Home appliances are people's daily necessity, including air conditioner, fridge, washer, acoustics, dust collector, electric fan, electric kettle, coffee pot, electric cooker, juicer, mobile phone and other small appliances. In the intensely competitive market, more and more manufacturers of home appliances apply 3D printing technology to print prototypes of the appliances, which improves design efficiency greatly.
In the course of product design, the visualization of prototype is very important, which is the foundation of design communication and design improvement. Compared with plane 2D model and virtual 3D model in computer, the real prototype quickly made by 3D printing technology is able to show more design details, which is more visual and reliable. Besides, 3D printer is able to shorten time of mould manufacturing, which lowers the cost greatly and consequently lower the production cost of resin.
Without the limitation of product design structure and shape, 3D printing technology can print prototypes directly and quickly, which tremendously shortens the design period for the designer. Kings3D series SLA 3D printer can achieve all the applications and functions in above, including air conditioner, mobile phone, washing machine and electric iron and other housing prototypes.
The application of 3D printing technology is mainly in the following fields:
(1) Design discussion and exhibition: in the early stage of product design, it helps the achievement of inter-departmental design communication, which not only saves time, but also decreases design defect;
3D printing technology and cartoon art are closely inter-related, as 3D modeling is instantly followed by 3D printing in most circumstances. More and more designers are bringing their cartoon images into reality, and 3D printing technology is now widely applied in cartoon design and production in the following three aspects:
1. Stop-motion animation
The most frequent application of 3D printing technology in cartoon industry is stop-motion animation. Compared with its traditional way in production, 3D printing technology has more choice in materials, no longer limited to clay and cloth, and has greatly improved production efficiency and quality, as 3D printed scenes are more accurate and delicate, and characters’ expression and action are more vivid.
2. Character and scene design
The design of characters is the most crucial and most tedious part of cartoon creation. The application of 3D printing technology in printing the major character models effectively reduces the burden of early-stage character design.
3. The development of cartoon derivative products
With the diversification of social demand and the personalization of aesthetic demand, the development of cartoon derivative products is increasingly personalized. Namely, people tend to make cartoon derivative products by themselves. The application of 3D printing technology, just like private custom made, makes it possible for cartoon hobbyist to print derivative products according to their preferences.
