3D Printed Sugar | Hacker News Reader

3D Printed Sugar

the-sugar-lab.com

105 pointsnikhilpandit35 comments

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What's really interesting is that their printer can, apparently, do full-color prints like these:

http://the-sugar-lab.com/gallery/color-floral-single-surface...

http://the-sugar-lab.com/gallery/3d-printed-sugar-i-love-my-...

http://the-sugar-lab.com/gallery/blue-floral-single-surface-...

http://the-sugar-lab.com/gallery/3d-printed-colorful-sour-ca...

Not sure if they print the whole thing with colors or if the printed piece is colored later on.

At least in the non-food printers, it's printed in color. They use dyes mixed into the binder and print it out exactly like an inkjet printer does.

That art looks next to impossible to paint onto the printed piece. Seems plausible that it could be done during printing. Some of these are really beautiful...

Looks like they lay down a thin layer of sugar and bind it with an inkjet head. So they can print layer by layer in full color.

http://pwdr.github.io/ <- this nice and cheap DIY 3d printer can print on powder sugar, gypsum and other powders.

Not yet available apparently, but they mention[1] the printers are capable of printing chocolate, sour apple, etc.

The fact that they can get such vibrant and detailed printing makes this even more interesting. I can see a market for high-end restaurants, cake shops and confectionery shop to propose custom-made pieces.

What I wonder is how long it takes to print various pieces. The Pro version of the printer has a large printing volume of 10x14x8”. I imagine printing in full colour must add a significant amount of time as well.

Now the question is: how much are people ready to pay for a lump of sugar, however beautifully crafted it is?

[1]:http://www.3dsystems.com/chefjet

This could be the first step towards entire 3D-printed meals.

You want ants? Because this is how you get ants.

I wish this was the top comment :(

I'll never get top comments because I'm in this weird ban from hacker news.

The folks at Evil Mad Scientist started the CandyFab project [1] a while back. The printing method is different so the resolution isn't as good, but it's open source.

[1] http://candyfab.org/

The style of archetecture, food, decore, etc. used to be hand made with complex ornate patterns.

Then "modern" (I'm sure there's a more specific term here) came and things that were flat, "same-y", 90 degrees, and facuets that look like this: [1]. Mass production. A reflection of the industrial processes that were developed.

I am curious to see if 3d printing can bring back some of the ornate patterns of old. This time without the hand work.

[1] http://www.homedesignbee.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/mini...

Sometimes, people use mass production to make really nice things at scale. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-japan-copied-americ... under the Work Wear section.

From the recent Globe & Mail article posted here [1], I can only hope we can all soon enjoy in this part:

Perhaps the story should have ended there. The delights of sugar were largely in control of the rich, it’s true, and their patronage of an exclusive ingredient meant that its identity was bent to their showy, needless ideas of extravagance. Instead of feeding the poor, the malleable carbohydrate was turned into a medium of edible and ornamental sculpture. Banquets were eaten off plates spun from sugar. Master confectioners perfected the art of sugar boiling and produced trees and elephants and even crackling tablecloths out of lowly cane syrup.

“Obviously it was overkill,” says Elizabeth Abbott, author of Sugar: A Bittersweet History. “For the very rich who had money to waste, sugar was the perfect form of conspicuous consumption. And if a little was good, then more, more, more was really good.”

I want myself a sugar Eiffel Tower..

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8162545

If the machine works decently these will sell really well(if not the next generation model or a competitors will). Every overpriced coffee shop, bakery, and restaurant that can think of something creative to do with it will want one.

Does that mean that in addition to resisting the processed foods that are specifically designed to encourage people eat more of it, while delivering little, if any, nutritional value, now we shall also have to resist the temptation of eating foods visually designed to be most attractive?

I understand the aesthetic pleasure and interest from the hacker point of view, but I'm also looking from the point of view of obesity epidemic and other "diseases of civilisation", which spread now all over the western world.

OMG! This is awesome! http://the-sugar-lab.com/gallery

I think 3D printed food might be the first step to the new age.

Driver-less cars could be it. But the food industry employees millions as well.

Food that's consistent, cheaper and better(impossible) than what a human can create won't be a small thing, plus it's easier than cars to integrate in current society.

I'd love to see more innovative ways of having the sugar interact with the glass. The included example in the middle of the set was really cool and shows you how unique this could be for a coffee shop or restaurant.

Is there any advantage in printing food? Apart from making the meal better looking and more expensive, I don't see any.

It sells better. People like good-looking food. There are whole businesses built around just that, like Edible Arrangements or GoGoCake.

You can also shape it into something that hasn't been possible before.

http://mocoloco.com/fresh2/assets_c/2013/04/3d_printed_food_...

http://cdn.wonderfulengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/...

Maybe it will get finer and finer detail until one day amino acids are joined and you can print a steak.

Then oeople can brag "My HP e5000 can print a steak in only five minutes your Epson SP2300 takes 15 minutes."

Well, you do begin eating with your eyes even before your mouth joins in. So, any improvements in how the food looks should positively impact your overall sense of enjoyment of that meal.

Sweet!

Absolutely amazing. I wonder if it can also print gummy candy in whatever shape.

Even more crazy would be if a 3d printer could actually print the molecules to create any type of material, even sugar.

Whoever made your site. Don't fire them, shoot them.

Not my site. Just found it and thought it was worth sharing.

What's wrong with this site?

The readability is really bad, and clicking an image brings me to a smaller version?

I apologise for my impulsive reply. I should have better discipline (usually I don't reply at all because I know I'm pretty dickish)

This is how the site looks to me: http://s13.postimg.org/uduowd0if/sugar.png

In my opinion this is pretty terrible. We all know the importance of first impressions (case in point, people reading my initial response).

With a resolution that high you must be used to small fixed pixel width sites. Pity they can't all just be doubled or quadrupled in size.

Besides some text readability issues, I thought the site was perfect for what it's for.

Yep.

I mean, on mobile(in particular), it is indeed awful, but I don't think it's expected or needed to be responsive(or otherwise optimized-for-mobile) at this point in the products life-cycle.

Yes there's a lot of room for improvement(as there is on every site, keep in mind web design is largely based on personal preference) the parent-poster's kind of response though is not productive.

I found many of these creations to be remarkably similar to diatoms:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=diatoms&tbm=isch

Also the concept of coloured sugar reminded me of the coloured sugar cubes my grandmother put out for tea with guests. These were proper bought ones and commonly available many decades ago but I have not seen them since.

Generally if someone has a taste for sugar (in tea) they really have no taste. So sugar sculptures as edible food items are going to be 'playing with food' to a certain extent, not that 'yummy' to most people. Maybe sculptures such as 'diatoms' is where this technology can excel rather than 'food'.

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