Desktop 3D printers can’t print large objects. At best, they can print small toys or puzzles. Skylar Tibbits, the man behind 4D printing, just proved all of that wrong with a new 3D printing method.

Tibbits recently teamed up with researchers from Brazil, the US and Israel to create a new 3D printing method called Hyperform. Taking a cue from Tibbit’s 4D printing method, the idea behind Hyperform is to compress a large design through folding so that it can be printed on a desktop printer.

Using Hyperform and Formlabs’ Form 1 3D printer, Tibbits and his team created a 50 foot long chain in a build space that’s only 5 inches across. In essence, his team had created the world’s largest 3D print on a small desktop 3D printer. Here’s a video of the achievement:

Hyperform – Longest Chain from Skylar Tibbits on Vimeo.

If you want to know how they did it, check out this video featuring interviews with Tibbits and the other team members that helped this monumental achievement in 3D printing possible:

So, does the existence of Hyperform threaten large form 3D printers like the Objet1000? Not at all. In fact, Hyperform is still fairly limited in its applications. They were able to make a chain because the links can be compressed and layered on top of each other. For larger, more complex objects, you’re still going to need 3D printers that are built for manufacturing.

[Image: Skylar Tibbits/Vimeo]
[h/t: 3ders]