Tag Archives: Stratasys

A 3D printed eye cornea and a 3D printed copy of your brain (also: a Brad Pitt connection)

Leave a reply

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with 3D tissue printing news. I have two news bits, one concerning eyes and another concerning brains.

3D printed human corneas

A May 29, 2018 news item on ScienceDaily trumpets the news,

The first human corneas have been 3D printed by scientists at Newcastle University, UK.

It means the technique could be used in the future to ensure an unlimited supply of corneas.

As the outermost layer of the human eye, the cornea has an important role in focusing vision.

Yet there is a significant shortage of corneas available to transplant, with 10 million people worldwide requiring surgery to prevent corneal blindness as a result of diseases such as trachoma, an infectious eye disorder.

In addition, almost 5 million people suffer total blindness due to corneal scarring caused by burns, lacerations, abrasion or disease.

The proof-of-concept research, published today [May 29, 2018] in Experimental Eye Research, reports how stem cells (human corneal stromal cells) from a healthy donor cornea were mixed together with alginate and collagen to create a solution that could be printed, a ‘bio-ink’.

Here are the proud researchers with their cornea,

Caption: Dr. Steve Swioklo and Professor Che Connon with a dyed cornea. Credit: Newcastle University, UK

A May 30,2018 Newcastle University press release (also on EurekAlert but published on May 29, 2018), which originated the news item, adds more details,

Using a simple low-cost 3D bio-printer, the bio-ink was successfully extruded in concentric circles to form the shape of a human cornea. It took less than 10 minutes to print.

The stem cells were then shown to culture – or grow.

Che Connon, Professor of Tissue Engineering at Newcastle University, who led the work, said: “Many teams across the world have been chasing the ideal bio-ink to make this process feasible.

“Our unique gel – a combination of alginate and collagen – keeps the stem cells alive whilst producing a material which is stiff enough to hold its shape but soft enough to be squeezed out the nozzle of a 3D printer.

“This builds upon our previous work in which we kept cells alive for weeks at room temperature within a similar hydrogel. Now we have a ready to use bio-ink containing stem cells allowing users to start printing tissues without having to worry about growing the cells separately.”

The scientists, including first author and PhD student Ms Abigail Isaacson from the Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, also demonstrated that they could build a cornea to match a patient’s unique specifications.

The dimensions of the printed tissue were originally taken from an actual cornea. By scanning a patient’s eye, they could use the data to rapidly print a cornea which matched the size and shape.

Professor Connon added: “Our 3D printed corneas will now have to undergo further testing and it will be several years before we could be in the position where we are using them for transplants.

“However, what we have shown is that it is feasible to print corneas using coordinates taken from a patient eye and that this approach has potential to combat the world-wide shortage.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

3D bioprinting of a corneal stroma equivalent by Abigail Isaacson, Stephen Swioklo, Che J. Connon. Experimental Eye Research Volume 173, August 2018, Pages 188–193 and 2018 May 14 pii: S0014-4835(18)30212-4. doi: 10.1016/j.exer.2018.05.010. [Epub ahead of print]

This paper is behind a paywall.

A 3D printed copy of your brain

I love the title for this May 30, 2018 Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering news release: Creating piece of mind by Lindsay Brownell (also on EurekAlert),

What if you could hold a physical model of your own brain in your hands, accurate down to its every unique fold? That’s just a normal part of life for Steven Keating, Ph.D., who had a baseball-sized tumor removed from his brain at age 26 while he was a graduate student in the MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter group. Curious to see what his brain actually looked like before the tumor was removed, and with the goal of better understanding his diagnosis and treatment options, Keating collected his medical data and began 3D printing his MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] and CT [computed tomography] scans, but was frustrated that existing methods were prohibitively time-intensive, cumbersome, and failed to accurately reveal important features of interest. Keating reached out to some of his group’s collaborators, including members of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, who were exploring a new method for 3D printing biological samples.

“It never occurred to us to use this approach for human anatomy until Steve came to us and said, ‘Guys, here’s my data, what can we do?” says Ahmed Hosny, who was a Research Fellow with at the Wyss Institute at the time and is now a machine learning engineer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The result of that impromptu collaboration – which grew to involve James Weaver, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at the Wyss Institute; Neri Oxman, [emphasis mine] Ph.D., Director of the MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter group and Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; and a team of researchers and physicians at several other academic and medical centers in the US and Germany – is a new technique that allows images from MRI, CT, and other medical scans to be easily and quickly converted into physical models with unprecedented detail. The research is reported in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.

