Task 7 [D1]

Describe and evaluate the ongoing developments in these printing/output techniques:

1. Vinyl cutters and laser cutters for signage.

Vinyl cutters cut images out of vinyl and are usually used for advertising on the side of a van. Laser cutters are used in small businesses and in most schools. Although laser cutters are expensive they aren’t as expensive as vinyl cutters. Developments on laser and vinyl cutters are things such as smoother graphics so that companies can have better advertising designs and logos to put on their vehicles. A problem with printing out huge vinyls is that the picture or the graphics that you are printing out have to be high resolution so that they're good quality when they are put onto a van.


2. Inkjet & wide format printing for bitmap displays and posters.

Wide format printers are printers that have a print width between 17” and 100”. Wide format printers are used to print banners and posters. Inkjet printers aren’t used for this because they can’t produce large pieces of print. Wide format printers are good for printing posters because of their good quality and they are able to tell the difference between text and images so they will be printed out correctly. These types of printers use a roll of print rather than using individual sheets. They are known for their high speed as they can print at high speed while still printing out good quality graphics. They are usually used for outdoor graphics like building graphics and billboards because most things can be washed off of it without ruining the graphics on the poster.


3. Laser printers for leaflets and flyers.

Laser printing allows high quality text and graphics to be printed on paper. Laser printing allows high-speed printing and the printers are relatively light weight and compact so they don’t take up too much space. Although laser printers have many advantages they can cost a lot because you will have to keep replacing the ink. Also when it is printing out, it can sometimes still be wet meaning you have to wait for it to dry or you could even smudge the printing by accident. 


4. 3D Printing

The development of 3d printing has been a huge success as they allow us to do a number of different things and also help us to do other things a lot quicker and better. 3D printers allow us to fully print 3D graphics at high speed which allows people to print almost anything that they want with ease as long as they have a design. With the development of 3D printing, manual prototyping is no longer needed so it will be easier and lot quicker for companies to make products. To be able to print in 3D you would need to have 3D software such as Cimatron so that you can create the graphics that you want to be printed out.