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In this website we see how 3D printing works and how it is different from normal printing and how it works.

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3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional objects from a digital file.

The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced cross-section of the object.

There is one exception though, and it's called volumetric 3D printing. With volumetric printing entire structures can be formed at once without the need for layer-by-layer fabrication. It's worth noting, however, that as of now, volumetric technology is primarily in the research phase.

3D printing is the opposite of subtractive manufacturing which is cutting out / hollowing out a block of material with for instance a milling machine.

3D printing enables you to produce complex shapes using less material than traditional manufacturing methods.

How Does 3D Printing Work?

It all starts with a 3D model. You can opt to create one from the ground up or download it from a 3D library.

3D Software

There are many different software tools available. We've created an overview on our 3D software page.

We often recommend beginners to start with Tinkercad. Tinkercad is free and works in your browser, you don't have to install it on your computer. Tinkercad offers beginner lessons and has a built-in feature to export your model as a printable file e.g .STL or .OBJ.

Now that you have a printable file, the next step is to prepare it for your 3D printer. This is called slicing.

Slicing: From file to 3D Printer

Slicing basically means slicing up a 3D model into hundreds or thousands of layers and is done with slicing software.

When your file is sliced, it's ready for your 3D printer. Feeding the file to your printer can be done via USB, SD or Wi-Fi. Your sliced file is now ready to be 3D printed layer by layer.

3D Printing Industry

Adoption of 3D printing has reached critical mass as those who have yet to integrate additive manufacturing somewhere in their supply chain are now part of an ever-shrinking minority. Where 3D printing was only suitable for prototyping and one-off manufacturing in the early stages, it is now rapidly transforming into a production technology.

Most of the current demand for 3D printing is industrial in nature. Acumen Research and Consulting forecasts the global 3D printing market to reach $41 billion by 2026.

As it evolves, 3D printing technology is destined to transform almost every major industry.

Examples of 3D Printing

3D printing encompasses many forms of technologies and materials as 3D printing is being used in almost all industries you could think of. It's important to see it as a cluster of diverse industries with a myriad of different applications.

A few examples:

- consumer products (eyewear, footwear, design, furniture)

- industrial products (manufacturing tools, prototypes, functional end-use parts)

- dental products

- prosthetics

- architectural scale models & maquettes

- reconstructing fossils

- replicating ancient artefacts

- reconstructing evidence in forensic pathology

- movie props

Rapid Prototyping & Rapid Manufacturing

Companies have used 3D printers in their design process to create prototypes since the late seventies. Using 3D printers for these purposes is called rapid prototyping.

Why use 3D Printers for Rapid Prototyping?
In short: it's fast and relatively cheap. From idea, to 3D model to holding a prototype in your hands is a matter of days instead of weeks. Iterations are easier and cheaper to make and you don't need expensive molds or tools.

Besides rapid prototyping, 3D printing is also used for rapid manufacturing. Rapid manufacturing is a new method of manufacturing where businesses use 3D printers for short run / small batch custom manufacturing.

Automotive

Car manufacturers have been utilizing 3D printing for a long time. Automotive companies are printing spare parts, tools, jigs and fixtures but also end-use parts. 3D printing has enabled on-demand manufacturing which has lead to lower stock levels and has shortened design and production cycles.

Automotive enthusiasts all over the world are using 3D printed parts to restore old cars. One such example is when Australian engineers printed parts to bring a Delage Type-C back to life. In doing so, they had to print parts that were out of production for decades.

Aviation

Aviation loves additive manufacturing, largely due to the promise of lightweight and stronger structures offered by 3D printing. We've seen a whole bunch of innovations in the domain of aviation lately, with the appearance of more critical parts being printed.
Turbine Center Frame
One such large component printed this year was the turbine center frame which was printed by GE as part of the EU Clean Sky 2 initiative.

The Advanced Additive Integrated Turbine Centre Frame (TCF) is a 1 meter diameter part printed in nickel alloy 718 by GE and a consortium from Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), TU Dresden (TUD) and Autodesk. It is one of the largest single metal parts printed for aviation.

Typically components like this are manufactured using casting, and consist of multiple parts. In the case of the 3D printed version, it was reduced from an assembly of 150 parts down to just 1 single piece. The printed version also benefits from a reduction of both cost and mass by 30%, and a reduction in lead time from 9 months to just 10 weeks.
Metal Parts Certified by EASA
Back in June 2022 it was reported that Lufthansa Technik and Premium AEROTEC had created the first load-bearing metal part that had been approved for use in aviation.

The new A-link was produced using LPBF and had demonstrated higher tensile strength compared to the traditionally-forged version.

The part was made at Premium AEROTEC's facility in Varel, Germany, and a large number of test parts were printed and tested to ensure quality and repeatability for certification.

Printing the part represented a cost saving for the component and set the stage for using this manufacturing method for creating structurally important metal parts in the future. It was also used to test the process and to demonstrate the certification process of load-bearing AM parts.
Hypersonic Fuel Injector
This next printed item was never destined to be fitted to an aircraft, but rather it was designed to be installed in a facility for testing flow conditions at hypersonic speeds.

When flying in the hypersonic flight regime above (Mach 5), the air passing around the vehicle becomes incredibly hot, and the pressure increases significantly. These conditions can cause the air itself to become chemically reactive, which causes issues for fuel burning vehicles.

Simulating flow conditions with computational flow diagnostics (CFD) is computationally expensive (if not impossible), and so to replicate the flow conditions, researchers at Purdue fabricated a giant burner to recreate the hot, fast, high pressure experienced in hypersonic flight. In short, they basically built a rocket nozzle and they placed the test components in the exhaust plume to see how they performed.

The injectors that they printed feed fuel and air into the combustion chamber to create specific turbulent flow fields and a stable flame.

The injectors were printed with Hastelloy X, which is a superalloy with superior temperature resistance. The team printed multiple different injectors in rapid time, and tested them all in the burner to see which performed the best.

Now they are able to replicate the hypersonic conditions for flight on Earth at a fraction of the cost (and risk) associated with doing it miles above the Earth's surface. This can benefit fast aircraft such as scramjet powered vehicles as well as space vehicles.
Relativity Space
US-based rocket printing company Relativity Space has a super large metal printer, dubbed the "Stargate". The 4th gen Stargate 3D printer is capable of printing objects measuring 120ft long and 24ft in diameter.

This AI-assisted robotic printer has been able to achieve fast print speeds thanks to its innovative multi-wire print head. This print head allows for multiple metal feedstock wires to be fed into it at the same time, resulting in higher deposition rates.

The company has made their first LEO test flight of the printed Terran-1 rocket in 2023, so we just thought we would give them an honorable mention in this article as a reminder.

You can see the Terran-1 undergoing a hot fire test in the video below.

Construction

Is it possible to print walls? - yes it is. 3D printed houses are already commercially available. Some companies print parts prefab and others do it on-site.

Most of the concrete printing stories we look at on this website are focused on large scale concrete printing systems with fairly large nozzles for a large flow rate. It's great for laying down concrete layers in a fairly quick and repeatable manner. But for truly intricate concrete work that makes full use of the capabilities of 3D printing requires something a little more nimble, and with a finer touch.

Consumer Products

When we first started blogging about 3D printing back in 2011, 3D printing wasn't ready to be used as a production method for large volumes. Nowadays there are numerous examples of end-use 3D printed consumer products.
Footwear
Adidas' 4D range has a fully 3D printed midsole and is being printed in large volumes. We did an article back then, explaining how Adidas were initially releasing just 5,000 pairs of the shoes to the public, and had aimed to sell 100,000 pairs of the AM-infused designs by 2018.

With their latest iterations of the shoe, it seems that they have surpassed that goal, or are on their way to surpassing it. The shoes are available all around the world from local Adidas stores and also from various 3rd party online outlets.
Eyewear
The market of 3D printed eyewear is forecasted to reach $3.4 billion by 2028. A rapidly increasing section is that of end-use frames. 3D printing is a particularly suitable production method for eyewear frames because the measurements of an individual are easy to process in the end product.

