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From Cup to Kidney聽

Working late one night in 1983, 颁丑耻肠办听贬耻濒濒 (EngrPhys鈥�61) thought he鈥檇 made a聽breakthrough. The engineer phoned his聽wife, Anntionette, at their California home聽and asked her to drive to his lab to look at聽a small plastic cup.聽

鈥淪he said something to the effect of聽鈥榥o way,鈥欌�� he says, chuckling.聽

But a breakthrough it was: The聽humble cup was the first object ever聽created via stereolithography 鈥� better聽known today as 3D printing. Hull had聽fashioned a three-dimensional shape by聽layering two-dimensional 鈥渟lices鈥� of a聽liquid, acrylic-based material hardened聽by ultraviolet light.聽

The discovery would become the聽foundation of a technology that鈥檚聽now ubiquitous, from breadbox-sized聽printers used by hobbyists to refrigerator-聽sized printers used in healthcare,聽manufacturing and aerospace design.聽(Above: a 3D-printed model kidney.)聽

After graduating from CU, Hull took a聽job with a DuPont subsidiary developing聽analytical tools for chemists, then聽moved to a smaller firm that applied thin聽resin coatings to tabletop surfaces. The聽coatings cured instantly when exposed聽to ultraviolet light, which got him thinking聽about how the technology might be聽used to make 3D objects.聽

Hull convinced his boss to let him use聽a small lab on nights and weekends for聽experimenting on his own time. After聽more than a year of tinkering with liquid聽plastics, his labor paid off.聽

Hull secured a patent for stereolithography聽in 1986 and soon founded a聽company, 3D Systems. Initially, he saw聽the technology primarily as a way of聽prototyping objects, such as automotive聽parts, more efficiently. Over time,聽the business expanded into custom聽medical devices and a wide range of聽consumer products.聽

Now 76 and a member of the National聽Inventors Hall of Fame, Hull is still involved聽in the day-to-day operations of 3D聽Systems, which opened a 70,000-square foot聽healthcare tech facility in Littleton,聽Colo., earlier this year. The company聽recently helped surgeons reconstruct the facial bones of a young man injured by聽a landmine in Zimbabwe 鈥� a reminder聽of how far technology can come in three聽decades and the good it can do.聽