Have you ever wondered what the world is going to look like in the next hundred years? Maybe we’ll live in floating cities and fly our cars to work. You just don’t know what’s going to be possible because technology is moving so fast. Take printing as an example. Up until a few years ago we were only intelligent enough to come up with something that could put ink onto paper.

Sure, reading the newspaper or printing out an essay for science class was nice, but it never exactly set the world on fire. This has completely changed and now they have come out with 3D printers. Imagine having the ability to print something out in 3D. That’s definitely going to change the world. Let’s have a look at some ways it could and in the process make our life’s much easier.

Medical miracle
There’s going to be a lot of life’s changed in the future when 3D printers start pumping out prosthetics. People will need a limb replaced and will be able to get one a lot quicker than before. The patient’s details will be saved on the computer and should anything happen to their limb, the printer can just print another one for them to pick up. It’s also going to be a lot better for older patients who might be too fragile to go through full reconstructive surgery.

Research the past
Think about everything we know about the past, but have been unable to fully understand. The obvious thing that springs to mind is dinosaurs. We have uncovered their fossils and we know they roamed the earth at one point, but we have only been able to guess how exactly they moved. It’s not like you could take million-year-old fossils and play around with them. With 3D printing we can make exact copies and do with them what we wish.

Building prototypes
When people are designing products they want to get out prototypes as fast as possible. This leaves much more time to play around with the design to make it as perfect as possible. In the past this would have been tough, but not anymore. They can pump out prototypes as fast as they like and any small changes can be done with a few small changes on the computer.

Manufacturing
3D printing will lower the cost of manufacturing which means you, the customer, might eventually be paying less money for your products. It also makes it easier for companies to make small changes that customize the product so it’s suited to you. This is something that can’t be done on a large scale on normal factory machines, but when you just have someone playing around with a computer it’s going to be easy to make customizations.

Automotive industry
Before cars are ever put on the road they have to go through vigorous safety tests. It means having parts made and then tested. This is a long and drawn out process. If there was somehow a way for companies to instantly produce parts and make small changes the process would be much quicker. Plus, printing parts would be done on-demand so it would be more economical. Maybe it could mean cheaper cars?

Preserving history
If we can build exact replicas of historic art collections it means we can preserve history forever. It also makes it easier to replace anything that will eventually become damaged. There’s plenty of things around the world that are still hidden from the public eye. Maybe 3D printing will allow the doors to the archives to swing open. It’s something we all deserve to see and now we can.

Jules Mattel, the author of this article is a very creative person. He is currently working with On Time Screen Printing in CT. they are famous for their creative and quirky t-shirts.