The Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture __________________________________________________________________ ISSN 1068-5723 August 20, 1993 Volume 1 Issue 5 SQARV1N5 HART STEREOGRAPHIC LITHOGRAPHY by Michael Hart (hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu) On Friday the 13th I physically stepped through a portal into the Third Millennium which officially begins, according to calendaric specialists, on January 1, 2001. What I saw there in a small cubicle nestled in amongst the relics of the late Second Millennium, wind tunnels and robotics labs, is truly amazing, and will become more amazing as a quiet secret and even super-secret series of battles and wars takes place to put a polish on the field of Stereographic Lithography. I am probably unable to describe what I saw, even in terms of the best science fiction books, television and movies available, this time reality has outstripped fiction. Invisible laser beams become briefly visible as they strike water [only it isn't water] and create a solid where before there was a small pool of liquid. If this were seen in fast-motion, it would look as if the Star Trek New Generation replicators were working, right there in front of you, only it is much more beautiful. The ultraviolet laser light briefly flashes into the visible spectrum on contact with the liquid, and the result is a brilliant flash-- along with the creation of something solid out of liquid. Colors that you may have only imagined were possible, and solid objects, the no one imagined were possible, because there was no way to do the construction of them, until now. I have been aware of Stereographic Lithography for quite a while, but never actually got to see either the direct products from it, or, as in this case, to see the Stereographic Lithography process in action, much thanks to the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Of course, what amazed me first, as always, were the kids running this incredibly expensive machine. I guess the only picture I am going to be able to paint is to compare them to Tom Cruise in the movie "Top Gun" as a picture of a young hotshot at the helm of an awesome multi-million dollar piece of technology that is capable, in a very real sense, of wreaking violence on the world as we are now aware of it. Things being made on this machine are literally impossible to see in anything more than the mind's eye without such a machine. All you have to do is think up what you want to build and map it into one of assortment of CAD/CAM programs ["Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacturing"] and send it off to these Milwaukee School of Engineering guys and you will get back a physical relic of your mental concept that is exactly what you ordered down to a resolution of thousandths of an inch, complete with moving parts, which are held in place by a spider web of the polymers. A small tap, and the parts are free to move, including joints, pendulums, and what have you. . . .and I finally have an item, made directly with this process, so don't miss my next speech, as Project Gutenberg has made a few arrangements to post at least one of these CAD/CAM files as files in the Electronic Public Library. Many of the items being made with this process are a closely held secret of the Milwaukee School of Engineering and their clients, so for now, we can probably on release the most basic objects. A request hereby goes out to you readers to find us some files of a similar nature, including a request for you to find us a place we can scan a three dimensional object to create such a file from an object that really exists so we can make a replicate. We are now considering doing a small copy of some famous statue such as "The Kiss" or another Rodin statue, or "The Venus de Milo." Currently there are several polymer process competing in this new market and the Milwaukee School of Engineering has improved their process three times in only the last year or so. . .if only we do as much improving in our scanning and OCR processes. Not only are these object being made with photo-sensitive polymer but they are also being made directly into metal construction. I am reminded of a Russian welding process of a decade or two ago-- in which the weld was much stronger than the metal itself, and no other metal was used other than the metal in the pieces welded. If this kind of thing can be done with this process, we will have a product that not only could never have been made before, but it might be made out of materials stronger than ever could have been made before. When the polymers are used, they are generally made into molds to enable to parts to then be made in a normal manner; the molds are then filled with plastics, epoxys, etc, which can be products for consumption or which can be used to make even stronger molds then used for the hottest metal alloys. Of course, if the metal/laser process can be improved, this step might be unnecessary, unless a mass production run is required. Right now, a Stereo Lithography process takes hours for parts more than one or two cubic inches. If you want to get an approximate look at what this process might be doing in terms of precision and cost reduction, go down to the local knick-knack store and ask to take a look at products cut in wood by a laser. The visual effect is quite similar, although in a more two dimensional than three dimensional expression. The program used to make the little "Klein Bottle" sample was put on a 1.44M floppy, just like any other file, and thus could be an "Etext" for the Project Gutenberg Electronic Public Library, with music, paintings, and of course books. In a related article, you can read a little more about Project Gutenberg's expansion in the areas of music, art, and statuary. Of course, there is already a plethora of general art out there as GIF and JPG files, so we are likely to