“I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw what this technology is able to do,” says Beth Ripley, M.D. Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Radiology at the University of Washington and clinical radiologist at the Seattle VA, and co-author of the paper. “It creates exquisitely detailed 3D-printed medical models with a fraction of the manual labor currently required, making 3D printing more accessible to the medical field as a tool for research and diagnosis.”

Imaging technologies like MRI and CT scans produce high-resolution images as a series of “slices” that reveal the details of structures inside the human body, making them an invaluable resource for evaluating and diagnosing medical conditions. Most 3D printers build physical models in a layer-by-layer process, so feeding them layers of medical images to create a solid structure is an obvious synergy between the two technologies.

However, there is a problem: MRI and CT scans produce images with so much detail that the object(s) of interest need to be isolated from surrounding tissue and converted into surface meshes in order to be printed. This is achieved via either a very time-intensive process called “segmentation” where a radiologist manually traces the desired object on every single image slice (sometimes hundreds of images for a single sample), or an automatic “thresholding” process in which a computer program quickly converts areas that contain grayscale pixels into either solid black or solid white pixels, based on a shade of gray that is chosen to be the threshold between black and white. However, medical imaging data sets often contain objects that are irregularly shaped and lack clear, well-defined borders; as a result, auto-thresholding (or even manual segmentation) often over- or under-exaggerates the size of a feature of interest and washes out critical detail.

The new method described by the paper’s authors gives medical professionals the best of both worlds, offering a fast and highly accurate method for converting complex images into a format that can be easily 3D printed. The key lies in printing with dithered bitmaps, a digital file format in which each pixel of a grayscale image is converted into a series of black and white pixels, and the density of the black pixels is what defines the different shades of gray rather than the pixels themselves varying in color.

Similar to the way images in black-and-white newsprint use varying sizes of black ink dots to convey shading, the more black pixels that are present in a given area, the darker it appears. By simplifying all pixels from various shades of gray into a mixture of black or white pixels, dithered bitmaps allow a 3D printer to print complex medical images using two different materials that preserve all the subtle variations of the original data with much greater accuracy and speed.

The team of researchers used bitmap-based 3D printing to create models of Keating’s brain and tumor that faithfully preserved all of the gradations of detail present in the raw MRI data down to a resolution that is on par with what the human eye can distinguish from about 9-10 inches away. Using this same approach, they were also able to print a variable stiffness model of a human heart valve using different materials for the valve tissue versus the mineral plaques that had formed within the valve, resulting in a model that exhibited mechanical property gradients and provided new insights into the actual effects of the plaques on valve function.

“Our approach not only allows for high levels of detail to be preserved and printed into medical models, but it also saves a tremendous amount of time and money,” says Weaver, who is the corresponding author of the paper. “Manually segmenting a CT scan of a healthy human foot, with all its internal bone structure, bone marrow, tendons, muscles, soft tissue, and skin, for example, can take more than 30 hours, even by a trained professional – we were able to do it in less than an hour.”

The researchers hope that their method will help make 3D printing a more viable tool for routine exams and diagnoses, patient education, and understanding the human body. “Right now, it’s just too expensive for hospitals to employ a team of specialists to go in and hand-segment image data sets for 3D printing, except in extremely high-risk or high-profile cases. We’re hoping to change that,” says Hosny.

In order for that to happen, some entrenched elements of the medical field need to change as well. Most patients’ data are compressed to save space on hospital servers, so it’s often difficult to get the raw MRI or CT scan files needed for high-resolution 3D printing. Additionally, the team’s research was facilitated through a joint collaboration with leading 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys, which allowed access to their 3D printer’s intrinsic bitmap printing capabilities. New software packages also still need to be developed to better leverage these capabilities and make them more accessible to medical professionals.

Despite these hurdles, the researchers are confident that their achievements present a significant value to the medical community. “I imagine that sometime within the next 5 years, the day could come when any patient that goes into a doctor’s office for a routine or non-routine CT or MRI scan will be able to get a 3D-printed model of their patient-specific data within a few days,” says Weaver.

Keating, who has become a passionate advocate of efforts to enable patients to access their own medical data, still 3D prints his MRI scans to see how his skull is healing post-surgery and check on his brain to make sure his tumor isn’t coming back. “The ability to understand what’s happening inside of you, to actually hold it in your hands and see the effects of treatment, is incredibly empowering,” he says.

