A surprise announcement from Snapmaker today has a noted developer joining their team.
“Ratdoux” is most widely known for his development of the Full Spectrum project. It is a software fork of Snapmaker Orca, the slicing tool used by Snapmaker to control their popular U1 tool changer.
Full Spectrum offered something quite unprecedented: printing full-colour textures on FFF systems with limited colour hardware. The system works by using optical tricks, and the fact that thin extrusions are partially transparent.
By placing two base colours beside each other, the light traverses both and to the eye it appears to be a different colour than either of the base colours. Blue and green, for example, make yellow. By changing the ratios appropriately, it is possible to achieve a far larger range of visible colours than one might have in only four spools of base colours attached to the machine.
Now Ratdoux is working for Snapmaker. They explain:
“Snapmaker today announced that Radu, ‘Ratdoux,’ the original developer behind the experimental Full Spectrum colour-mixing slicer for the Snapmaker U1 ecosystem, is joining the company to help lead a new initiative focused on the future of multicolor 3D printing.
As part of this initiative, Snapmaker has begun work toward officially integrating Full Spectrum’s virtual colour-mixing technology into upcoming versions of Snapmaker Orca, the company’s slicing software platform for the Snapmaker U1.”
This is a very bold move by Snapmaker. That’s because the colour mixing technology is perhaps the most interesting development in many years for FFF systems, and could, if perfected, open up many more applications.
In particular, consumer applications would benefit most. Mechanical parts generally do not require colour, so one can imagine all kinds of consumer goods being produced eventually using this approach.
By acquiring Ratdoux, Snapmaker takes a step forward in the race for full colour desktop 3D printing.
The next few years should be extremely interesting.
Via Reddit
