From a red puddle of liquid plastic, a three-dimensional sphere of connected hexagons and pentagons begins to rise, taking only six minutes to be lifted by mechanical arm into its final geometric form.
It is a phenomenon known as “continuous liquid interface production”, and has been developed by Carbon 3D — a Silicon Valley start-up backed by technology investment group Sequoia Capital. But while it was inspired by a scene from the Terminator 2 science fiction film, when the T-1000 android rises from a pool of metallic liquid, the new technique is very much a reality and is set to shake up the entire 3D printing industry by making the process of forming plastic objects up to 100 times faster.
Since 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, was pioneered in the 1980s, it has been widely expected to revolutionise the manufacturing of complex components, from medical implants to jet-engine parts. But competition from start-ups such as Carbon 3D and household names such as Hewlett-Packard is putting pressure on the tech groups that developed the fledgling industry.