continue in the directions of music, and statuary, with the addition of various illustrations for our Etexts. We are now almost done with our first music file, the First Movement, or so, of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which will also be about the sizes of the average Project Gutenberg Etext so you can be sure you can easily download music and put them on a floppy disk. We hope for an eventual music library to rival our Etexts library, and not to take up any more space per thousand pieces of music than Etext so one CDROM disk should be able to hold 1,000 pieces of music since the Beethoven's Fifth file doesn't look like it will be much more sizewise than Peter Pan [with all four movements]. For those of you who are not interested in the details, I suggest you skip to the next section header, as the rest of this part was written to explain how Stereographic Lithography works. *** Several combinings of laser frequencies, photo-sensitive polymers and metal powders have proven suitable for Stereo Lithography. A reasonable guess is that most of the laser frequencies are in the ultra-violet range, although this is a guess, as the exact colors used were one of the secrets preserved by the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Just to give you an idea how secret all this is, my guru, Kevin Gilmore, saw this process a long time ago in Chicago, and couldn't get me in to see it, and couldn't even tell me where it was. In the same vein, the machine at the Milwaukee School of Engineering had a built in lighting system that could be shut off so they could show you the machine in action without revealing an extraordinarily valuable industrial secret, being the manufacture of some part that could not have been made at all with a previous level of technology. Therefore, much of what I am writing at the present is not very precise, and could be said to be "an educated guess." Those of you who were kind enough to send me biblio's on Stereographic Lithography are encourage to correct and fill in on these items. OK. . .here's how it works. The liquid [or powder] is poured into a tank containing a precise elevator mechanism which lowers a platform down into the material a thousandth of an inch or so at a time [unless lower resolutions are all that is required]. The first thing that is built is used to support the main object, a platform on the elevator floor. It provides a similar look to the injection molds used in plastics-- but the function is entirely different--it merely creates a place on which to build, one that can been easily broken off from these elevator platforms, and also from the objects themselves. Once the platform is built [different kinds for different objects of course] the first thousandth of an inch of liquid is raised up over it [actually the platform is lowered] and the laster begins. Each layer has to be started with point contact with the previous layer, so this has to be programmed into the process [one of many suppositions on my part]. The laser is guided [and focused] by a mirror, not unlike the laser and mirror combination you can "see" a piece of music with by connecting to your stereo. We built the stereo music version of this back in the 70's, and were amazed at how much power it took to move the mirror, so I can assure you it is a very high powered and accurate amplifier that controls these mirror movements. The laser beam is redirected downwards into the vat [actually vat implies round to me, but this one was square] where the reactions occur at the very surface, leaving a thousandth of an inch of the solid polymer in traces, much like writing on a blackboard: only the blackboard itself forms the letters out of its own materials, and the "chalk" is a relatively high powered laser, and the light is relatively high frequency [lasers can go much higher, but eyes can't see any higher frequencies than violet]. I am guessing the light is not that far into the ultra-violet, given the colors the process gave off as the polymer was struck by the laser. It will make great special effects for movies, if anyone thinks of it. A wide range of colors is available, but each polymer and metal has frequencies that work best for it. I am also going to go out for a walk on my limb again and guess the laser power was more than 9 watts and less than 100, unless the polymers absorb a lot more of the energy than I would think. I am intentionally making guesses here before I get back in touch with the people at MSOE because they asked me not to ask the kids who were operating the machine, and I don't want to get anyone in any kind of trouble. I hope to get better and more exact data in response to the requests contained in this article, however I may be a little quieter about it all than usual in thanks to MSOE for letting me see the process first hand and giving me a sample. I can tell you that the solidified polymer was a brittle and weak result in the beginning, and that each of the subsequent versions has been stronger and more resilient. I can only presume this is similar to what is happening with the metallic processes. ===================================================== Thank you for your time and consideration, Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532 No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC hart @uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu COPYRIGHT 1993 PROF. MICHAEL S. HART, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS MESSAGE MAY NOT BE COPIED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION *OTHER THAN TO REPLY TO THE AUTHOR OR TO THIS EMAIL LIST* PERMISSION EASILY AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST TO THIS ADDRESS. THIS MESSAGE IS A PRIVATE COMMUNICATION, INTENDED ONLY TO BE READ BY THE PEOPLE TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED. 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