Combining 3D Printing With Vision and AI

Clever, powerful idea.   Have always thought 3D printing was too awkward to use in many applications.  Especially for high volume applications.   Can this solve the problem?  With video.

A 3-D printer powered by machine vision and artificial intelligence
by Zach Winn, Massachusetts Institute of Technology  in Techxplore

Inkbit, a startup out of MIT, is working to bring all of the benefits of 3-D printing to a slew of products that have never been printed before — and it’s aiming to do so at volumes that would radically disrupt production processes in a variety of industries. 

Objects made with 3-D printing can be lighter, stronger, and more complex than those produced through traditional manufacturing methods. But several technical challenges must be overcome before 3-D printing transforms the production of most devices.

Commercially available printers generally offer only high speed, high precision, or high-quality materials. Rarely do they offer all three, limiting their usefulness as a manufacturing tool. Today, 3-D printing is used mainly for prototyping and low-volume production of specialized parts.

Now Inkbit, a startup out of MIT, is working to bring all of the benefits of 3-D printing to a slew of products that have never been printed before—and it's aiming to do so at volumes that would radically disrupt production processes in a variety of industries.

The company is accomplishing this by pairing its multimaterial inkjet 3-D printer with machine-vision and machine-learning systems. The vision system comprehensively scans each layer of the object as it's being printed to correct errors in real-time, while the machine-learning system uses that information to predict the warping behavior of materials and make more accurate final products.

"The company was born out of the idea of endowing a 3-D printer with eyes and brains," says Inkbit co-founder and CEO Davide Marini Ph.D. '03.  ... "