Re: your opinions

From: Marshall Burns (Ennex Corporation)
Date: Friday, July 7, 1995

From: Marshall Burns (Ennex  Corporation)
To: Al Underbrink (Boeing)
Cc: RP-ML
Date: Friday, July 7, 1995
Subject: Re: your opinions
> One area where the analogy deviates is very interesting to me.  In
> software, the prototype can be incrementally extended until the
> functional requirements are satisfied.  This is due to the inherent
> ability to modify code.  With a physical prototype, this is rarely the
> case.  A physical prototype is often used and then discarded because
> it's not nearly as easy to modify a physical prototype.
> 
     This relates to an issue I have been playing with, which will not 
likely become a reality for several years, but then will become very 
important. I call it REAL-TIME RE-FABRICATION. It means objects which are 
fabricated in such a way that their configurations are not permanent, but 
are subject to controlled modification. Think of a figure skater, 
and all the many configurations she assumes in her dance. When she puts 
her hands out in front of her, we do not think of her as a different 
person just because the shape of her body has changed. But when we want 
to change the shape of a model, we currently have to refabricate a new 
model with the different shape. This is because current fabrication 
techniques yield solid materials in immutable configurations. Future 
fabricators will use smart materials and fabbed robotic mechanisms to 
make objects that can change themselves without being built again from 
scratch. This is what I call real-time re-fabrication, and it will be 
analogous to the ability of software prototypers to change their models by 
modifying a few lines of code.


Previous message | Next message
Back to 1995 index