But did you know it's also possible to 3D print lenses? Traditional glass lenses don't start out thin and light; they're cut from a much larger block of material called a blank, about 80% of which goes to waste. When we consider how many people wear glasses and how often they need to get a new pair, 80% of those numbers is a lot of waste. On top of that, labs have to keep huge inventories of blanks to meet the custom vision needs of their clients. Finally, however, 3D printing technology has advanced enough to provide high-quality, custom ophthalmic lenses, doing away with the waste and inventory costs of the past. The Luxexcel VisionEngine 3D printer uses a UV-curable acrylate monomer to print two pairs of lenses per hour that require no polishing or post-processing of any kind. The focal areas can also be completely customized so that a certain area of the lens can provide better clarity at a distance while a different area of the lens provides better vision up close.
Jewelry
There are two ways of producing jewelry with a 3D printer. You can either use a direct or indirect production process. Direct refers to the creation of an object straight from the 3D design while indirect manufacturing means that the object (pattern) that is 3D printed eventually is used to create a mold for investment casting.

Healthcare

It's not uncommon these days to see headlines about 3D printed implants. Often, those cases are experimental, which can make it seem like 3D printing is still a fringe technology in the medical and healthcare sectors, but that's not the case anymore. Over the last decade, more than 100,000 hip replacements have been 3D printed by GE Additive.

The Delta-TT Cup designed by Dr. Guido Grappiolo and LimaCorporate is made of Trabecular Titanium, which is characterized by a regular, three-dimensional, hexagonal cell structure that imitates trabecular bone morphology. The trabecular structure increases the biocompatibility of the titanium by encouraging bone growth into the implant. Some of the first Delta-TT implants are still running strong over a decade later.

Another 3D printed healthcare component that does a good job of being undetectable is the hearing aid. It is estimated that 99% of hearing aids manufactured are made with the use of additive manufacturing, and it's clear to see why.
Dental
In the dental industry, we see molds for clear aligners being possibly the most 3D printed objects in the world. Currently, the molds are 3D printed with both resin and powder based 3D printing processes, but also via material jetting. Crowns and dentures are already directly 3D printed, along with surgical guides.
Bio-printing
As of the early two-thousands 3D printing technology has been studied by biotech firms and academia for possible use in tissue engineering applications where organs and body parts are built using inkjet techniques. Layers of living cells are deposited onto a gel medium and slowly built up to form three dimensional structures. We refer to this field of research with the term: bio-printing.

Food

Additive manufacturing invaded the food industry long time ago. Restaurants like Food Ink and Melisse use this as a unique selling point to attract customers from across the world.

Education

Educators and students have long been using 3D printers in the classroom. 3D printing enables students to materialize their ideas in a fast and affordable way.

While additive manufacturing-specific degrees are fairly new, universities have long been using 3D printers in other disciplines. There are many educational courses one can take to engage with 3D printing. Universities offer courses on things that are adjacent to 3D printing like CAD and 3D design, which can be applied to 3D printing at a certain stage.

In terms of prototyping, many university programs are turning to printers. There are specializations in additive manufacturing one can attain through architecture or industrial design degrees. Printed prototypes are also very common in the arts, animation and fashion studies as well.

Types of 3D Printing Technologies and Processes

Below we discuss six types of 3D printing. These are:

Vat Photopolymerisation

A 3D printer based on the Vat Photopolymerisation method has a container filled with photopolymer resin. The resin is hardened with a UV light source.
Stereolithography (SLA)
SLA was invented in 1986 by Charles Hull, who also at the time founded the company, 3D Systems. Stereolithography employs a vat of liquid curable photopolymer resin and an ultraviolet laser to build the object's layers one at a time. For each layer, the laser beam traces a cross-section of the part pattern on the surface of the liquid resin. Exposure to the ultraviolet laser light cures and solidifies the pattern traced on the resin and fuses it to the layer below.

After the pattern has been traced, the SLA's elevator platform descends by a distance equal to the thickness of a single layer, typically 0.05 mm to 0.15 mm (0.002″ to 0.006″). Then, a resin-filled blade sweeps across the cross section of the part, re-coating it with fresh material. On this new liquid surface, the subsequent layer pattern is traced, joining the previous layer. Depending on the object & print orientation, SLA often requires the use of support structures.
Digital Light Processing (DLP)
DLP or Digital Light Processing refers to a method of printing that makes use of light and photosensitive polymers. While it is very similar to SLA, the key difference is the light source. DLP utilizes other light sources like arc lamps. DLP is relatively quick compared to other 3D printing technologies.

Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP)

CLIP is a proprietary 3D printing technology developed by Carbon. CLIP uses an oxygen-permeable window which creates a "dead zone" (a thin liquid interface) of uncured resin between the window and the object. This prevents the part from adhering to the bottom of the print basin. This technology allows for a continuous printing process, which significantly speeds up production.

Material Jetting

In this process, material is applied in droplets through a small diameter nozzle, similar to the way a common inkjet paper printer works, but it is applied layer-by-layer to a build platform and then hardened by UV light.

Binder Jetting

With Binder Jetting two materials are used: powder base material and a liquid binder. In the build chamber, powder is spread in equal layers and binder is applied through jet nozzles that "glue" the powder particles in the required shape. After the print is finished, the remaining powder is cleaned off which often can be re-used printing the next object. This technology was first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993.

Material Extrusion
Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)
FDM works using a plastic filament which is unwound from a spool and is supplied to an extrusion nozzle which can turn the flow on and off. The nozzle is heated to melt the material and can be moved in both horizontal and vertical directions by a numerically controlled mechanism. The object is produced by extruding melted material to form layers as the material hardens immediately after extrusion from the nozzle.

FDM was invented by Scott Crump in the late 80's. After patenting this technology he started the company Stratasys in 1988.
Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)
The exactly equivalent term, Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), was coined by the members of the RepRap project to give a phrase that would be legally unconstrained in its use.

Powder Bed Fusion
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)
SLS uses a high power laser to fuse small particles of powder into a mass that has the desired three dimensional shape. The laser selectively fuses powder by first scanning the cross-sections (or layers) on the surface of a powder bed. After each cross-section is scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer thickness. Then a new layer of material is applied on top and the process is repeated until the object is completed.
Multi Jet Fusion (MJF)
Multi Jet Fusion technology was developed by Hewlett Packard and works with a sweeping arm which deposits a layer of powder and then another arm equipped with inkjets which selectively applies a binder agent over the material. The inkjets also deposit a detailing agent around the binder to ensure precise dimensionality and smooth surfaces. Finally, the layer is exposed to a burst of thermal energy that causes the agents to react.
Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS)
DMLS is basically the same as SLS, but uses metal powder instead. All unused powder remains as it is and becomes a support structure for the object. Unused powder can be re-used for the next print.

Due to of increased laser power, DMLS has evolved into a laser melting process. Read more about that and other metal technologies on our metal technologies overview page.

Directed Energy Deposition

This process is mostly used in the metal industry and in rapid manufacturing applications. The 3D printing apparatus is usually attached to a multi-axis robotic arm and consists of a nozzle that deposits metal powder or wire on a surface and an energy source (laser, electron beam or plasma arc) that melts it, forming a solid object.

Materials

Multiple materials can be used in additive manufacturing: plastics, metals, concrete, ceramics, paper and certain edibles (e.g. chocolate). Materials are often produced in wire feedstock a.k.a. filament, powder form or liquid resin. Learn more about materials on our materials category.

Services

Looking to implement 3D printing in your production process? Get a quote for a custom part or order samples on our 3D print service page.

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What is 3D printing? How does a 3D printer work? Learn 3D printing

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Learn how to 3D print. 3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file.

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In this tutorial we see how you can take an item in a software and then upload it to the 3d printer and how the 3d printer identifies it and then prints it.

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To print your object in 3D, you'll need a 3D file. Then there are a couple of simple and effective rules to ensure your file's printability.

Improper file formats or a file that's too large can make a 3D print impossible. It's equally important to double check the design itself for flaws (inversed polygons, single stops, holes, etc) as they can cause problems.

It's also important to note that each 3D printing software has its own set of rules for ensuring that a file is printable.

