Innovative Design Applications of Metal 3D Printing

This programme is under the topic 'Designing through 3D Printed Realistic Depiction'.

Semantics as a linguistic concept is used in product design to help designers encode meaning into their products and improve the communication between products and users. A product’s physical appearance represents the sign with experience created by designers and received by users. To express the desired attributes or characteristics, designers and researchers have unanimously advocated the use of abstraction rather than realistic depiction. However, this argument of product semantics is challenged by an increasing application of 3D printing due to its capability of shape complexity in product manufacturing. The advantage of unlimited fabrication is in contrast to the limitations of conventional processes like injection moulding and highlights the accessibility of realistic depiction in conveying the encoded content of product designers.

Until now, few studies have acknowledged this subversive impact on the consideration of semantics in product design. This study adopts the Research through Design (RTD) as the research method to address the knowledge gap.

The design researcher conducted cultural and creative product design for Nanjing, a city with a five-thousand-year history in China. Instead of symbolic abstraction, the researcher made use of various 3D modelling technologies to extract spatial data of historical places in Nanjing. For example, a 3D scanner was applied to generate the digital geometry of Nanjing’s city wall, which was built six hundred years ago. The design researcher directly used such data of realistic depiction as semantic elements to design a series of cultural and creative products, which are then fabricated utilising a metal 3D printer.

The above reflective practice demonstrates a methodology of designing through realistic depiction for 3D printing. It also clarifies the impacts of 3D printed realistic depiction against abstraction in traditional product semantics. These findings will inspire product designers to explore an emerging area which redefines the functions, principles, and application of product semantics.