3D Printing Research

Got myself into some science and technology journals. Basically wanting to find out if there is any research into 3D printing from game engines or any related research.

The basic theory at this point is:

your game or character creator

export as obj to a cloud solution

server side conversion from .obj to .stl

binary .stl format comes back to your device

press print — sends it to your home wifi 3D printer.

Its a ‘what if?’ idea and upon further research i’ve come across various journals on 3d printing and toys but nothing too specific to games or engines. Below is a list of journals i’ve been reading.

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“3D printer lets kids create custom toys”, 2011, Machine Design, vol. 83, no. 21, pp. 26-26.

Maxwell, C. 2012, 3D PRINTING: Taking business to another dimension, Institute of Directors, London, United Kingdom, London.

Ellerin, S. 2004, “The Art and Science of “3D Printing””, Emedia, vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 14-15.

Thilmany, J. 2000, “Building toys more quickly in 3-D”, Mechanical Engineering, vol. 122, no. 10, pp. 24-24.

Islam, M.T.; Nahiduzzaman, K.M.; Yong Peng Why; Ashraf, G.; , “Learning Character Design from Experts and Laymen,” Cyberworlds (CW), 2010 International Conference on , vol., no., pp.134-141, 20-22 Oct. 2010 doi: 10.1109/CW.2010.66 URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5656507&isnumber=5654996

Igarashi, Y, & Igarashi, T 2009, ‘Designing Plush Toys with a Computer. (cover story)’, Communications Of The ACM, 52, 12, pp. 81-88, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 9 October 2012.

Dolphin, A.; , “Compositional applications of a game engine,” Games Innovations Conference, 2009. ICE-GIC 2009. International IEEE Consumer Electronics Society’s , vol., no., pp.213-222, 25-28 Aug. 2009 doi: 10.1109/ICEGIC.2009.5293598 URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5293598&isnumber=5293574

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From this research it seems a perfectly plausible senario. Need to look into the unity engine side and see whats possible in that regard.