In this section you'll find all the information you'll need to ensure that your file can be printed with the program you're using. You'll learn to:

Model a file for 3D printing

Export your file (according to 3D printing necessities)

Detect and avoid the errors that can arise during the modelling process

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3D Printing Tutorials: Using 3D Modeling Softwares for 3D Printing

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To print your object in 3D, you'll need a 3D file. Then there are a couple of simple and effective rules to ensure your file's printability. Improper file formats or a file that's too large can make a 3D print impossible.

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This article explains how 3d printing can be applied to the world of business and how business can change and evolve in order to use 3d printing to develop business ideas and apply it to the stock market.

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Idea in Brief

The Breakthrough

Additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, is poised to transform the industrial economy. Its extreme flexibility not only allows for easy customization of goods but also eliminates assembly and inventories and enables products to be redesigned for higher performance.

The Challenge

Management teams should be reconsidering their strategies along three dimensions: (1) How might our offerings be enhanced, either by us or by competitors? (2) How should we reconfigure our operations, given the myriad new options for fabricating products and parts? (3) How will our commercial ecosystem evolve?

The Big Play

Inevitably, powerful platforms will arise to establish standards and facilitate exchanges among the designers, makers, and movers of 3-D-printed goods. The most successful of these will prosper mightily.

Industrial 3-D printing is at a tipping point, about to go mainstream in a big way. Most executives and many engineers don't realize it, but this technology has moved well beyond prototyping, rapid tooling, trinkets, and toys. "Additive manufacturing" is creating durable and safe products for sale to real customers in moderate to large quantities.

The beginnings of the revolution show up in a 2014 PwC survey of more than 100 manufacturing companies. At the time of the survey, 11% had already switched to volume production of 3-D-printed parts or products. According to Gartner analysts, a technology is "mainstream" when it reaches an adoption level of 20%.

Among the numerous companies using 3-D printing to ramp up production are GE (jet engines, medical devices, and home appliance parts), Lockheed Martin and Boeing (aerospace and defense), Aurora Flight Sciences (unmanned aerial vehicles), Invisalign (dental devices), Google (consumer electronics), and the Dutch company LUXeXcel (lenses for light-emitting diodes, or LEDs). Watching these developments, McKinsey recently reported that 3-D printing is "ready to emerge from its niche status and become a viable alternative to conventional manufacturing processes in an increasing number of applications." In 2014 sales of industrial-grade 3-D printers in the United States were already one-third the volume of industrial automation and robotic sales. Some projections have that figure rising to 42% by 2020.

Further Reading

Innovation Magazine Article

More companies will follow as the range of printable materials continues to expand. In addition to basic plastics and photosensitive resins, these already include ceramics, cement, glass, numerous metals and metal alloys, and new thermoplastic composites infused with carbon nanotubes and fibers. Superior economics will eventually convince the laggards. Although the direct costs of producing goods with these new methods and materials are often higher, the greater flexibility afforded by additive manufacturing means that total costs can be substantially lower.

With this revolutionary shift already under way, managers should now be engaging with strategic questions on three levels:

First, sellers of tangible products should ask how their offerings could be improved, whether by themselves or by competitors. Fabricating an object layer by layer, according to a digital "blueprint" downloaded to a printer, allows not only for limitless customization but also for designs of greater intricacy.

Second, industrial enterprises must revisit their operations. As additive manufacturing creates myriad new options for how, when, and where products and parts are fabricated, what network of supply chain assets and what mix of old and new processes will be optimal?

Third, leaders must consider the strategic implications as whole commercial ecosystems begin to form around the new realities of 3-D printing. Much has been made of the potential for large swaths of the manufacturing sector to atomize into an untold number of small "makers." But that vision tends to obscure a surer and more important development: To permit the integration of activities across designers, makers, and movers of goods, digital platforms will have to be established. At first these platforms will enable design-to-print activities and design sharing and fast downloading. Soon they will orchestrate printer operations, quality control, real-time optimization of printer networks, and capacity exchanges, among other needed functions. The most successful platform providers will prosper mightily by establishing standards and providing the settings in which a complex ecosystem can coordinate responses to market demands. But every company will be affected by the rise of these platforms. There will be much jockeying among incumbents and upstarts to capture shares of the enormous value this new technology will create.

These questions add up to a substantial amount of strategic thinking, and still another remains: How fast will all this happen? For a given business, here's how fast it can happen: The U.S. hearing aid industry converted to 100% additive manufacturing in less than 500 days, according to one industry CEO, and not one company that stuck to traditional manufacturing methods survived. Managers will need to determine whether it's wise to wait for this fast-evolving technology to mature before making certain investments or whether the risk of waiting is too great. Their answers will differ, but for all of them it seems safe to say that the time for strategic thinking is now.

Additive's Advantages

It may be hard to imagine that this technology will displace today's standard ways of making things in large quantities. Traditional injection-molding presses, for example, can spit out thousands of widgets an hour. By contrast, people who have watched 3-D printers in action in the hobbyist market often find the layer-by-layer accretion of objects comically slow. But recent advances in the technology are changing that dramatically in industrial settings.

Some may forget why standard manufacturing occurs with such impressive speed. Those widgets pour out quickly because heavy investments have been made up front to establish the complex array of machine tools and equipment required to produce them. The first unit is extremely expensive to make, but as identical units follow, their marginal cost plummets.

Additive manufacturing doesn't offer anything like that economy of scale. However, it avoids the downside of standard manufacturing-a lack of flexibility. Because each unit is built independently, it can easily be modified to suit unique needs or, more broadly, to accommodate improvements or changing fashion. And setting up the production system in the first place is much simpler, because it involves far fewer stages. That's why 3-D printing has been so valuable for producing one-offs such as prototypes and rare replacement parts. But additive manufacturing increasingly makes sense even at higher scale. Buyers can choose from endless combinations of shapes, sizes, and colors, and this customization adds little to a manufacturer's cost even as orders reach mass-production levels.

A big part of the additive advantage is that pieces that used to be molded separately and then assembled can now be produced as one piece in a single run. A simple example is sunglasses: The 3-D process allows the porosity and mixture of plastics to vary in different areas of the frame. The earpieces come out soft and flexible, while the rims holding the lenses are hard. No assembly required.

Printing parts and products also allows them to be designed with more-complex architectures, such as honeycombing within steel panels or geometries previously too fine to mill. Complex mechanical parts-an encased set of gears, for example-can be made without assembly. Additive methods can be used to combine parts and generate far more interior detailing. That's why GE Aviation has switched to printing the fuel nozzles of certain jet engines. It expects to churn out more than 45,000 of the same design a year, so one might assume that conventional manufacturing methods would be more suitable. But printing technology allows a nozzle that used to be assembled from 20 separately cast parts to be fabricated in one piece. GE says this will cut the cost of manufacturing by 75%.

Additive manufacturing can also use multiple printer jets to lay down different materials simultaneously. Thus Optomec and other companies are developing conductive materials and methods of printing microbatteries and electronic circuits directly into or onto the surfaces of consumer electronic devices. Additional applications include medical equipment, transportation assets, aerospace components, measurement devices, telecom infrastructure, and many other "smart" things.

The enormous appeal of limiting assembly work is pushing additive manufacturing equipment to grow ever larger. At the current extreme, the U.S. Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Cincinnati Tool Steel, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are partnering to develop a capability for printing most of the endo- and exoskeletons of jet fighters, including the body, wings, internal structural panels, embedded wiring and antennas, and soon the central load-bearing structure. So-called big area additive manufacturing makes such large-object fabrication possible by using a huge gantry with computerized controls to move the printers into position. When this process has been certified for use, the only assembly required will be the installation of plug-and-play electronics modules for navigation, communications, weaponry, and electronic countermeasure systems in bays created during the printing process. In Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. military has been using drones from Aurora Flight Sciences, which prints the entire body of these unmanned aerial vehicles-some with wingspans of 132 feet-in one build.

Three-Dimensional Strategy

This brief discussion of additive manufacturing's advantages suggests how readily companies will embrace the technology-and additional savings in inventory, shipping, and facility costs will make the case even stronger. The clear implication is that managers in companies of all kinds should be working to anticipate how their businesses will adapt on the three strategic levels mentioned above.

Offerings, redesigned.

