The Adidas Group has teamed up with Carbon, a U.S. start-up company, to make running shoes featuring midsoles produced with light and oxygen, which may be manufactured on a large scale. The first batch of 5,000 shoes to be made as part of the Futurecraft 4D project should hit the market in the second half of this year. The plan is to make more than 100,000 pairs by the end of 2018. The Futurecraft 4D's midsole is produced with Digital Light Synthesis, a technology developed by Carbon. It uses digital light projection, oxygen-permeable optics and programmable liquid resins to generate high-performance, durable polymeric products. Carbon boasts that the technology enables suppliers to skip traditional prototyping or moulding, to move directly from design to production. Adidas says that the technology will be an integral part of its Speedfactory concept and that it allows for production of 3D printed footwear on an entirely new scale. Carbon adds that it removes restrictions in terms of speed and scale, poor surface quality, colors and materials. The design of the midsole is based on thorough analysis of the Adidas group's running data.

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