adidas Futurecraft 4D: Built from the Elements
The revolutionary adidas Futurecraft 4D, employs a technology called Digital Light Synthesis which has been created in part with Silicon Valley-based tech company Carbon. Its midsoles are constructed using 3D printing, and have a polymeric mesh “lattice structure” made up of liquid resins set using light and oxygen. The result is a running shoe that is designed to provide an unprecedented amount of cushioning, stability and comfort to its wearer.
“With Digital Light Synthesis, we venture beyond limitations of the past, unlocking a new era in design and manufacturing,” said Eric Liedtke, adidas Group Executive Board Member Responsible for Global Brands. “[It is an era] driven by athlete data and agile manufacturing processes. By charting a new course for our industry, we can unleash our creativity- transforming not just what we make, but how we make it.”
This isn’t adidas’ first foray into 3D printing. The Futurecraft 3D Runner, launched in 2015, also featured a 3D-printed lattice midsole. The Futurecraft 4D, has been engineered using 17 years of data compiled from runners and is set to have a greater level of durability and responsiveness.
It was a bold choice working with Carbon, the tech company behind the Digital Light Synthesis technology. In the past, the California firm has put its technology towards designing special effects for Hollywood films and building motorcycles for Alta Motors.
The Futurecraft 4D, according to its developers, overcomes the traditional shortcomings of 3D printing like colour and material restrictions, low production speed and scale, and poor surface quality. Now, Carbon says that it has streamlined the shoe-making process, making those challenges a thing of the past, and plans to use the Digital Light Synthesis technology in the future to build bespoke shoes for more demanding athletes.
“Despite the influence of technology to improve almost every other aspect of our lives, for eons the manufacturing process has followed the same four steps that make up the product development cycle – design, prototype, tool, produce,” said Dr. Joseph DeSimone, Carbon Co-Founder and CEO. “Carbon has changed that; we’ve broken the cycle and are making it possible to go directly from design to production. We’re enabling engineers and designers to create previously impossible designs, and businesses to evolve their offerings, and Futurecraft 4D is evidence of that.”
adidas will be releasing 300 pairs of the Futurecraft 4D in April 2017 for friends and family. If you’re not intimately connected with the massive shoe brand, then you can look to cop a pair in the Fall or Winter when they release 5,000 pairs. Or, you may have to wait until 2018, when adidas plans to ramp up production and release more than 100,000 pairs.
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