Product strategy is the answer to that most basic question in business, What will we sell? Companies will need to imagine how their customers could be better served in an era of additive manufacturing. What designs and features will now be possible that were not before? What aspects can be improved because restrictions or delivery delays have been eliminated?

For example, in the aerospace and automotive industries, 3-D printing will most often be used in the pursuit of performance gains. Previously, the fuel efficiency of jet fighters and vehicles could be enhanced by reducing their weight, but this frequently made them less structurally sound. The new technology allows manufacturers to hollow out a part to make it lighter and more fuel-efficient and incorporate internal structures that provide greater tensile strength, durability, and resistance to impact. And new materials that have greater heat and chemical resistance can be used in various spots in a product, as needed.

Want to know how fast the 3-D future is coming? Don't look only at adoption rates among manufacturers. Look at the innovation rates of inventors. In 2005 only 80 patents relating to additive manufacturing materials, software, and equipment were granted worldwide, not counting duplicates filed in multiple countries. By 2013 that number had gone into orbit, with approximately 600 new nonduplicative patents issued around the globe.

What are some of the companies behind these patents? Not surprisingly, the two leaders are Stratasys and 3D Systems, rivals that have staked out positions in additive manufacturing. They hold 57 and 49 nonduplicative patents respectively. As befits its printing heritage, Xerox, too, has invested heavily in additive technologies for making electronics and has developed a strong alliance with 3D Systems. Panasonic, Hewlett-Packard, 3M, and Siemens likewise hold numerous patents.

But surprisingly, the largest users of 3-D printing have also been active innovators. Fourth on the list, with 35 patents, is Therics, a manufacturer of medical devices. These commercial companies understand additive manufacturing's potential to give them important advantages over competitors.

Also noteworthy among patent holders are companies that straddle both worlds. GE and IBM are important manufacturers but are increasingly invested in platforms that optimize value chains run by other companies. GE (11 patents) is developing the industrial internet, and IBM (19) has worked out what it is calling the "software-defined supply chain" and optimization software for smart manufacturing systems. Both are well positioned to take on similar roles with regard to additive manufacturing-and both bear watching as models for how incumbents can capture disproportionate value from a highly disruptive technology.

In other industries, the use of additive manufacturing for more-tailored and fast-evolving products will have ramifications for how offerings are marketed. What happens to the concept of product generations-let alone the hoopla around a launch-when things can be upgraded continually during successive printings rather than in the quantum leaps required by the higher tooling costs and setup times of conventional manufacturing? Imagine a near future in which cloud-based artificial intelligence augments additive manufacturing's ability to change or add products instantly without retooling. Real-time changes in product strategy, such as product mix and design decisions, would become possible. With such rapid adaptation, what new advantages should be core to brand promises? And how could marketing departments prevent brand drift without losing sales?

Operations, reoptimized.

Operations strategy encompasses all the questions of how a company will buy, make, move, and sell goods. The answers will be very different with additive manufacturing. Greater operational efficiency is always a goal, but it can be achieved in many ways. Today most companies contemplating the use of the technology do piecemeal financial analysis of targeted opportunities to swap in 3-D equipment and designs where those can reduce direct costs. Much bigger gains will come when they broaden their analyses to consider the total cost of manufacturing and overhead.

How much could be saved by cutting out assembly steps? Or by slashing inventories through production only in response to actual demand? Or by selling in different ways-for example, direct to consumers via interfaces that allow them to specify any configuration? In a hybrid world of old and new manufacturing methods, producers will have many more options; they will have to decide which components or products to transition over to additive manufacturing, and in what order.

Additional questions will arise around facilities locations. How proximate should they be to which customers? How can highly customized orders be delivered as efficiently as they are produced? Should printing be centralized in plants or dispersed in a network of printers at distributors, at retailers, on trucks, or even in customers' facilities? Perhaps all of the above. The answers will change in real time, adjusting to shifts in foreign exchange, labor costs, printer efficiency and capabilities, material costs, energy costs, and shipping costs.

A shorter traveling distance for products or parts not only saves money; it saves time. If you've ever been forced to leave your vehicle at a repair shop while the mechanic waits for a part, you'll appreciate that. BMW and Honda, among other automakers, are moving toward the additive manufacturing of many industrial tools and end-use car parts in their factories and dealerships-especially as new metal, composite plastic, and carbon-fiber materials become available for use in 3-D printers. Distributors in many industries are taking note, eager to help their business customers capitalize on the new efficiencies. UPS, for example, is building on its existing third-party logistics business to turn its airport hub warehouses into mini-factories. The idea is to produce and deliver customized parts to customers as needed, instead of devoting acres of shelving to vast inventories. If we already live in a world of just-in-time inventory management, we now see how JIT things can get. Welcome to instantaneous inventory management.

Indeed, given all the potential efficiencies of highly integrated additive manufacturing, business process management may become the most important capability around. Some companies that excel in this area will build out proprietary coordination systems to secure competitive advantage. Others will adopt and help to shape standard packages created by big software companies.

Ecosystems, reconfigured.

Finally comes the question of where and how the enterprise fits into its broader business environment. Here managers address the puzzles of Who are we? and What do we need to own to be who we are? As additive manufacturing allows companies to acquire printers that can make many products, and as idle capacity is traded with others in the business of offering different products, the answers to those questions will become far less clear. Suppose you have rows of printers in your facility that build auto parts one day, military equipment the next day, and toys the next. What industry are you part of? Traditional boundaries will blur. Yet managers need a strong sense of the company's role in the world to make decisions about which assets they will invest in-or divest themselves of.

They may find their organizations evolving into something very different from what they have been. As companies are freed from many of the logistical requirements of standard manufacturing, they will have to look anew at the value of their capabilities and other assets and how those complement or compete with the capabilities of others.

The Platform Opportunity

One position in the ecosystem will prove to be the most central and powerful-and this fact is not lost on the management teams of the biggest players already in the business of additive manufacturing, such as eBay, IBM, Autodesk, PTC, Materialise, Stratasys, and 3D Systems. Many are vying to develop the platforms on which other companies will build and connect. They know that the role of platform provider is the biggest strategic objective they could pursue and that it's still very much up for grabs.

Platforms are a prominent feature in highly digitized 21st-century markets, and additive manufacturing will be no exception. Here platform owners will be powerful because production itself is likely to matter less over time. Already some companies are setting up contract "printer farms" that will effectively commoditize the making of products on demand. Even the valuable designs for printable products, being purely digital and easily shared, will be hard to hold tight. (For that matter, 3-D scanning devices will make it possible to reverse-engineer products by capturing their geometric design information.)

Everyone in the system will have a stake in sustaining the platforms on which production is dynamically orchestrated, blueprints are stored and continually enhanced, raw materials supplies are monitored and purchased, and customer orders are received. Those that control the digital ecosystem will sit in the middle of a tremendous volume of industrial transactions, collecting and selling valuable information. They will engage in arbitrage and divide the work up among trusted parties or assign it in-house when appropriate. They will trade printer capacity and designs all around the world, influencing prices by controlling or redirecting the "deal flow" for both. Like commodities arbitrageurs, they will finance trades or buy low and sell high with the asymmetric information they gain from overseeing millions of transactions.

Any manufacturer whose strategy for the future includes additive techniques has to lay out a road map for getting there. Companies already on the journey are taking things step-by-step, but in three different ways.

Trickle Down

Some start with their high-end products, knowing that their most sophisticated (and price-insensitive) customers will appreciate the innovation and flexibility. The luxury will trickle down in the time-honored way as the technology matures and becomes more affordable. Automotive manufacturers, for example, tend to engineer one-off parts specially for Formula One racing cars and then find ways to introduce versions of those innovations to high-end sports and luxury cars. As engineers' familiarity with the technology grows, they spot opportunities to bring it to parts for mass-market car segments.

Swap Out

Other pioneers proceed in a less splashy way, focusing first on the components of a given product that are easiest to migrate to additive manufacturing. The objective is to develop the organization's know-how by advancing to more-challenging components of the same product. This is common in aerospace, where companies have selected a specific product, such as an F-35 fighter jet, and started with mundane brackets and braces before moving to, say, internal panels and partitions. As the manufacturers learn more, they begin printing the fighter's exterior skin. Experiments with printing its load-bearing structures are now under way.

