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Have your furniture printed SVT Nyheter, 2012

Have your furniture printed PUBLISHED 8 OCTOBER 2012

It is not just movies, music and games that will be distributed via the internet. In the near future, you will also be able to get hold of files that, together with a 3D printer, will allow you to print jewelry, decorative objects and other items.

A 25-year-old man was sentenced yesterday to 6,000 kronor in day-fines for having file-shared around 60 movies on the internet, but soon you will be able to file-share things other than video and audio.

-Within 15-20 years you will be able to print a functioning mobile phone, with circuit boards and everything, says industrial designer Alexander Lervik.

The technology behind 3D printers, which has been around for a long time and used by designers to develop prototypes, has become increasingly cheap to produce.

-Almost no one knows about the technology, even though it has existed for so long, and how it works is a bit too incomprehensible, but there are several other aspects as to why it is not already used today. It is still quite expensive and the durability of certain materials is not really good yet, says Alexander Lervik.

He says he started using the technology ten years ago, was fascinated and realized what possibilities it offered.

The printer uses either powder that is heated up or liquid material to build objects extremely thin layers at a time. When an 83-year-old woman in the Netherlands recently received a new jaw with the help of 3D printer technology, 33 layers of the material were needed to build 1 millimeter of the jaw.

Plastic, metal, glass and ...

The materials used today are primarily plastic, metal and glass. Wood can be recreated with the help of paper and certain textile materials can also be produced. If you get down to the molecular level, you will also be able to print human organs in the future.

As a designer, Alexander Lervik has made everything from jewelry to furniture using the technology. For Stockholm Fashion Week, which is currently underway, he has developed jewelry for the brand Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair.

-Producing a bracelet in metal costs 15,000-20,000 kronor in material costs. If you make it in plastic, it costs just under 1,000 kronor, says Alexander Lervik.

He has also had his brain scanned to produce a lamp with the technology. In the future, when printers become cheaper and more people start using them, discussions will arise about who is, for example, responsible if a chair breaks: the person who designed it or the person who printed it, Alexander Lervik wonders.

File-share design

In addition, through file sharing, people will be able to access the shape of all kinds of objects. Pirate Bay recently opened up for file sharers to download 3D models, something that Alexander Lervik believes will affect his profession in the future. Already today, Google has a free program for 3D modeling that takes ten minutes to learn, he mentions.

-We designers will experience what has happened to musicians. We will not get paid for what we have developed, but if we do not make the same mistakes as them and find other opportunities, we can use the technology for something good.

Certainly the number of copied goods may increase, but Alexander Lervik believes that in the future people will start from a file and then customize and create their own works.

-And then it becomes a new product, after all, says Alexander Lervik.

Arash Mokhtari Responsible publisher: Helena Olsson

Published 8 October 2012 at 15:13

English translation of the original article. Text captured from the published article; the PDF holds the archived page.