​4D Printing Technology To Create Shape-changing Dress Materials

Believe it or not, researchers are developing 4D printing technology to pave way for 'smart' materials that can change shape by themselves.

Scientists are developing a combination of different types of plastics and fibres to create the shape-changing dress materials.

According to the researchers, the materials will change shape when they come in contact with stimuli such as heat or water.

Objects designed using 4D printing technology can expand, fold or unfurl into pre-designed forms, reported ‘The Times’.
Skylar Tibbits, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is pioneering the research with Stratasys, a digital manufacturing company.

Tibbits said the technology is called 4D considering time as the fourth dimension.

Using a scan of the customer's body, the dress could be designed to fit perfectly.

A computer model would then compress the design into the smallest possible space to fit inside a normal 3D printer. The customer would simply download the design, print it and unfurl it.