“Curiosity is one of the biggest drivers of innovation and change for the greater good, especially when it involves exploring questions across disciplines and institutions. The Wyss Institute is proud to be a space where this kind of cross-field innovation can flourish,” says Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, as well as Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Here’s an image illustrating the work,

Caption: This 3D-printed model of Steven Keating’s skull and brain clearly shows his brain tumor and other fine details thanks to the new data processing method pioneered by the study’s authors. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

From Improved Diagnostics to Presurgical Planning: High-Resolution Functionally Graded Multimaterial 3D Printing of Biomedical Tomographic Data Sets by Ahmed Hosny , Steven J. Keating, Joshua D. Dilley, Beth Ripley, Tatiana Kelil, Steve Pieper, Dominik Kolb, Christoph Bader, Anne-Marie Pobloth, Molly Griffin, Reza Nezafat, Georg Duda, Ennio A. Chiocca, James R.. Stone, James S. Michaelson, Mason N. Dean, Neri Oxman, and James C. Weaver. 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing http://doi.org/10.1089/3dp.2017.0140 Online Ahead of Print:May 29, 2018

This paper appears to be open access.

A tangential Brad Pitt connection

It’s a bit of Hollywood gossip. There was some speculation in April 2018 that Brad Pitt was dating Dr. Neri Oxman highlighted in the Wyss Institute news release. Here’s a sample of an April 13, 2018 posting on Laineygossip (Note: A link has been removed),

It took him a long time to date, but he is now,” the insider tells PEOPLE. “He likes women who challenge him in every way, especially in the intellect department. Brad has seen how happy and different Amal has made his friend (George Clooney). It has given him something to think about.”

While a Pitt source has maintained he and Oxman are “just friends,” they’ve met up a few times since the fall and the insider notes Pitt has been flying frequently to the East Coast. He dropped by one of Oxman’s classes last fall and was spotted at MIT again a few weeks ago.

Pitt and Oxman got to know each other through an architecture project at MIT, where she works as a professor of media arts and sciences at the school’s Media Lab. Pitt has always been interested in architecture and founded the Make It Right Foundation, which builds affordable and environmentally friendly homes in New Orleans for people in need.

“One of the things Brad has said all along is that he wants to do more architecture and design work,” another source says. “He loves this, has found the furniture design and New Orleans developing work fulfilling, and knows he has a talent for it.”

It’s only been a week since Page Six first broke the news that Brad and Dr Oxman have been spending time together.

I’m fascinated by Oxman’s (and her colleagues’) furniture. Rose Brook writes about one particular Oxman piece in her March 27, 2014 posting for TCT magazine (Note: Links have been removed),

MIT Professor and 3D printing forerunner Neri Oxman has unveiled her striking acoustic chaise longue, which was made using Stratasys 3D printing technology.

Oxman collaborated with Professor W Craig Carter and Composer and fellow MIT Professor Tod Machover to explore material properties and their spatial arrangement to form the acoustic piece.

Christened Gemini, the two-part chaise was produced using a Stratasys Objet500 Connex3 multi-colour, multi-material 3D printer as well as traditional furniture-making techniques and it will be on display at the Vocal Vibrations exhibition at Le Laboratoire in Paris from March 28th 2014.

An Architect, Designer and Professor of Media, Arts and Science at MIT, Oxman’s creation aims to convey the relationship of twins in the womb through material properties and their arrangement. It was made using both subtractive and additive manufacturing and is part of Oxman’s ongoing exploration of what Stratasys’ ground-breaking multi-colour, multi-material 3D printer can do.

…

Brook goes on to explain how the chaise was made and the inspiration that led to it. Finally, it’s interesting to note that Oxman was working with Stratasys in 2014 and that this 2018 brain project is being developed in a joint collaboration with Statasys.

That’s it for 3D printing today.

