Melinda Looi X Dr Samuel Canning 3D Printed Dress

“Dive into Me" Dress Inspiration came from Melinda’s original sketches and researched material into a myriad of coral structures. Which structures lent themselves to the various 3D Modelling processes and Printing technologies at our disposal and their individual print characteristics? Most CAD (Computer Aided Design or 3D modelling) programs do repetition of geometry well and this was taken into account when deciding on which program to use to model the Gown. Also parametric capabilities (the ability to change and adjust the digital model) were also highly desirable so this was a major influence when deciding which CAD program to use. In terms of 3D Printing technology SLS powder printing was chosen because of its lack of any need for rigid support material and its ability to build relatively large build volumes. The Gown was the very first of its kind. It is the world’s first full length 3d printed dress that was printed as a single part. This means all of the pieces were printed interlinked and there was no assembly after printing. It was printed in one shot. It was printed on an EOS EOSINT P730 printer. This printer has a build volume of 630mm x 560mm x 330mm and it uses Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) technology. This is an industrial process that uses powdered build (56–60 μm particle size) material and deposits this material in 0.1mm layers, sintering (melting) the plastic layer by layer as the build progresses. The end result is a block of powdered ma