You've touched on some interesting points.
The multicolour one, that's indeed something the smaller, home/studio printers can improve. To be honest, the technique of these printers may not be the technique that will win in the end. For mockups, yes, but I expect other techniques to be the winners. It has been quite some years ago I was running around in this market to understand what was available. Back then, I think it was in 2013 or 2014, I ran into Shapeways and iMaterlise. With the latter, I ordered a little object from one of their industrial-grade colour printers. Resolution pretty ok, colour super, however now after years, the colour starts to fade away.
Yea, I live in Amsterdam and one of the house print projects is right in the middle of this city, well, maybe not in the exact middle, but quite close by. Someone build a metal bridge in our red-light district. To be honest? I didn't take the time yet to check out this one myself. This convo serves as a reminder for sure.
a nice article about this bridge: https://www.archpaper.com/2021/07/worlds-first-3d-printed-steel-bridge-debuts-in-amsterdam-red-light-district/
Last year, or maybe two years ago by now, the first jaw was printed and successfully implemented in a human.
Though some of these are no brainers, any object that needs a design and is manufactured just a few times can benefit from 3D printing. Large scale and local production is something that is THE promise of 3d printing. On large scale, I don't mean, many of the same objects, but I mean a few to single off of an object but on large scale. Back in the days, I was thinking of concepts of having a 3D printing shop in each district, just a few minutes away from our own doorstep. With marketplaces filled with 3d objects and parts to get something new, or replace a broken part. Where designers of objects create the parts 3D model and offer them to the world. I think this can still happen, though it's clear to me (already back then) this is not happening any time soon. I was quite surprised to learn 3D printing was already done for more than 3 decades. Materialise, the sister company of iMaterialise does the industrial projects, including parts for BMWs and whatnot. I've seen their printing factories. Amazing stuff they have. But all this was like 7 or 8 years ago, so by now, even better technology must be in their factories.
A few of my first post at HIVE (well the one with the S) was about 3rd printing. You may regonise some of the projects:
https://ecency.com/post/@edje/stunning-3dprinted-objects-part-1
https://ecency.com/post/@edje/stunning-3dprinted-objects-part-2
https://ecency.com/post/@edje/stunning-3dprinted-objects-part-3-pinting-a-solid-house-in-less-than-24-hours-for-less-than-5-000ususd
https://ecency.com/post/@edje/stunning-3dprinted-objects-part-4-the-office-of-the-future-in-reality-today
https://ecency.com/post/@edje/stunning-3dprinted-objects-part-5-landscape-house-the-endless-house
I love these guys/girls: https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/
