So I’ve reviewed what grand ideas I think will come to dominate our future and I’ve picked a fight with you about some of the technologies that you probably love.
In this last post, I’d like to get into some more specific predictions. These are things that I would like to see explode. I think you’ll like them, too.
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Show me the future
What can you look forward to? Well that depends on who you are and what you’re interested in.
Three-Deify Everything
Are you interested in real estate, architecture, or macroengineering? See houses for sale, great buildings, ships, airplanes, bridges and monuments rendered in great detail through a high-speed connection on any device. You should be able to do more than look at bad photos and satellite images. You should be able to click a button and walk around. With improved 3D scanning, rapid 3D modeling, and seamless interaction over the web, there is no reason not to be intimately acquainted with a home or a building or a site you want to visit before taking the next step. Not only would an interior/exterior 3D model of a home be of value while searching the market. It would be valuable to the owners in planning and periodically updating the maintenance and use of their space, allowing them to try out different ideas before committing to spending resources on one. And once everyone is settled in, you might even consider 3D printing a dollhouse version of your home. Or a miniature of any building or sculpture in the world. Because why not?
Bio-Printing
If you’re interested in medicine, you might be keeping your eye on 3D printed organs, built cell by cell and cell cluster by cell cluster from stem cells. You might also be looking forward to the development of ballistic gel 3D printing. Consider using stable ballistic gel precursor mixed in a specified ratio to meet certain characteristics and mixed with certain opaque or translucent color additives placed bead by bead to create a model of a heart or a brain or whole body based on a 3D scan taken by MRI or CT. Fluid or air could be pumped through the vessels in the model while a medical practitioner could examine its shape and behavior in real space and practice surgery options. The artisans who created the anatomical wax models in La Specola in Florence would be awed by such creations. (**NOTE: Even though the work is in wax, they are VERY realistic depictions of human dissection. Proceed with caution.)
There are many challenges to ballistic gel printing (such as the curing process, the solubility of gelatin, and scale versus detail), but I think these are challenges of creativity, not barriers to design.
Immersion Arcade
If you’re interested in gaming, simulation, or virtual environments, keep an eye out for touchable holography (yep, still going on about that). By using parabolics and high frequency sound, we can already create a pixel in 3D space that you can touch and feel.
It’s not exactly like touching something solid and there are some challenges yet to be overcome (if they can be), but the field is promising. Consider the return of the arcade, but as a sensory immersion experience. You sit on a bike seat with your feet on a steering apparatus in a small room. Digital displays in every direction immerse you in the world and touchable objects come out of the wall to interact with you – everything from animals to arrows, plants to people.
Imagine Skyrim, Super Mario, or even Civilization as seen from within the game experience. However we get there, true immersion is coming and I can’t wait.
Combat Cartography
Clearing streets and buildings with your fire team or squad? Want to know what’s around the next corner before you get there? New solutions come on the market every day that are a far cry from a mirror on a stick. We’re not far away from the combat cartographer with a few small, multipurpose drones docked to the top of her pack. With two taps on a wrist tablet and designating the target area with a laser, one hummingbird-sized drone could take off from a pack, scout a corner, send live feed back to the operator as long as necessary, and then, with another tap, return to its docking station without ever slowing down operations. A larger drone from the same pack can be similarly deployed as a sentry or used to scan three- to four-block operational space in detail.
Such may be the start to an entire MOS. Environmental data collection, management, processing, and distribution is currently performed at a high organizational level, but may soon be performed by E3s and E4s in support of their local units across the services.
Industrial 3P
And if you’re interested in manufacture, what you want is already here or will be soon (depending on where you’re looking). If an aircraft carrier or a tank or your car needs a new part, or if someone has designed a better part, you can print it, machine it, and install it. All you have to do is maintain a supply of precursor instead of duplicates of every possible part you might need.
Navy 3D
Consider needing equipment for home, auto, or yard care. Instead of perusing isles in an enormous warehouse to find the specific item you need, that same space might soon be occupied by printers of every size that can produce exactly what you want/need to the exact specifications you request, to include some personalization.
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Inconclusion
I reserve the right to be wrong. I don’t have a crystal ball. Even if I did, I’d still ask Google or Nate Silver first. The only thing I know is that whatever is coming will be amazing.
… or terrible…
– CG