Guh-WHAAA?

I don't know why I began this post with 'guh'. It's probably to express the noise I made when I saw that Lee Unkrich (director of Toy Story 3) has posted photos of TS3 characters that were printed using a color 3D printer.






Beyond being generally cool, I'm wigging out over the fact that one can print things in 3D! And with such detail!

Of course, this ignited a massive internet search. Below is a good pseudo-explanatory video of how the process works. Basically, the printer takes the 3D image information and lays down successive (thin!) layers of resin to form the image. My first question was: "what if there is something that is hanging over (like an elephant's trunk)? How does that get printed without falling off?" The answer is that a waxy resin shell encases the actual object. As the layers are placed down, the shell builds up around it. You then remove the shell by either melting it off or washing it off.

Genius!