Cut Across

A third approach is to find components that show up in multiple products and use them to establish a 3-D foothold. For example, a design improvement for a fighter jet could be transferred to drones, missiles, or satellites. Such cross-product improvement builds knowledge and awareness throughout the company of how additive manufacturing can enhance performance on key dimensions such as weight, energy use, and flexibility.

The common theme here is small, incremental steps. In all three approaches, engineers are being given fascinating new puzzles to solve without having their world upended by still-evolving methods and materials, thus minimizing risk and resistance to change. It is up to more-senior managers to maintain the appropriate level of pressure for taking each successive step. As they push for further adoption, they should allow naysayers to explain why 3-D printing isn't right for a given part or process, but then challenge them to overcome that roadblock. Traditionalists will always be quick to tell you what 3-D printing can't do. Don't let them blind you to what it can.

Responsibility for aligning dispersed capacity with growing market demand will fall to a small number of companies-and if the whole system is to work efficiently, some will have to step up to it. Look for analogs to Google, eBay, Match.com, and Amazon to emerge as search engines, exchange platforms, branded marketplaces, and matchmakers among additive manufacturing printers, designers, and design repositories. Perhaps even automated trading will come into existence, along with markets for trading derivatives or futures on printer capacity and designs.

In essence, then, the owners of printer-based manufacturing assets will compete with the owners of information for the profits generated by the ecosystem. And in fairly short order, power will migrate from producers to large systems integrators, which will set up branded platforms with common standards to coordinate and support the system. They'll foster innovation through open sourcing and acquiring or partnering with smaller companies that meet high standards of quality. Small companies may indeed continue to try out interesting new approaches on the margins-but we'll need big organizations to oversee the experiments and then push them to be practical and scalable.

Digital History Replicated

Thinking about the unfolding revolution in additive manufacturing, it's hard not to reflect on that great transformative technology, the internet. In terms of the latter's history, it might be fair to say that additive manufacturing is only in 1995. Hype levels were high that year, yet no one imagined how commerce and life would change in the coming decade, with the arrival of Wi-Fi, smartphones, and cloud computing. Few foresaw the day that internet-based artificial intelligence and software systems could run factories-and even city infrastructures-better than people could.

The future of additive manufacturing will bring similar surprises that might look strictly logical in hindsight but are hard to picture today. Imagine how new, highly capable printers might replace highly skilled workers, shifting entire companies and even manufacturing-based countries into people-less production. In "machine organizations," humans might work only to service the printers.

And that future will arrive quickly. Once companies put a toe in the water and experience the advantages of greater manufacturing flexibility, they tend to dive in deep. As materials science creates more printable substances, more manufacturers and products will follow. Local Motors recently demonstrated that it can print a good-looking roadster, including wheels, chassis, body, roof, interior seats, and dashboard but not yet drivetrain, from bottom to top in 48 hours. When it goes into production, the roadster, including drivetrain, will be priced at approximately $20,000. As the cost of 3-D equipment and materials falls, traditional methods' remaining advantages in economies of scale are becoming a minor factor.

Here's what we can confidently expect: Within the next five years we will have fully automated, high-speed, large-quantity additive manufacturing systems that are economical even for standardized parts. Owing to the flexibility of those systems, customization or fragmentation in many product categories will then take off, further reducing conventional mass production's market share.

Smart business leaders aren't waiting for all the details and eventualities to reveal themselves. They can see clearly enough that additive manufacturing developments will change the way products are designed, made, bought, and delivered. They are taking the first steps in the redesign of manufacturing systems. They are envisioning the claims they will stake in the emerging ecosystem. They are making the many layers of decisions that will add up to advantage in a new world of 3-D printing.

A version of this article appeared in the May 2015 issue (pp.40-48) of Harvard Business Review.

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Idea in Brief The Breakthrough Additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, is poised to transform the industrial economy. Its extreme flexibility not only allows for easy customization of goods but also eliminates assembly and inventories and enables products to be redesigned for higher performance.

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This video shows how 3d printing is being used to create products and parts for worldwide applications

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3D printing: What is it & how does it work? | Protolabs Network (formerly Hubs)

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3D printing guide for beginners. Learn about 3D printing technology, materials, design guidelines and common applications. (Hubs is now Protolabs Network.)

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This article explains how 3D printing is developing and changing and how it will change our world as we know it.

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As a metal platform rises from a vat of liquid resin, it pulls an intricate white shape from the liquid - like a waxy creature emerging from a lagoon. This machine is the world's fastest resin-based 3D printer and it can create a plastic structure as large as a person in a few hours, says Chad Mirkin, a chemist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The machine, which Mirkin and his colleagues reported last October, is one of a slew of research advances in 3D printing that are broadening the prospects of a technology once viewed as useful mainly for making small, low-quality prototype parts. Not only is 3D printing becoming faster and producing larger products, but scientists are coming up with innovative ways to print and are creating stronger materials, sometimes mixing multiple materials in the same product.

Sportswear firms, aviation and aerospace manufacturers and medical-device companies are eager to take advantage. "You're not going to be sitting in your home, printing out exactly what you want to repair your car any time soon, but major manufacturing companies are really adopting this technology," says Jennifer Lewis, a materials scientist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The latest techniques could be lucrative for researchers, many of whom - Lewis and Mirkin among them - are already commercializing their work. They're also fundamentally exciting, says Iain Todd, a metallurgist at the University of Sheffield, UK. "We can get performance out of these materials that we didn't think we could get. That's what's really exciting to a materials scientist. This is getting people used to the new weird."

From trinkets to products

The 3D printing technique is also referred to as 'additive manufacturing', because instead of chopping or milling a shape out of a larger block, or casting molten material in a mould, it involves building objects from the bottom up. Its advantages include less waste and an ability to print custom designs, such as intricate lattice structures, that are otherwise hard to create. Low-cost hobbyist machines print by squeezing out thin plastic filaments from heated nozzles, building up a structure layer by layer - a method known as fused deposition modelling (FDM). But the term 3D printing encompasses a much wider range of techniques. One of the oldest uses an ultraviolet laser to scan across and solidify (or 'cure') light-sensitive resin, layer by layer. That concept was described as far back as 1984, in a patent filed by Charles Hull, the founder of a company called 3D Systems in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

The latest techniques - including Mirkin's - still use light-sensitive resin, but are faster and larger-scale, following improvements reported in 2015 by a team led by Joseph DeSimone, a chemist and materials scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Early printers were slow, small-scale and prone to producing layered, imperfect and weak structures. These found a niche in rapid prototyping, making plastic model parts as mock-ups for later production by conventional methods. As an area of research, this kind of printing wasn't thrilling, says Timothy Scott, a polymer scientist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia: "Basically making trinkets and knick-knacks. For a polymer chemist, it was pretty dull."

Then DeSimone unveiled a way to print light-sensitive resin up to 100 times faster than conventional printers. It uses a stage submerged in a vat of resin. A digital projector shines a pre-programmed image up at the stage through a transparent window in the floor of the vat. The light cures an entire resin layer at once. DeSimone's advance was to make the window permeable to oxygen. This kills the curing reaction and creates a thin buffer layer, or 'dead zone', just above the window's surface so that the resin doesn't stick to the bottom of the vat each time a layer is printed. The stage rises continually, pulling the completed part up through the liquid as new layers are added at the bottom.

Other labs were working on similar concepts at the time, says Lewis. But perhaps most impressive about DeSimone's resins was that they could undergo a second reaction in a post-print heat treatment to strengthen the finished product. "It opens up a much broader array of materials," says Lewis.

Many research groups and firms have since built on the work. Mirkin's printer pumps a layer of clear oil across the bottom of the vat to inhibit the polymer's reactions. This also acts as a coolant, removing heat that can deform a printed part - and it means that the equipment is not limited to printing with resins that are inhibited by oxygen. He says the printer produces material ten times faster than DeSimone's. And last January, Scott and his colleague Mark Burns at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor reported a printer that inhibits the reactions by mixing into the resin a chemical that can be activated by a second lamp emitting a different wavelength of light. By varying the ratio of the strength of the two light sources, the researchers can control the thickness of the photo-inhibited zone, allowing the creation of more complicated patterns, such as surfaces embossed with seals or logos.

