, etc. Mostly these were captured using non-contact scanning systems for obvious reasons.

A full size LOM / SLA head, for example, has reasonably good "as built" definition at 0.1mm layers, (built in the same orientation as the scan) and this can obviously be improved with skilled finishing work if necessary.

One interesting project was the building of a 2" high model of a human head using the Sanders process, where the 0.0005" layer thickness meant we could build the head face up on the machine with no appreciable adverse effect on the resolution of the facial features. Down facing surfaces were not a problem, due to the separate support material used in the process.

We then duplicated this Sanders master in bronze (investment casting) wax (precision rubber tooling) rigid and flexible PU, ceramic (silicon tooling / vac. casting) EPDM rubber, TPE and assorted production thermoplastics (LIPTOOL Process) to illustrate the materials conversion process.

We also located a food grade moulding material and cast chocolate, jelly and toffee versions for an internal Open Day event, which was fun.

Do you have a particular build size in mind? The full body scanner system from Cyberware may prove a useful starting point for any scanning enquiries.

Hope this info. is of use.

Regards

Nick

Ricardo Silva wrote:
>
> Can you tell me if Rapid Prototyping (RP) devices like the Stratasys
> "Genisys" have already been used to sculpt detailed human figures? Are
> these machines capable of reproducing a small-sized proportional scuplture
> of an adult in a standing position, with enough detail (like perceivable
> eyes)?
>
> The end result would be a small size human statue (like a small Ancient
> Greece non-naked statue :-)
>
> I'd really appreciate if you can tell me if you are aware of
> artists/companies doing this right now.
> Many thanks for your time and knowledge.
>
> Best regards,
> Ricardo Silva

Nick Osborn
Managing Director
------------------------------------------------
nick@liptool.co.uk
LIPTOOL Ltd.
140 - 144 Station Road, March,
Cambs. PE15 8NH, UK

"REAL PARTS REAL QUICK!"

Tel: +44 (0) 1354 650 789
Fax: +44 (0) 1354 650 799

Daniel Davis to Nick Osborn and List

Nick wrote:
> We also located a food grade moulding material and cast chocolate,
> jelly and toffee versions for an internal Open Day event, which was
> fun.

Wnat is the name of that material? I have a customer who makes food processing machines and can see an interest in a "food grade" castable (i.e., polyurethane) material for future use.

What constitutes "food grade" material anyway? Is it similiar to M-ABS in that it can be sterilized?

---
Regards,
Dan Davis
PROTON Rapid Prototyping & Manufacturing Center
Hicom Industrial Estate
Batu Tiga, PO Box 7100
Shah Alam, 40918 Selangor MALAYSIA
+60 3 515-2380 phone/fax

Nick Osborn to List and Davis

Dan

It was a while ago, but I will see if I can find out for you. From memory it was an injection moulded, food grade nylon material that a local food processing company we do work for uses for their internal prototyping projects.

As I understand it, "food grade" material = any material that has passed the relevant Health & Safety legislation for the territory you happen to be using/supplying it within.

PUs tend to be unsuitable due to the potential for isocyanate compounds leaching into the food (not generally desirable...)

Hope this helps.

Nick

Nick Osborn
Managing Director
------------------------------------------------
nick@liptool.co.uk
LIPTOOL Ltd.
140 - 144 Station Road, March,
Cambs. PE15 8NH, UK

"REAL PARTS REAL QUICK!"

Tel: +44 (0) 1354 650 789
Fax: +44 (0) 1354 650 799

Yakov Horenstein to List

You'll eat those words How lasers could print ads on food (Daily Mail; 03/04/99)

MANUFACTURERS could soon be putting words in your mouth - with edible advertisements printed on food.

A newly-discovered way of using low-powered lasers to delicately etch tiny symbols means everything from fruit and vegetables to cakes may end up carrying its own message.

Within a couple of years, breakfast snacks could even be sold with the previous night's football scores, the latest stock exchange prices or the morning news headlines.

The invention also means greengrocers could sell advertising space on the side of fresh vegetables.

At the same time, fruit could be made more fun for children if it was imprinted with the latest cartoon characters and comic strips. Manufacturers could also create educational snacks, containing information linked up to the National Curriculum.

The edible adverts are the brainchild of David Small, an American computer expert at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology in Boston. Using his department's laser - normally used for cutting sheets of plastic to precision size - he discovered he could write on the side of food.

Words or pictures are created on a normal computer and fed into the laser, which blasts the surface of the food with a tiny beam, New Scientist magazine reports today.

The laser is small enough to write newspaper-sized print and can adapt itself to write on uneven surfaces.

And because it etches only the top layer of skin, it does not damage the fruit or vegetable underneath.

Golan Levin, a colleague at the MIT media lab, said: 'On low power, our laser can be programmed not to cut, but to scar or singe the surface of anything.

'It only burns into the tiniest amount of surface.

'It was originally done for a lark but the more people thought about it, the more they began to think about how it could be used for the mass customisation of information.' The U.S. food company Kraft is interested in using the idea to make personalised cakes and buns.

Other firms are exploring the possibility of using it to print the latest sports results, news headlines or share prices on food sold in the street, in snack bars or in takeaway outlets.

A laser able to write on food would cost just a few hundred pounds, said Mr Levin, and take just a few seconds to etch a vegetable or piece of fruit.

The extra cost involved could be covered by adverts.

Manufacturers currently use ink jets to spray text and pictures on to food, and many supermarkets now spray 'best before' dates on eggs.

But the laser is far more flexible and faster and can be used on more types of food.

(Copyright 1999)

_____via IntellX_____

{U:DailyMail-0304.03514} 03/04/99

Ken Miller to List

Does Dennis Rodman know about this? I can see it now . . . sprinkle a little toner on your tush and . . . flash . . . instant tatoo.

It never fails, come up with a neat new technology and someone will think of a way to abuse it!

Ken Miller
Miller Technologies
395 S. 1100 W.
Farmington, UT 84025
(801) 451-7997
foamcaster@aol.com