14 DAY TRIAL // Health care is one of the fields of research that 3D printing is expected to impact the most, due to the potential for printing replacement organs, and it seems like prosthetic eyes might turn into the floodgate opener, so to speak.
After all, while it might not yet be the time for 3D printed pancreases and livers, mockups are well within reach for technology.
So UK-based Fripp Design figured that 3D printed prosthetic eyes would be a good first step in that direction.
People might not know this, but prosthetic eyes aren't really that easy to make. Not since they need to match the size of each patient's eye socket, and then there's the visual side of things.
You have to carefully fashion the eye out of special glass or acrylic material, and then hand-paint the iris and pupil to match the other eye.
And we all know that even then, fake eyes are pretty obviously, well, fake. Unless the one making it very closely works with the one he or she is making the eye for.
3D printing technology can remove that hurdle because all components are printed in full color on a Spectrum Z-Corp 510 3D printer.
And in so doing, the production cost is cut from 3,000 pounds ($4,880 / €3,590) in the UK to 100 pounds ($163 / €119.92).
Also, instead of it taking months to make an eye, 150 of them can be made in an hour using the Fripp Design batch production process.
Sure, it will take a while for the iris to be customized (since that still needs to be done by hand). It doesn't compare to the normal process though.
"Because each one is produced from the same system, the consistency is the same and the cost is drastically reduced to approximately 100 pounds," Fripp Design founder Tom Fripp said.
Marketing may start in a year or so, and could be quite popular in developing countries like India, or so those involved in the project feel.