Inventions in 3D printing often have rapid commercial potential: some researchers start forming companies before they publish their advances. On the same day DeSimone's paper was published, for instance, he showcased it at a TED talk in Vancouver, Canada, and officially launched his start-up firm Carbon 3D in Redwood City, California, although he had quietly registered the company two years earlier. The firm is now one of the biggest start-ups in 3D printing; it has already raised US$680 million in publicly disclosed funding rounds, and is reportedly valued at $2.4 billion. It has high-profile contracts with Adidas to make rubber-like midsoles for athletic shoes, and with sports-gear firm Riddell to manufacture customized helmet padding for American-football players.

Mirkin and his colleagues James Hedrick and David Walker have also launched a start-up, Azul 3D in Evanston, Illinois, to commercialize their technique, which they have dubbed HARP (high-area rapid printing). And Scott and Burns are preparing a commercial prototype printer with their Ann Arbor-based start-up Diplodocal, a name derived from the Greek for 'double beam'.

New resin-printing techniques are still emerging. One begins with a small spinning glass holding liquid resin. As the glass rotates, a projector shines a loop of video onto it that corresponds to 2D slices of the desired object. Within seconds, the final object solidifies inside the liquid resin - no layers necessary. The method is inspired by X-rays and computed-tomography scans, which image a cross-section of a solid object. This is the inverse: back-projecting cross-sections to form a 3D object.

Even in this fast-moving field, the technique turned heads for what Lewis calls "the gee-whiz factor". It has significant limitations: the resin used must be transparent, and the printed object must be small enough for light to pass through it to cure it. But it also has a potential advantage: it can handle highly viscous resins, which other resin-based printers struggle to suck through the narrow dead zone. That means it could make stronger materials and more accurate prints.

The approach has garnered substantial interest from industry, says Christopher Spadaccini, a materials and manufacturing engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. Spadaccini was a member of the team that published the work last January. A group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) independently developed the same concept, and has also reported a demonstration of it. Spadaccini thinks the technology has tremendous commercial potential because it has modest hardware requirements. "In the end, really, what you need is a halfway-decent projector and a rotating stage," he says.

Going big

While chemists work on smarter ways to 3D-print intricate resins, engineers are pushing boundaries in 3D printing of concrete - using computers and robots to precisely automate the pouring process.

The world's first 3D-printed concrete pedestrian bridge was made by researchers at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain, and installed in a park in Alcobendas, near Madrid, in 2016. Twelve metres long, the bridge features a lattice structure designed with algorithms that maximize strength and reduce the amount of material needed. Other teams have made similar structures, including a 26-metre-long bridge in Shanghai, China, produced by engineers at Tsinghua University in Beijing. And teams and companies in China and the Netherlands have 3D printed demonstration houses.

Those structures aren't constructed in one print job, however: separate segments are printed and then connected. By producing bridges and houses more cheaply and efficiently, 3D printing could reduce concrete's carbon footprint - but it could also just encourage engineers to build more.

It's not just concrete that is going big: Amsterdam firm MX3D has printed a bridge from stainless steel. First displayed publicly in 2018, the bridge is now being tested and having sensors installed ahead of a planned installation over an Amsterdam canal.

And California start-up firm Relativity Space in Los Angeles says it is constructing a nearly fully 3D-printed rocket. The rocket is designed to lift 1,250 kilograms into low Earth orbit, and its first test launch is slated for 2021. Printed metal doesn't always have the same heat-dissipating performance as non-printed metal, says Relativity Space's chief executive, Tim Ellis, but the printing process can add cooling channels in geometries that can't usually be manufactured. Because rockets are used only once or perhaps a few times, they don't have to be as strong in the long term as do alloys in aeroplane parts, which must resist failure over tens of thousands of pressure cycles, Ellis says.

These large-scale metal-printed projects are built with robot arms that feed a thin metal wire to a laser that welds the material into place. Other established ways to print metal use a laser or a beam of electrons to melt or fuse a bed of powder into layers of finished product. Another technique binds a bed of powder with liquid glue, then sinters the structure in a furnace. And printers designed in the past few years extrude molten metals through nozzles, in much the same way as in FDM.

Aviation firms such as Boeing, Rolls Royce and Pratt & Whitney are using 3D printing to make metal parts, mainly for jet engines. It can be cheaper than milling metal blocks, and the intricate components often weigh less than their conventionally made counterparts.

But 3D-printed metals are prone to defects that can weaken the final products. Spadaccini and others are trying to use arrays of sensors and high-speed cameras to watch for irregularities such as hotspots of heat or strain - and then make adjustments in real time, he says.

Many scientists are also hoping to improve the intrinsic strength of printed metals, sometimes by controlling the microstructures of the materials. For instance, in October 2017, a US team reported that the intense heat and rapid cooling used in 3D-printing stainless steel could alter the metal's microstructure such that the product is stronger than those cast conventionally. And two months ago, researchers in Australia and the United States reported a titanium-copper alloy with similar strength advantages. As they solidified, previous 3D-printed titanium alloys tended to form grains that grew in column-like structures. The copper helps to speed up the solidification process, which results in grains that are smaller and sprout in all directions, strengthening the overall structure.

Mark Easton, a materials engineer at RMIT University in Melbourne and one of the leaders of the alloy work, has already had conversations with aerospace companies interested in exploring uses for the material. He says it could also be used in medical implants such as joint replacements.

Many of the printing techniques that work for metals can also be applied to ceramics, with potential applications that include making dental crowns or orthopaedic implants. Moulds for these objects are already made by 3D printing, with the material cast in the conventional way. But 3D-printing the entire object could save time at the dentist or surgeon's office.

However, it is harder to control the microstructure of 3D-printed ceramics, says Eduardo Saiz, a materials scientist and ceramicist at Imperial College London. And nearly all practical ceramic printing techniques involve extensive post-print sintering that can warp or deform the part. "In my opinion, ceramics is way behind polymers and metals in terms of practical applications," he says.

Change over time

The field's future could also lie in '4D printing' - 3D-printed objects that also have the ability to perform some mechanical action, akin to artificial muscles. Often, these incorporate shape-memory polymers, materials that can react to changes in their environment such as heat or moisture.

In May 2018, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena reported printing a submarine that propels itself forward using paddles that snap backwards when placed in warm water. The work could lead to microrobots that can explore the oceans autonomously. But for the moment, the paddles must be reset after each stroke. Such devices could use battery power to reset themselves, but that makes the machine less efficient than one made conventionally, says Geoff Spinks, a materials engineer at the University of Wollongong in Australia. "There are still some big challenges with 4D printing," he says.

Another approach to 4D-printed devices involves triggering the action with a changing external magnetic field. US researchers have 3D-printed lattice structures filled with a liquid that changes stiffness in response to a magnetic field - which could perhaps be used to help car seats stiffen on impact.

Other, more passive potential 4D printing applications include stents, which could be compressed to be implanted then expanded on reaching the desired site in a blood vessel to prop it open. Last July, researchers in Switzerland and Italy described a 4D-printed stent that is just 50 micrometres wide, much smaller than conventional ones. The devices are so small, the team says, they could one day be used to treat complications in fetuses, such as strictures in the urinary tract, which can sometimes be fatal.

Perhaps the most ambitious example of 4D printing is matter that not only moves, but is alive. Currently, techniques for such bioprinting can print tissue, such as human skin, that is suitable for lab research, as well as patches of tissue for livers and other organs that have been successfully implanted in rats. But such techniques are still far from ready to integrate into a human body. Researchers dream of printing fully functioning organs that could alleviate long wait lists for organ donors. "I personally feel we're a decade-plus away from that, at least, if ever," says Lewis.

All together now

Many inventive ideas about printing matter that moves or changes rely on printing multiple materials together. "That's absolutely where the field is heading," says Scott.