New way to practice brain surgery skills before working on live patients

Leave a reply

It’s a little disconcerting to learn that neurosurgeons don’t have many options to test drive their skills before they start practicing on patients as a Dec. 10, 2013 news release on EurekAlert about 3D printing (and a new way for neurosurgeons to practice) notes,,

Researchers from the University of Malaya in Malaysia, with collaboration from researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, announce the creation of a cost-effective two-part model of the skull for use in practicing neurosurgical techniques. The model, produced using the latest generation of multimaterial 3D printers, is composed of a variety of materials that simulate the various consistencies and densities of human tissues encountered during neurosurgery. Details on the model are provided in “Utility of multimaterial 3D printers in creating models with pathological entities to enhance the training experience of neurosurgeons. Technical note.” By Vicknes Waran, F.R.C.S.(Neurosurgery), Vairavan Narayanan, F.R.C.S.(Neurosurgery), M.Surg., Ravindran Karuppiah, M.Surg., Sarah L. F. Owen, D.Phil., and Tipu Aziz, F.Med.Sci., published today [Dec. 10, 2013] online, ahead of print, in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

Here’s the disconcerting part (from the news release),

Neurosurgery is a difficult discipline to master. Trainees may spend as many as 10 years after graduation from medical school developing and honing their surgical skills before they can be designated as proficient in their specialty. The greater the number and variety of neurosurgical training sessions, the better the training experience. However, the authors point out that it is difficult to find suitable simulation models that offer accuracy and realism for neurosurgical training while keeping training costs down.

The news release provides a description of what makes the current generation of 3D printers particularly attractive for creating practice skulls, etc.,

Three-dimensional printers have been used to create models of normal and pathological human tissues and organs for physician training and patient instruction for some time. Until recently, however, only one material could be used in the creation of models. While useful for display purposes, one-material models have little value for hands-on training. With the advent of multimaterial 3D printers, the sophistication and versatility of the new models that could be created increased substantially, but so did their price.

Waran and colleagues tell us that this situation is now changing. They state that the newest generation of multimaterial 3D printers can aid neurosurgical training by creating models that simulate different diseases in a variety of body tissues, and they can do this in a cost-effective manner.

With the aid of an Objet500 Connex™ multimaterial 3D printer (Stratasys, Ltd.), researchers at the University of Malaya created a two-part model that can simulate pathological conditions in actual patients. The base piece of the model (the “head”) consists of one material. It has human features (a “face”) and the natural contours of a human skull. This piece is used to train the novice in neuronavigation techniques and can be reused again and again. The second part of the model defines the region in which simulated surgery is performed. This piece contains several different materials, which separately simulate skin, bone, dura mater, tumor, and normal brain tissue. The second piece fits into a slot in the base piece; this multi-textured piece can only be used once and is discarded after the practice session. Fortunately, it is easy to reproduce a steady stream of new pieces.

To make the training session valuable, the trainee must be able to see, feel, and even hear different “tissue” responses to surgical instruments and techniques during simulation surgery. The researchers tell us that the “skin” is designed to be pliable enough to be cut by a scalpel and repaired by sutures, yet sturdy enough to be held by a retractor; the “bone” has to be hard enough for the trainee to obtain experience using bone perforators and cutters; the “dura mater” must be thin and pliable—just like the real thing. The consistency and color of the “tumor” differ from those of the “brain” to simulate actual tissues. The researchers made the “tumor” softer than the “brain” and colored it orange, whereas they colored the brain light yellow.

To test the quality of the model produced by the printer and to make minor adjustments, the researchers from Malaysia were aided by other researchers from the UK. Three neurosurgeons and one expert in surgical simulations performed simulated surgery and assessed the model’s “tissue” components. All parts received ratings of “fair” or “good,” with most rated “good.”

The usefulness of the model in training neuronavigation techniques was also assessed. Since the two-part model was based on data from a real patient, it was no surprise that “neuroimaging” was rated “excellent” by the evaluating team. Two navigation systems were used, and in both cases “registration was accurate and planning possible.”

Waran and colleagues state that the reusable base piece of the model costs approximately US $2000 to fabricate and the disposable inset costs US $600. This makes these training models affordable. In addition, model designs are based on actual patient data, providing limitless variety.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Waran V, Narayana V, Karuppiah R, Owen SLF, Aziz T: Utility of multimaterial 3D printers in creating models with pathological entities to enhance the training experience of neurosurgeons. Technical note. Journal of Neurosurgery, published online, ahead of print, December 10, 2013; DOI: 10.3171/2013.11.JNS131066.

This appears to be an open access paper.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and bony 3D printing

Leave a reply

Markus Buehler (last mentioned here in a Nov. 28, 2012 posting*, about spider silk and music) and his research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been inspired by various biomaterials to create materials that resemble bone matter, from the June 17, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

Researchers working to design new materials that are durable, lightweight and environmentally sustainable are increasingly looking to natural composites, such as bone, for inspiration: Bone is strong and tough because its two constituent materials, soft collagen protein and stiff hydroxyapatite mineral, are arranged in complex hierarchical patterns that change at every scale of the composite, from the micro up to the macro.

