Talk:Direct digital manufacturing

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Industrial design

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SME text[edit]

HI, my use of the text that the bot discovered from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers is of fair use. I myself am a 12 year member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, a Chapter chairman for SME Chapter 211 and a member of the Direct Digital Manufacturing subcommittee, part of SME's Rapid Technologies and Additive Manufacturing Technical Group. The group wrote the description. Bcn0209 18:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

About Digital Reality, Inc.,[edit]

While Digital Reality, Inc., uses Direct Digital Manufacturing for mass Mass customization, it does not fit here to go into an all out detail about one of the 50 commercially viewable examples. If this subject is quite notable maybe it needs its own article. Its worth stating that Digital Reality, Inc. was deleted once before for (CSD G11: Blatant Advertising).R00m c 07:30, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found this article in a very poor state. It was more like a bad sales pitch than an encyclopedia. I started pulling out unnecessary verbiage, redundant statements, prognostications, etc. With most of that cleared away, I could see that what was left was not well organized. A more comprehensive overhaul is required, to be done by someone with better organizational skills than I.Cstaffa 23:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Digital Reality Created the Wikipedia Article itself on Direct Digital Manufacturing. While it may or may not hold merit that Digital Reality was self promoting, they deserve merit for creation of the term whereas Redeye RPM is a commercial service offering Services that are self purported to be Direct Digital Manufacturing, they are obviously in a situation of conflict of interest...and blatant advertising. Wholers Associates is a research or think tank reporting on the industry and is therefore a credible source for the discussion of the topic. Digital Reality only claimed to hold several patents pending to the technology in the original Wiki. I was unable to validate this claim at the USPTO. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.110.195.6 (talk) 22:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ponoko Redirect[edit]

I ended up at this article because the subject term Ponoko redirects to it. However, that term does not appear in the article, so I'm no wiser about what Ponoko is or how it relates to direct digital manufacturing. Can someone get that started? --Mermaldad (talk) 12:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)Mermaldad[reply]

Only additive??[edit]

The first sentence of this article sounds dubious to me: "Direct digital manufacturing is ... using additive fabrication techniques, also called 3D printing or Rapid Prototyping." As far as I understood the term, direct digital manufacturing is not just additive. 3D printing is just additive, but "Direct digital manufacturing" and "Rapid prototyping" can both mean either additive or subtractive methods (like laser cutting, CNC sawing etc). It seems a bit limited to only talk about 3d printing on this page without addressing any of the cutting services available. Thrapper (talk) 20:17, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merging[edit]

I've notice the merge notice has been around for a while for Rapid manufacturing Desktop manufacturing Instant manufacturing Solid freeform fabrication have been around for a while. It appears all important information from Rapid Manufacturing is in this article, word for word in some cases. Instant manufacturing talks about the history and cause of instant manufacturing, comparing things with the Industrial Revolution and WWII. The history and causes probably don't belong in this article but instead an article about the history of manufacturing. Though some info can be merged with the advantages section. Desktop Manufacturing only mentions the idea that you can have small desktop printers for personal use. I'm not sure where to put this. Solid Freeform fabrication talks about the technology behind the process and would better belong in the 3D-Printing article. So unless anyone objects I'm going to merge in the Rapid manufacturing and Instant manufacturing articles. And suggest that Solid Freeform Fab be merged with 3d printing. Lotu (talk) 21:42, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that you're moving in the right direction by merging these articles. Two aspects of it that will need more work are as follows (neither urgent in my current opinion): (1) We'll have to fix the issue (already raised above at "Only additive?") that direct manufacturing aka on-demand manufacturing is not only additive (such as 3D printing). It also includes subtractive methods (such as, for example, CNC 5-axis contour milling, or turn-mill operations). In short, it includes any method that allows people to send information over the internet and have a desired physical product created quickly on the other end. (2) Regarding the info that you mentioned as probably belonging in a history-of-manufacturing article—I think you're essentially right that we'll have to figure out where its final home will be. One question, I think, is how far up or down the ladder of abstraction this article itself should be. I think you're currently envisioning it as more toward the concrete end, covering specific technologies (so far only additive), which means that the historical overview info (i.e., relationship-to-what-came-before info) is too abstract to keep here. But I think this article may be a level above that, abstraction-wise, for the reason mentioned above ("any method that allows people to send information over the internet and have a desired physical product created quickly on the other end"). In which case, this may be the right home for the relationship-to-what-came-before info. I'm not worried about solving this question immediately, because we can always work it out over time and iterate as needed. If we do create a history-of-manufacturing article, we'll have to work out its exact linking/summary-style relationships to other related articles, such as craft production, Industrial Revolution, interchangeable parts, armory system, assembly line, mass production, history of technology, industrial history, post-industrial society, and many, many others. But that's such a big, long-term project that I'm not too worried about how we'll get there. The right beginning is what you're doing, which is merging, splitting, and iterating, in the best way that presents itself, and then iterating again later, as inspiration strikes. So kudos! Looking forward to further development as any of us get time. — ¾-10 23:09, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up regarding relationships between articles, linking/summary-style, etc: I never paid much attention before today to "Outline of automation", which is one model for how one might approach "history of manufacturing". Food for thought. — ¾-10 16:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]