2.5D Printing

Series Editor's Preface

2.5D, you ask? Why not 2D or 3D, or both? Well, there is nothing indecisive about picking 2.5 dimensions to choose as the focus of a book. In the rapidly changing world of additive manufacturing, custom manufacturing, and hybrid 2D and 3D printing, the concerns of 2.5D Printing – texture, relief, colour, reflectance, opacity, etc. – become paramount. In this book, part of the Wiley‐IS&T Series in Imaging Science and Technology, Drs Carinna Parraman and Maria V. Ortiz Segovia address these subjects to facilitate the advancement of all dimensions of printing and additive manufacturing. While colour science in two dimensions (think photos and videos) is a relatively mature field, its extension to 3D is not clear and the pathway will not be simple. Here, 2.5D benchmarks and measurements for quality, consistency, texture and translucency, among other measures, will provide an intermediate step to the eventual benchmarks and measurements used on digitally manufactured 3D objects. In some ways, this is analogous to high school mathematics – we proceed from planar (2D) to surface (2.5D) to volumetric (3D) geometries and calculus. There's a reason so much time is spent on 2.5D, in mathematics and in printing. Don't skip this step!

This book demonstrates that 2.5D printing provides the relationship of materials, texture and surface. The extra half dimension places the reader halfway between visual and haptic sensing, asking her or him to distinguish amongst ...