Pop-up ‘origami’ microrobotic ‘Monolithic Bee’ is amazing. Uses laser-cut 18 layer laminate of varying materials to create the body, actuators and assembly scaffold that cunningly folds the dragonfly-like robot into shape with the use of tiny printed hinges.
(from 2ne1 via Pop-up dragonfly robot could be the future of business cards – Hack a Day)
Using self-assembly principles to enable 3D printers to create structures that assemble themselves.
Skylar Tibbits: The emergence of “4D printing” – YouTube.
Incredible 10μm resolution 3D scanning of paintings. Skip to 3:20 to see the incredible sculptural qualities of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. Technique uses two 40 megapixel DSLRs and a fringe projector (forming a structured-light 3D scanner) to capture the topological map at a resolution of 50μm in the plane of the image and a depth of 9.2μm. Not clear on how they were printed.
(via HackADay – Priceless Paintings – Scanned and Printed in 3D).
Terahertz scanning used to image hidden 3D structures within 3D printed objects by detecting the solid-air interfaces. The system developed by Microsoft Research and presented at Siggraph 2013, can be used to encode identifiers for object recognition, or information associated with the object.
Secretly Tag 3-D-Printed Objects With InfraStructs – IEEE Spectrum.