SNS: Creating a Blended Reality: 3D Transformations

SNS Subscriber Edition
Week of 5/23/2016    
Vol. 21 Issue 18

In This Issue

Feature: “Creating a Blended Reality: 3D Transformations”:
A Centerpiece Conversation with Shane Wall

• About Shane Wall
• About Ed Butler

Publisher’s Note:  For the last few years, we have been “talking to” the old Hewlett-Packard, via SNS and its HP members, encouraging the company to move into industrial-scale 3D printing. Then the company split – in our view, a great idea – and CTO Shane Wall went to the part of the company we think has the greatest promise, the part that historically delivered almost all of the profits. (One could note that the other bit, HP Enterprise, has again split itself this week – but that’s another story.)

When Shane came to FiRe last October, he showed us the future in industrial-scale 3D printing of multi-material parts. It felt a bit like coming home.

A few weeks ago, the new HP made its official announcement of the Multi Jet Fusion technology, which will now be the first broad-acceptance wave of this manufacturing step forward. Wow.

In this week’s discussion, members will get a detailed picture of the technology vision behind these announcements, behind HP’s longer-term vision for multi-

material industrial 3D printing, and for the potential of large-scale societal changes enabled by this move forward.

For SNS members, it is also worth noting that this puts HP in the driver’s seat in helping to enable the SNS Carbon Trifecta – the subject of last week’s issue – as 3D printing in graphene accelerates nearly all of the goals mentioned here.

Welcome to the future of making things, and thank you, Shane and HP, for making it happen. – mra.