Another step forward for 3-D printing

Leuven, Belgium — Athletic gear giant Adidas wants to change the way you pick out your next pair of running shoes.

Rather than guessing what style fits your foot, the Futurecraft 3D concept would have customers briefly run on a treadmill fitted with existing data sourcing and footscan technologies.

Information from that test would be fed into an in-house 3-D printer that would create a custom midsole made on the spot from modified thermoplastic polyurethane.

“Futurecraft 3D is a prototype and a statement of intent,” said Eric Liedke, executive board member at Adidas during the Oct. 7 introduction. “We have used a one-of-its-kind combination of process and material in an entirely new way. Our 3-D-printed midsole not only allows us to make a great running shoe, but also to use performance data to drive truly bespoke experiences.”

To create the shoe's structure, 3-matic STL software was used and a laser sintered process with powdered TPU was used to create it. Leuven-based prototyping specialist Materialise NV and Adidas worked together on the concept.

Materialise claims the partnership has brought about “the first durable fully-flexible 3-D printing material in a consumer product.”

In a blog post on the project, Daniel Cocking, Adidas' footwear development manager, said the potential for 3-D printing is so strong, the team went was able to move quickly.

“Within two weeks, I had a run in the shoe myself,” he said. “Ten kilometers later, we came together as a creation time to review.

“It was only then, a moment we sat in awe of a virtually unharmed pair of 3-D printed shoes that we realized the enormous potential we had on our hands.”

There are also challenges, Cocking noted, so it is not as simple of pressing the print button on a machine. The team found that the stiffness of the TPU midsole varied with each tweak of the process or design. In all, representatives from 15 different groups within Adidas have worked on the Futurecraft project.

While there is no actual shoe available now, Cocking said he believes the promise “isn't far away from being fulfilled on a larger scale.”