3d printing is what’s next for everyone. It just is. Someday not too far away we will all have 3d printers at home and that is how we will get a lot of the goods we buy. 3d printing is just one form of rapid prototyping which is revolutionizing the manufacturing world and it should be of no surprise to anyone that the automakers are going to be all over rapid prototyping. Ford today has given us a glimpse via video of their rapid prototyping and how they may use it in the future to do everything from concepts to small production run vehicles. It could just be the ticket out of the homogenized world of automaking where every car has to sell in volume, use parts that are on a half dozen other cars, and largely lack any real character in order to be profitable. Rapid prototyping just may put the creative design back into designing cars. So in honor of Tech Tuesday which is on hiatus for the summer I thought maybe we would take a look at this new technology.
Ford calls it F3T which stands for Ford Free Form Fabrication Technology. Yeah we will stick with F3T. What F3T does is allows Ford to skip the mold making process for parts because instead of going through the old fashion way where an original had to molded to be reproduced with accuracy Ford can now plug in the parts computer signature and have it produced in full real life 3d out of a 2d sheet of metal. It is quite groundbreaking and it is the future. After the jump is a short and very informative video on the technology and what Ford is doing with it.