Last November, Lewis and her lab described a printer that can rapidly switch between different polymer inks or mix them as it prints a single object. This means objects can be printed with both flexible and rigid parts. Lewis has spun off previous work on multi-material printers into a firm called Voxel8, a start-up in Somerville, Massachusetts. Her multi-material printer could help with the athletics wear that Voxel8 is developing, says Lewis. Wearable devices need to be flexible around joints while also having rigid parts to house electronics. Saiz calls the printer "beautiful work", adding wistfully: "There's nothing like that for ceramics or metal."

And in March 2018, a team led by Jerry Qi, a materials engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, unveiled a four-in-one printer. This combines a nozzle that extrudes molten polymer with one that prints light-sensitive resin, ready to be cured by ultraviolet lamps or lasers, and two that print wires and circuitry from tiny dots of metal. The print heads work together to make integrated devices with circuits embedded on a rigid board or inside a flexible polymer enclosure. Qi says his group is now collaborating with electronics companies interested in printing circuit-board prototypes faster than conventional methods.

It wasn't as simple as bolting four different printers into one platform: the researchers also needed to develop software that would allow each print head to communicate with the others and keep track of the progress.

The field is still far from delivering on early visions of bringing mass manufacturing into people's homes. For now, sophisticated printers are too expensive to appeal to non-specialists. But 3D printing has come a long way in the past 20 years. Todd remembers people touring his lab in the early 2000s to see his technique to fuse specks of metal dust together to grow parts. Compared with the conventional milling machines and metal-cutting systems in neighbouring labs, his 3D-printing machines struck visitors as a complete oddity. "It was like we were some sort of a dog playing a piano in a bar," he recalls. Now, for many firms, that trick is standard practice.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00271-6

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3D printing gets bigger, faster and stronger

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As a metal platform rises from a vat of liquid resin, it pulls an intricate white shape from the liquid - like a waxy creature emerging from a lagoon. This machine is the world's fastest resin-based 3D printer and it can create a plastic structure as large as a person in a few hours, says Chad Mirkin, a chemist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

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3D printing is such a fun way to produce creative work-and it has totally taken off. Now, creators are using this amazing new technology to create all kinds of wild and wonderful 3D printer projects that were previously all but impossible to make at home.

These 3D printer projects are a great addition to your online design portfolio. This is such a hot space that shows your mastery of this chic craft could win you some big new clients. You can showcase a collection of cool things to 3D print and some of your best 3D printings too.

Want to get in on this cool 3D prints trend? We've compiled a list of 67 inspiring 3D printing ideas to fuel your next 3D printer design. So, what can you make with a 3D printer? Well, there's something cool for everyone!

Next in our list of cool things to 3D print is a simple project that can be completed in approximately one hour and will produce a whistle. It can produce an eye-popping 118db sound, perfect for camping or sporting events.

If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that earbud cords are a pain in the butt to keep organized. They constantly get tangled and eventually produce the dreaded earphone-crackle, rendering your treasured music-makers useless. This is a great example of what you can make with a 3D printer that can improve your everyday life.

A simple toy originally created for Settlers of Catan, this project is durable and (in our opinion) cute. This is one of those 3D printer projects you could use in a few ways: gaming, office desk decoration, children's toy, you name it! Plus, T-Rexes are (always!) cool.

Organize your desk, and add a little flair at the same time! With these simple 3D printer designs, you'll have all you need to generate truly unique desktop organizers that not only keep your stuff where it needs to be but look cool as well. You can 3D print a pencil holder that is unique to your own personality and have others mistaking your pencil holders again.

With a 3D printer you'll be able to replace your dinnerware with new and original 3D printer designs in no time at all. Take this blueberry-themed bowl, for example. Why stop there? There are numerous other designs for plates and bowls out there to make eating at home a unique experience.

One of the cool things to 3D print is an abstract planter for your succulents and cacti. Why use traditional planters to hold your plants? There are cool 3D prints out there that don't allow you to skip the traditional clay pots. These modular little guys are modern and fresh and guaranteed to make your mini-garden more attractive.

Measuring Cube

Get rid of those 72 measuring spoons from your utensil drawer and replace them all with a single implement! One of the most immediately useful and cool 3D prints in this list, it'll make for an interesting tool that others will want when they see it.

Cable Holder

Stop the tyranny of cords taking over your desk and entertainment unit and 3D print some space-saving cable management devices. You'll cut back on desk clutter and all that cord-related aggravation. These are the blessed 3D printed objects that make life a little less annoying!

Nearly everyone these days has a smartphone, and we've likely all had moments where we wanted to prop up our phones for viewing video or photos and had to resort to piled books or whatever else is on hand. And it rarely works out as well as we hope! That makes this tiny project one of the coolest 3D printed objects on the list. Plus, they look like cats. Cats are good.

A perennial childhood favorite, kids love them just as much today. Of course, adults can enjoy these toys, too. They could be just the ticket to break through some creative block!

A truly inspiring 3D printing idea, these pop-out business cards allow you to speak to clients in a way they won't have experienced many times (if ever) before! Rather than a drab piece of cardboard, hand them a toy they can assemble that speaks much louder than a traditional printed card.

Can't sit still? Searching for a 3D printer project to help you focus? Look no further. Fidget spinners are an excellent way to occupy your mind, and this 3D printed object will definitely do the trick.

This is probably one of the most fun and cool things to 3D print, these gimmicky little toys are quite literally affixed to food items found in your house. A lemon helicopter? A banana-car? Why not! Easy to print and awesome for providing hours of enjoyment to restless rainy-day kiddos.

Definitely among the most interesting and cool things to 3D print in this list (and showcasing a bit more complexity than other entries), the dragonfly is a tiny little flying machine you can whip up in a short time. It's perfect for providing a little entertainment for your kids on a rainy day.

Why settle for boring cutlery in your drawer? With minimal effort, you can produce some decorative handles for your eating utensils and wow visitors to your humble abode. When they inevitably ask "so, what can you print with a 3D printer?", you can tell them they're eating with it!

Drop your phone into these useful little devices to amplify the sound from its speakers. They offer surprisingly high-quality sound-and now you don't need to lug portable speakers around on picnics or at the beach.

If you're looking for some more simple and cool 3D printing ideas, consider 3D printing a set of drink coasters. Thanks to simple 3D printer designs like this, we won't need to spend our hard-earned cash on flimsy little discs anymore. Make your own coasters with whatever designs you want, and say goodbye to tacky freebies and over-priced novelty ones. This idea makes for one of the cool things to 3D print as gifts!

If you're an audiophile, you'll truly appreciate this entry as one of the best things to 3d print. By converting audio files, you can create your own records that will play on turntables. Why limit it to music? Record your own special messages to loved ones and send out the love!

Simple 3D printer designs like this are great to have on hand. Hinges are always useful, and come in handy all over the house. These particular designs are super-simple, even by 3D printing standards, requiring just a single step!

With a sliding clasp, these unique chip clip designs work quite well and are fantastically simple things to 3D print.

A larger-scale project than other 3D printing ideas, the Drawing Machine is quite unique: attach a pen and create works of art from files on your computer. This 3D printer project can help you produce invitations, cards or any other manner of drawings.

Some nostalgic old-timey engineering comes into play with these uber-neat 3D printing ideas. Relive the past and have your desk decorated with a sign that uses something other than LED or LCD displays!

When it comes to 3D printing metal, there are people who may choose to use a laser cutter instead. The reason is that 3D printed projects using metal can be costly and time-consuming. However, the two are quite different. 3D printing is an additive process, while laser cutting is a subtractive process. Depending on your needs, those that are looking to create multiple pieces at a quicker pace may choose the laser cutter as it can conveniently cut multiple materials and larger size.

With digital trends of raw and rustic design, you might be considering 3D printing cool things at home with metal. However, printing metal is extremely costly due to its process and the machinery required. If you're looking for cool things to 3D print at home with a metal-looking finish, we recommend using materials on the market that can create metal-like 3D printed objects instead. These materials give the illusion that your 3D printed pencil holder or camera mount is made out of metal but without the actual cost.

Thanks to 3D printing, it has also made highly-customizable prosthesis possible. One of the coolest things about 3D printed prosthesis is that they can create custom fits for the patient and also a much lower cost. Instead of creating static designs that are "one size fits all", 3D print gives companies the opportunity to create products that are affordable and personalized. What would have cost lots of money to create is now more accessible thanks to 3D printed prostheses.

