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On 2016-08-09 22:52, spike wrote:<br>
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<div><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Now
we take a wood pillar, set it on the same turntable,
mount surgical lasers, have them burn away the
surface of the wood in such a way that there is
little penetration, a pulse for instance that would
vaporize the top tenth of a mm in a spot a mm in
diameter. Turn, repeat, until a wooden David
emerges. Never a human hand touches the work. Once
that file is made, we can burn arbitrarily many
Davids, scale them, surgically restore his manhood
and so on. Good thinking BillW!</span><br>
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<br>
I think mechanical milling is easier than laser milling. CNC laser
cutting is really mature and powerful (my brother got himself one, I
am so envious). One can put the laser on a robot too, but it is
still just doing 3D cutting:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsubtwz6b30">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsubtwz6b30</a><br>
The problem is that vaporizing surface material on a macroscopic 3D
object appears fairly nonlinear (especially wood!) so there will be
effects on underlying material too. Still, the more that can be done
solid state, the better.<br>
<br>
Sculpture spam, anyone?<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University</pre>
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