Designing a new reality

Inspired by the Iron Man films, Elon Musk last year revealed a system that allows engineers to design complex rocket parts using simple hand gestures.

The technology is relatively straightforward — it combines Leap Motion hands-free controllers, Oculus Rift virtual-reality headsets and 3D printing — but it was the vision behind it that really got the SpaceX founder excited.

‘I believe we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough in design and manufacturing in being able to take the concept of something from your mind, translate that into a 3D object really intuitively on the computer and then take that virtual 3D object and make it real just by printing it,’ Musk said in a recent video.

The promise is a familiar one. Developers in the 1990s were hailing virtual reality as the next major breakthrough. But it wasn’t long before technologies such as Nintendo’s Virtual Boy began gathering dust in second-hand game shops. Back then the problem was the prohibitive cost of technology with a decent headset priced at more than £50,000.