What is your favorite 3D print?
How long have you been 3D printing?
How much have you spent on 3D Printing?
What is the largest thing that you 3D printed?
Why do you 3D Print?
Recently, some game changers popped out and cheered up this August. The AtomForm Palette 300 3D Printer can switch 12 nozzles so fast, the Snapmaker U1 has four toolheads to make multi-color printing so easy, and the Bambu Lab just released the H2S. It brings us to the question: what is the next step of 3D printing? Enabling more colors on multi color printing, adding more toolheads, new structures for nozzle switching, heated chamber, a larger print volume, a lower price, it seems that the bottleneck of 3D printing occurs, none of these could change the whole industry like Bambu Lab did in 2022.
But in my opinion, the two stories I heard reveal the answer.
Story 1, Father’s new Prosthetic
October 2023, Owen, a celebrity on Bilibili, whose video about 3D printing inspired a man, who thought it might be possible to make a 3D printed prosthetic for his father. Many years ago, the man's father lost the left sole, but the prosthetic from the hospital didn’t fit well and caused a lot of pain. So he contacted Owen for help.
Owen went to his house and checked the current prosthetic and found quite a few issues.
First, it is hard to put on. Then the prosthetic itself is too thick, which makes the left foot taller and puts pressure on the other foot. Except that, it is not flexible or light, either.
Owen uses a 3D scanner to scan the father’s damaged foot for modeling, then the normal foot for reference.
After that, he got the high-resolution 3D data of both feet.
He created a 3D model based on it, then he printed the file out for a mold.
Then he built a prosthetic for himself for a walking test to figure out how we can walk naturally when wearing it.
After a few tests, he found the answer and created the 3D model.
The real model was printed out with TPU very fast, and reduced the weight from 496g to 151g, and the thickness from 2.5cm to 8mm.
So, the father can wear it more easily and walk naturally.
After that, he received feedback from the father and modified the prosthetic based on that, mostly modifying the infill and structure. A few versions later, he got a stable version.
So, the father got a brand-new prosthetic with a much better experience but at much less cost. He can walk like a normal person or even ride a bike. Thanks to the feature of 3D printing, he can also have the prosthetic customized and updated. The human body changes over time, changing the prosthetic to match that means a lot. It is quite impressive and inspiring that Owen can do the object this far, as there were no 3D printers like H2D. Back in 2025, we already tried 3D printed shoes made by H2D and knew how good it is.
The prosthetic must be much better when printing with H2D in multiple materials. In this story, 3D printing becomes magic.
Story 2, the Relic Biochip
Cyberpunk 2077 gamers may find a character in Dogtown named Qian Si Hu who belongs to no groups and is fixing cyberwares all the time. Actually, he was a real person, a Chinese Cyberpunk fan named Renfei who ran a 3d print shop online and passed away in 2022 due to cardiac problems. But death didn’t stop the shop, because his 53-year-old mother started to learn everything about her son’s business and continued it. At first, the customers of the shop received products that were not as good as before, but everything back to normal after the mother’s effort, like the son had never been left.
The 53-year-old mother started to learn 3D modeling, postprocessing, game, and everything her son loved. By doing so, she wants to know her son better, so that they have more to talk about at the reunion.
This tear-jerking story was heard by the CD Projekt, the game company of Cyberpunk 2077. They contacted this mother, collected some information, and then created the Qian Si Hu character in the game. Qian Si Hu is the nickname of Renfei. So, her son was brought back to life, lives in a world he likes and does what he likes.
It also gives people an illusion that the CD Project uses the Relic Biochip, an item in the game that allows the storage and manifested reading of digitized human psyches known as engrams. It happens to be one of Renfei’s products he sold in the shop. So, the story becomes real in the real world.
Now, Renfei’s mother can enter the game to see her son sometimes, like he had never left.
It’s a tear-jerking story about love, answering the question, Why do we 3D print? No 3D printers were mentioned in the story, but it is not really that important; 3D printing is all about the person behind the machine.
We all started 3D printing for some reason; we may have forgotten what brought us to this world, but stories of Owen and Renfei remind us what 3D printing brings us further. Owen uses an X1C to print prosthetics; it even strings a lot, but doesn’t hold the project back at all. Renfei’s mother didn’t know her son’s work much, but 3D printing gives her the chance to know her son better and finally brings him back to life in the game, like the relic biochip.
By the time of 2025, 3D printers will be like DSLR cameras; better technology doesn’t mean better results. The person behind the machine is more important.
As long as we humans don’t lose creativity and love, 3D printing keeps evolving.
