ITG has two identical 3D printers for solid object creation.

How they work: The printers build each model layer by layer, starting at the base. For each iteration, a thin layer of powder is spread over the entire building area. Then, a print head similar to that of an inkjet printer prints a layer of binder onto the powder plane. The colorful binder bonds with the powder to create a solid layer of your object. You can think of the complete model as a stack of 2D images that were printed onto the powder. When the process is finally finished with the top layer, the model will be completely enclosed in a matrix of powder that will be removed during the excavation process.

The printing process: First, you must acquire a 3D model. You can create one using Maya, Rhino, Inventor, AutoCAD, ProE, and other software. The model file must be converted to a suitable format. These include .zbd, .stl, .bld, .ply, .zcp, .sfx, .zec, and .wrl. You will need to review the model with a VMIL consultant to make sure that printing the model is feasible (for example, you can't print something with paper thin walls). Only ITG staff may send prints to the printer, so you will need to contact someone to help you print your model. That person will open the model using the software "ZPrint" where it can be resized and positioned before it is sent to the printer. Next, the printer prints the model. Printing can take less than an hour for very small parts up to many hours for large ones. After the print completion, the powder matrix is scooped and vacuumed away to reveal the model. We call this process excavation. After the model is removed from the printer, it is blasted with a fine stream of air in the depowdering station. This process removes more loose powder, especially powder in holes or crevices. Finally the model is infiltrated with wax, epoxy, cyanoacrylate, or an elastomer. This provides neccessary structural integrity for the model; without infiltration the model is very easily chipped, scratched, and cracked.

Features:

Models may be printed with a clear binder or in full color.

The maximum model size is 8" x 10" x 10".

Models may have interlocking parts such as chains.

Thin models can be infiltrated with an elastomer to make flexible parts

Starch or Plaster? Typically, one of the printers is filled with starch and the other plaster (see chart below for medium comparison)

Plaster	Starch
Solids only	Solids or flexible shapes
May be infiltrated with wax, cyanoacrylate, or epoxy	May be infiltrated with wax, cyanoacrylate, epoxy, or elastomer (for flexibility)
Stays fresh and ready for printing in the build volume	Gets sticky if exposed to the air for too long. Starch left in the build volume shouldn’t be used for printing. Refresh the starch by doing 1 or 2 new spreads.
Spreads easily	Does not spread easily (small tears on surface sometimes appear)
Can be excavated at one’s leisure	Must be excavated within 30min of print
Used with ZB56 Binder	Used with ZB51 Binder
Example: Polynomial	Example: Squeeze Bottle

Two-Dimensional Printing (including poster printing)

The 2D printers are maintained by the Beckman Institute Systems Services (BISS) group, not the ITG. Please visit BISS's printer website for more information on this service.  Please note: one does not need to be registered in the VMIL in order to use these printers.  With a BISS account these printers can be accessed from anywhere on campus.

The ITG does assist BISS with the poster printer.

BISS/ITG Printing Information

Our goal with this section of the ITG website is to provide users of the Beckman Institute's printing facilities easy access to information on how to configure their computers correctly to print to the Institute's printers, how to install the necessary color profiles for accurate color reproduction, and how to print from various applications with the assurance that the print will appear as desired.

Please check the various categories below for information specific to the printer in question.

Printer Installation Tools

The following tools will install/remove the currently active BISS public printers from Windows 2000/XP systems. They are especially useful for systems with multiple users as the installer will make the printer available to all accounts on the system.

Save these batch files to your local hard drive and run them from a DOS command prompt. Administrator rights are needed to install printers using these utilities. Also, the Administrator must logout before these printers will show up in the list of available printers.

Windows presents some initial delay in displaying these printers after installation (and the logout/login procedure). This delay should happen only once. After that, the printers should show up for all users of that given system.

Printer Profiles

ICC color profiles are used by applications to ensure that the color that is reproduced on printed page closely matches known color standards. If the monitor on the computer being used is also calibrated, the print should match closely with the display. To install a color profile, download the profiles for the printers listed below and follow the instructions for your particular operating system.

[NOTE: many profiles are currently offline. We will post them as soon as possible.]

• Beckman Printer Profiles
  • Poster Printer
• ITG Printer Profiles

Poster Printing

Before beginning work on a poster to be printed on the wide format printer, please be aware that neither the ITG nor BISS recommends the use of Microsoft PowerPoint® for creating posters. Please review the Poster Printing ITG Forum as presented on the 14th of September 2004 for our recommendation:

• Poster Printing & Design (full color, one slide per page)
• Poster Printing & Design (full color, two slides per page)
• Poster Printing & Design (grayscale, with notes suitable for printing)
• The ITG Forum Archive for 2004-09-14

Specific Applications

Having reviewed the poster printing forum, it should be clear that PowerPoint is not the best choice for printing to the poster printer. That said, it may be too late - the poster may already be designed. To help this unfortunate situation, please read the following two documents: