There is an untapped green space that has not been explored enough when it comes to lattice structures in 3D printing, Metafold 3D CEO Elissa Ross says.
Ross was speaking as the latest guest on the TCT Additive Insight podcast, where the focus of the conversation was on design for additive manufacturing (DfAM).
In Ross’ opinion, DfAM competency across the industry is ‘coming along,’ with a lot of ambition being shown by engineers who are prepared to rethink existing design principles when working with 3D printing technology. But that isn’t to say that there’s no room for improvement, particularly when it comes to enabling ‘clean technologies that rely on very high surface area.’
Metafold has come to market hoping to be an enabler for these kind of breakthroughs in the application of additive manufacturing, developing a DfAM software platform that is backed up by a library of 17,000 lattice types (available via its API offering). The motivation behind the development of those thousands of lattices is to offer broader latticing capabilities off the back of numerous success stories with the few lattice types users have available to them. When asked if designers in AM are using the lattices available to them rather than the lattices that make the most sense, Ross said:
“I think that’s exactly what’s happening. I love a gyroid, we all do, but there’s so much more beyond the gyroid. It’s a question of having the tools to really explore the space of lattices. This is untapped green space. In my view, it just has not been explored enough.”
As the subject of exploration is broached, the conversation soon turns to the introduction of platforms designed to facilitate knowledge share and access to information, like the recently-launched LatticeRobot. LatticeRobot describes itself as a Wikipedia for lattice structures and offers users of the community a sandbox to work with new shapes before incorporating them into ongoing application projects.
The LatticeRobot platform will rely on users sharing data as well as knowledge, but an obvious barrier to this concept is that many may want to protect their geometry configurations, rather than share them with the world. There might be a call for more openness, but businesses will always want to preserve whatever gives them a competitive edge, regardless of what that means for the wider industry.
Ross agrees: “Businesses will not forego IP if they see significant revenue potential there. It’s just the bottom line. But that’s the thing. The additive industry is still a relatively small market, and I think that most players in the market acknowledge that despite how exciting it is, it’s still on a growth trajectory. And what that potential in mind, many people, I think, understand that the industry moves forward when AM adoption is increased overall. I think these knowledge sharing initiatives are really important and excellent for increasing AM adoption.”
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In addition to discussing the DfAM climate, Ross also details the capabilities of Metafold’s software products, which have been developed to accelerate design iterations, as well as the new capabilities the company is introducing in the coming weeks.
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