…

Now researchers at MIT have developed an approach that allows them to turn their designs into reality. In just a few hours, they can move directly from a multiscale computer model of a synthetic material to the creation of physical samples.

In a paper published online June 17 in Advanced Functional Materials, associate professor Markus Buehler of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and co-authors describe their approach.

The June 17, 2013 MIT news release by Denise Brehm, which originated the news item, explains the researchers’ approach in more detail (Note: A link has been removed),

The collagen in bone is too soft and stretchy to serve as a structural material, and the mineral hydroxyapatite is brittle and prone to fracturing. Yet when the two combine, they form a remarkable composite capable of providing skeletal support for the human body. The hierarchical patterns help bone withstand fracturing by dissipating energy and distributing damage over a larger area, rather than letting the material fail at a single point.

“The geometric patterns we used in the synthetic materials are based on those seen in natural materials like bone or nacre, but also include new designs that do not exist in nature,” says Buehler, who has done extensive research on the molecular structure and fracture behavior of biomaterials. His co-authors are graduate students Leon Dimas and Graham Bratzel, and Ido Eylon of the 3-D printer manufacturer Stratasys. “As engineers we are no longer limited to the natural patterns. We can design our own, which may perform even better than the ones that already exist.”

The researchers created three synthetic composite materials, each of which is one-eighth inch thick and about 5-by-7 inches in size. The first sample simulates the mechanical properties of bone and nacre (also known as mother of pearl). This synthetic has a microscopic pattern that looks like a staggered brick-and-mortar wall: A soft black polymer works as the mortar, and a stiff blue polymer forms the bricks. Another composite simulates the mineral calcite, with an inverted brick-and-mortar pattern featuring soft bricks enclosed in stiff polymer cells. The third composite has a diamond pattern resembling snakeskin. This one was tailored specifically to improve upon one aspect of bone’s ability to shift and spread damage.

The scientists are hinting that they’ve improved on nature and that may be so but I recall reading similar suggestions in studies I’ve read about 19th and 20th century research. It seems to me that scientists have claimed to be improving on nature for quite some time.

Interestingly, the suggested application for this new material is not biomedical, from the news release,

According to Buehler, the process could be scaled up to provide a cost-effective means of manufacturing materials that consist of two or more constituents, arranged in patterns of any variation imaginable and tailored for specific functions in different parts of a structure. He hopes that eventually entire buildings might be printed with optimized materials that incorporate electrical circuits, plumbing and energy harvesting. “The possibilities seem endless, as we are just beginning to push the limits of the kind of geometric features and material combinations we can print,” Buehler says.

You can find a link to and a citation for the published paper at the end of the ScienceDaily June 17, 2013 news item.

* Date changed from 2013 to 2012 on June 4, 2014

Stratasys/Objet merger and a brief bit about how 3-D printing actually works

Leave a reply

The industry analysts seem very excited about the newly announced merger between two companies, Stratasys and Objet, that specialize in 3-D printing as Robert Cyran states in his April 16, 2012 posting on the Fast Company website,

Making physical items from digital files is a hot technology – maybe too hot if the market reaction to the acquisition of privately held Objet by Stratasys is any guide. Despite few synergies and an odd poison pill, the buyer’s shares rose nearly 25 percent, mainly on potential revenue synergies. But the future isn’t quite here yet.

Rich Brown in his April 16, 2012 posting on C/Net seems mildly more enthused,

You’ll be forgiven if you haven’t previously heard of Stratasys Inc or Objet Ltd. Stratasys, formerly a NASDAQ-traded company from Eden Prairie, MN, has a multi-pronged business selling industrial-quality 3D printers and on-demand object printing services. Objet, of Rehovot, Israel, is a 3D printer manufacturer notable for its “polyjet matrix” technology, that can print an object using multiple different materials.

Here’s why you might care that [they] announced their intention to merge: the new company, Stratasys, Ltd. could become a third major competitor in the consumer 3D printing market.

