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To: visualops
but a machine that extrudes material isn’t printing.

Your InkJet(tm) printer extrudes ink onto a substrate of paper. Sounds like a machine extruding material to me.

/johnny

50 posted on 05/10/2013 10:34:11 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: JRandomFreeper

no, extruding is a particular process of squeezing a solid through an opening into a form before it solidifies. It’s used in food production and other manufacturing. Printing basically means a mechanical form of putting ink to paper or other substrate. printing can be inkjet, thermal, ribbon, etc. Printing is understood to be a mechanical form of reproduction of type or drawing, and to be strictly 2 dimensional (even on a curved surface, the print is still 2d).
3d printing creates an object by extruding plastic or other material into a shape, more like mechanical sculpture.
I’m not saying that “3d printing” doesn’t have any ties to 2d printing (a similarity in machine drivers barely counts since it simply tells a machine how to read a file- it wouldn’t surprise me if the embroidery machines I used to create files for also had similar drivers, but sewing isn’t printing) but I also think is expands “printing” to make it meaningless by being too broad.
I actually think that replicator or builder is a more accurate term for a machine that makes an object from a 3d file.


51 posted on 05/10/2013 10:55:52 PM PDT by visualops (artlife.us)
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To: JRandomFreeper

Inkjets spray ink through nozzles, it’s a very specific technology.


52 posted on 05/10/2013 10:57:22 PM PDT by visualops (artlife.us)
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