Computers and Tridimentional Printing

3D printing is the action of making a three dimensional object of any shape from a model made on the computer. A 3D printer is basically a robot, which lays down materials in different shapes. Chuck Hull made the first 3D printer in 1984; he created it in order to be able to prototype things in mass production and fast. The two ways to create 3D objects are subtractive manufacturing, which refers to drilling a shape out of a block of material while additive manufacturing, refers to adding layers of material in a sequence in order to make and object. An advantage of 3D printing is that one can make specially specific objects from different materials on command. The purpose of 3D printing can be extended to many different places to make specialized things but a place where it is very largely used is in medicine. Since many parts in the body cannot be replaced and are very specialized in shape, 3D printer has made it easier for doctors to get those certain specialized things they need and help create some sort of material which could replace the organ. 3D printing has been used for example to create bridges, crowns, and stone models in dentistry. This not only eliminates the bottleneck of manually making those, it also eliminates the chance of human mistake. In addition, 3D printing is a much faster way to produce those specific things instead than making them manually.

Another example on how 3D printing is helping medicine is surgery where 3D printed implants are used. Since certain bones are very specified and have very specified shapes doctors are now just making them on the computer and printing them with the 3D printer. An example of this is, that surgeons have just performed the first implant of the entire 3D printed skull. ...

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...process takes only about 8 hours and also is much less costly since the materials used are cheaper. Lastly, instead of taking stem cells doctors could just 3D print the patients tumor and can use that to make the surgery successful. Taking stem cells are ways to cure more developed cancer but sometimes when cancer is caught early surgery can be used to remove it. This surgery is very difficult because if one single cancer cell is left then the person will not be rid of the cancer. If doctors are able to practice removing the tumor then the surgery goes much smoother and has a greater chance of success. In an university in Texas, a new development using 3D printing was found. It was found that now scientist could develop patches of skin using the 3D printer. This would allow many skin diseases or burns to be treated without stretching the extra skin the victim has.