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It is not impossible to print an ear, a trachea, and even a cast for your broken arm: Why not a shoe? Or two?
Mary Huang would digitize her world and make everything around her using a 3-D printer, if she could have it her way. But for now, she's sticking to shoes.
And she is doing it with a Brooklyn-based "component design label, component lab" business called Continuum that says: "fashion should express how or live our digital lives." Huang designs the look of the software and the shoe .
She says a pair of shoes takes anywhere to print? that's eight to 10 hours per shoe. The shoes are made mainly from plastic and thermoplastic polyurethane, a rubberlike material. They cost anywhere from $250 to $395 per pair.
Even big name brands are jumping on the 3 D bandwagon: Both New Balance and Nike have been experimenting with custom, 3 D printed plates on their cleats-n-informers.
But how practical are 3-D-printed shoes, in general? Are they comfy? Durable? Safe?
Some are. But Huang also has a shoe that's only for show. Her Daphne Shoe this manner is described by the website:
"This layout is more of an art piece. This layout is meant chiefly as an exhibit or collector's piece, or for special events. ... This may also be bought as a single shoe, for half the price."
Dr. Marlene Reid believes 3-D-printed shoes have a future.
"I think that is a very cool future for us," says Reid, a podiatrist and owner of Family Podiatry Center in Naperville, Ill. "The real potential is in creating custom shoes."
Yet, Reid is worried about the materials they are made of, and the shoes wouldn't be up to level with footwear standards.
What Reid says 3-D's afraid of is "in its infancy, the tendency would be to m nike air max 2013
.ke a shoe of one fabric or small fabric.
"Footwear has come such a long way in the development of substances and what they are able to provide for comfort and support," she says. "I think the technology has a lot of guarantee."
"It's not likely to replace how we traditionally fabricate things, but it gives you another alternative," she says.
Huang sees digital manufacturing as a possible means of changing how the global supply c cheap nike air max
.ain works.
"The availability of inexpensive labour on earth will get more scarce," she says. "It is not that this will be a good procedure for everything we would want to design. It is a new process t air max 2013 red
.at's new benefits."
Huang says 3 D printing is a long term technology: The goal would be to learn and grow with it.
And now could be only the beginning.