…

Where might newly-formed Stratasys, Ltd fit in? Neither originating firm is as large as 3D Systems, but both Stratasys Inc. and Objet Ltd. saw revenue increases over 30-percent for 2011, suggesting both companies are healthy. …”

3D Systems hasn’t really established its own name among consumer 3D printers, so it’s not clear that MakerBot really has any large competition yet. If Stratasys Ltd. does enter the consumer market, and if 3D Systems does make a credible entry, consumers will get to chose from at least three major technology originators. If that happens, here’s hoping that means more competition-induced innovation, and less court-bound patent squabbling.

I will add my wishes to Brown’s hope that this move stimulates innovation and not a series of law suits.

Oddly, I had already planned to write about 3-D printing last Friday, April 13, 2012, when I found a news item by Joel L. Shurkin on physorg.com which includes a good description of the 3-D process (Note: I have removed links),

Much of modern manufacturing is by reduction. Manufacturers take blocks of plastic, wood, or metal, and grind and machine away until they get the item they want. All the plastic, wood, or metal that doesn’t make it into the item is thrown away, maybe as much as 90 percent wasted.

3-D printing puts down layers of metal powders or plastics as directed by software, just as ink is laid down on paper directed by printer drivers. After each layer is completed, the tray holding the item is lowered a fraction of a millimeter and the next layer is added. Printing continues until the piece is complete.

Molten metal is allowed to cool and harden; plastics or metal powders are hardened by heat or ultraviolet light. The ingredients aren’t limited to those substances; almost anything that flows can be accommodated, even chocolate.

There is little waste, and it is possible to change the object by simply working with the software that drives the printer the way text is changed in a word processor.

In addition to the advantages there are also some disadvantages to the technology,

“Printing a few thousand iPhones on demand (and with instant updates or different versions for each phone) at a local facility that can manufacture many other products may be far more cost-effective than manufacturing ten million identical iPhones in China and shipping them to 180 countries around the world,” the Atlantic Council wrote in a report.

Clearly, not everyone would share the advantages. Manufacturing centers like China could lose millions of jobs in that sector, and their economies could be destabilized. The industries that transport the supply line and distribute the finished product would also be hit, the council wrote. Warehouses full of parts and products could be replaced by machines that print on demand.

Closer to home, I mentioned Stratasys and 3-D printing in a Sept. 28, 2011 posting about Manitoba’s Urbee car. My most recent mention of 3-D printing was in an April 10, 2012 posting about print-on-demand robots.

Manitoba’s Urbee

3 Replies

Manitoba's Urbee and its engineering team at TEDxWinnipeg Sept. 15, 2011 event

There’s a brand new car (prototype) in town. It was unveiled at TEDx Winnipeg on Sept. 15, 2011 by Manitoba-based company. From the Urbee website,

Urbee is a two-passenger hybrid car designed to be incredibly fuel efficient, easy to repair, safe to drive, and inexpensive to own.

Shortly after the TED presentation, the Urbee was featured in a Sept. 20, 2011 article by Ariel Schwartz for Fast Company and in a Sept. 21, 2011 news item for BBC News. From the Schwartz article,

Last year, Stratasys and Kor Ecologic teamed up to develop the first 3-D printed car–a vehicle that has its entire body 3-D printed layer by layer until a finished product emerges. The Urbee was just a partially completed prototype when we first wrote about it last year. …

 

The [finished] prototype, unveiled a few days ago at the TEDx Winnipeg event, is a two-passenger, single-cylinder, eight-horsepower vehicle. That means it has significantly less power than today’s vehicles, which usually have at least 68 horsepower. But those missing horses don’t matter: the Urbee requires just an eighth of the energy of conventional cars. The electric-ethanol hybrid is also designed to get up to 200 mpg on the highway and 100 mpg in city conditions–and it lasts up to 30 years.

There are more details about the printing process and its contribution to the car’s ‘greeness’ in the BBC article,

The use of “additive manufacturing”, where layers of material are built up, or “printed” to form a solid objects, contributed to the car’s green credentials, according to project leader Jim Kor.

“One only puts material where one needs it,” explained Mr Kor, who unveiled his vehicle at the TEDxWinnipeg conference.

“It is an additive process, building the part essentially one ‘molecule’ of material at a time, ultimately with no waste.

“This process can do many materials, and our goal would be to use fully-recycled materials.”

Currently it is only the Urbee’s body panels that are printed – by Minneapolis-based Stratasys. However, Mr Kor said he hoped that other parts would be produced this way in future.

Jim Kor, project leader and lead designer, very kindly answered some questions for an interview about the Urbee, which I will be posting later today.