{"id":11195,"date":"2014-05-20T07:30:27","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T14:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=11195"},"modified":"2017-04-25T04:14:39","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T11:14:39","slug":"forget-the-3d-printer-4d-printing-could-change-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/forget-the-3d-printer-4d-printing-could-change-everything","title":{"rendered":"Forget the 3D Printer: 4D Printing Could Change Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a class=\"author-name\" href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/author\/randy-rieland\/\"> Randy Rieland \u2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/Smithsonian.com\">Smithsonian.com<\/a><\/a><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/> These days, 3D printing seems to be at the core of most new new research ventures, whether it\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/innovation\/hungry-a-startup-wants-you-to-3d-print-your-next-meal-180947702\/\" target=\"_blank\">developing ways to print entire meals<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/innovation\/how-3d-printing-technology-helped-repair-mans-face-180950320\/?no-ist\" target=\"_blank\">recreating facial features to repair a patient\u2019s face<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But Skylar Tibbits wants to up the ante: He\u2019s hoping 4D printing will be the thing of the not-so-far future.<\/p>\n<p>The name for his concept, Tibbits admits, was a bit lighthearted at first. <span style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><span style=\"font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">At the <\/span><\/span>Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tibbits and researchers from the firms Stratasys and Autodesk Inc were trying to come up with a way of describing the objects they were creating on 3D printers\u2014objects that not only could be printed, but thanks to geometric code, could also later change shape and transform on their own.<\/p>\n<p>The name stuck, and now the process they developed\u2014which turns code into \u201csmart objects\u201d that can self-assemble or change shape when confronted with a change in its environment\u2014could very well pop up in a number of industries, from construction to athletic wear.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/innovation\/Objects-That-Change-Shape-On-Their-Own-180951449\/?no-ist\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Randy Rieland \u2014 Smithsonian.com These days, 3D printing seems to be at the core of most new new research ventures, whether it\u2019s developing ways to print entire meals or recreating facial features to repair a patient\u2019s face. But Skylar Tibbits wants to up the ante: He\u2019s hoping 4D printing will be the thing of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3d-printing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52238,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11195\/revisions\/52238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}