Beyond science, 3D printed homes and shelters have also become one of the cool things to 3D print across the world. To address the housing issue around the world, companies have been using this technology to print emergency shelters and 3D printed homes. With this technology, companies and cities can build a community in a much shorter amount of time and for a cost cheaper than traditional home building methods. Each home inside the community can then be purchased at a more affordable cost.

Tangram: A super easy and fun game to play with your kids or friends. If you're going on a road trip or simply trying to pass time, this 3D printed tangram makes for portable entertainment.

Klöts (Quick shoe ties): Some cool things to 3D print for your kids are these quick shoe ties. With this project, you'll spend less time worrying about their shoelaces being undone and risking a fall.

Puzzle Keychain: This heart puzzle is perfect as a gift or personal use. If you're tight on schedule for an anniversary or valentine's day gift, this heart puzzle is one of the quickest things to 3D print.

Door Stop: Some things to 3D print for practical uses are these door stops. Whether you're using it at home or for your office, printing them is super easy and fast.

Light Switch Locks: This definitely tops for cool things to 3D print, especially for parents. This awesome tool can prevent your kids from turning the lights on and off at home. Keep certain lights off to save energy.

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If you love architecture and buildings, companies have created kits that allow people to replicate architectural structures and other cool things with a 3D pen. For boardgame lovers, you 3D print your own figurines by drawing it with your 3D pen. You can also turn your favorite cartoon show characters or movie heroes into 3D. While a 3D pen allows you to draw 2D things to 3D, their limitation tends to be the size of the project you can make. If you're looking to 3D print a life-size chair, it may be easier to use a printer because 3D pens may not be able to create something as durable.
Need some more design project inspiration?
How to Start a Creative Project by ADAMJK
5 Ways to Fund Your Personal Project
10 Steps to Building Your Perfect Online Portfolio
Now get out there, get creative, and start turning heads with amazing 3D creations!

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3D printing has taken the world by storm-and it's time for you to get on the trend. Stumped for 3D printing ideas? We have 67 3D printer designs for you to try!

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Introduction: 3D Printing Basics

A 3D Printer is a manufacturing tool used to create three-dimensional artifacts that have been designed on a computer. 3D printers have a wide range of shapes, sizes, and types, but in essence they are all computer controlled additive manufacturing machines. Similar to how paper printers lay down ink in one layer to create an image, 3D printers lay down or cure material layer by layer to create a three-dimensional object.

3D printers have a huge range of applications; designers use them to test out product ideas, manufacturing companies use them to make complicated parts for assemblies, and makers use them for DIY fabrication for anything they can imagine. Although the different types and uses of 3D printers vary widely, all 3D printers can be simply described as tools; they allow people to make things that they weren't able to make before.

From this guide you will learn what 3D printers are, how they work, when they should be used, and how to design for them and use them. I'll also provide some resources on purchasing printers and 3D printing services. Once you're through it, hopefully you'll be able to print some things yourself!

Step 1: What Is 3D Printing?

3D printers as machines fall under a couple different categories. They are controlled by a computer, making them CNC, or Computer Numerical Controlled, machines. Because of the way that 3D printers work, they are referred to as additive manufacturing machines. Instead of the machine cutting or drilling parts out of a block of raw material to form a certain shape (subtractive manufacturing), 3D printers add material bit by bit to form their work, making them additive manufacturing machines. To sum everything up, this means that 3D printers are machines controlled by computers that add material to create a shape that you tell it to create.

Compared to other CNC industrial machines, 3D printers are inefficient because they take on the scale of hours to make parts, while other machines, like injection molding machines, can produce stronger, more durable parts in minutes. Different 3D printers have different drawbacks and benefits, but most 3D printers produce relatively weak, small parts because of the way the parts are created. So why use 3D printing?

3D printers can be very inexpensive, so they allow anyone who has one to make anything very easily. They let designers go straight from ideas to reality, they allow for rapid iteration on designs, and they can create complicated geometries without much difficulty. In short, with just the push of a button, you can create whatever you imagine.

Step 2: Rapid Prototyping

Unlike most other CNC machines, 3D printers have very minimal associated setup costs or procedures. 3D printers can be used to produce custom designed parts relatively quickly and cheaply, making 3D printers one of the best rapid prototyping tools. Larger scale manufacturing machines may require precisely machined molds or fixtures for each new part, which means that they have more setup costs and steps required to produce content; they are set up to make hundreds or thousands of specific parts over and over again. Using a 3D printer, a part can be cheaply designed and made, and then its design can be modified, printed, and tested multiple times in rapid succession before the part reaches full scale production.

Step 3: Intricate Geometries

3D printing is a hands-off manufacturing process; just by pressing a button, whatever you design will be made. Other manufacturing methods, like the drill press, lathe, or milling machine, need to be operated by the maker. The workpiece needs to be aligned, measured, and machined by the user, which introduces human error into the making of the part. 3D printers, because of the way that they create parts, can make many parts with intricate geometries, including natural shapes like prosthetic limbs or animal models, or more complicated shapes like polyhedra or scale building replicas. 3D printers open up a lot of opportunity to makers just because they allow people to make things they feasibly couldn't before.

Step 4: Customized Content

As explained previously, 3D designs can be easily changed on the computer and then re-printed. This means that files can be customized for certain people or things, and printed easily, with no change to the setup of the machine. Being able to create personalized content is valuable for both small-scale manufacturing and for makers, because it allows them to create designs for specific people, or even produce designs that others give them. Personalized jewelry, custom fit prosthetics, and even 3D scans of people can be printed and modified to suit the end recipient.

Step 5: How Does 3D Printing Work?

To understand more specifically how 3D printers work and how to design for them, you'll need to understand the different types of 3D printers on the market. Although the materials and methods with which parts are created varies widely, all 3D printers construct parts by adding material layer by layer, fusing each layer together to make a solid object.

There are a couple different types of 3D printing processes: some are more well suited for larger scale manufacturing, others allow for multiple materials or colors during prints, and some types of printers can even be built fairly easily because of the way that they work. I've included the most common types of 3D printers in this guide, there are a few other types of printers out there, but for the most part they stem from the following four.

Step 9: ​Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)

In the Laminated Object Manufacturing process, a laser or knife is used to cut slices of the 3D model out of sheets of material. Each sheet of material is pulled over the previous sheet and cut out by the cutting tool, and then glue is laid down so that the next sheet will adhere to it. The printer thus generates stacks of sheet material cut out and fused together. Because LOM printers consist of stacks of paper, the paper can be printed on (in 2D) before used on the machine, meaning that these printers can actually be used to create colored 3D printed artifacts.

These printers have very low production costs because the raw materials are just reams of paper or plastic. They have the benefit of printing flexible, strong parts because of the material properties of the sheets. While the parts are strong, they are just stacks of paper, so they tend to wear easily and small part features can easily be peeled open. LOM machines are best at creating large parts with minimal small details. Each print requires a lot of post-processing to remove the part from the rest of the material. These printers usually generate a lot of waste because each part needs to be dug out of stacks of paper and the geometries of the parts created are restricted due to the way parts are manufactured.

Step 11: Part Orientation

When designing for 3D printing, there are a few design guidelines and constraints that should be followed, as there are for any manufacturing process. One of the most important considerations during the design process involves designing with a build face in mind. All printers start building the part from the print bed, so remembering what face the part is being printed from is important. While determining optimal part orientation is slightly different on all printers, designing to optimize that orientation will minimize material usage, print time, and risk of print failure.
Reducing Print Time and Support Material
By orienting your part well, you can reduce the amount of support material needed, which can minimize material and print time. Support material can be hard to remove and creates a rough surface finish, which isn't the best if you want your part to look like a finished product. In order to remove the effects of the support material, parts need to be polished and sanded down, which may affect the tolerances of your part if it is interfacing with something else.
Part Strength
On most desktop printers, parts usually tend to break along cross-sections of the part that are parallel to the build plate. Material is laid down or cured layer by layer, and the layers don't fuse as well as they do in higher end printers, creating seams along the cross-sections of the part. This means that parts can shear easily along those planes if force is applied. If you know how and where force will be applied to your part, orient your part such that the direction of force is not along those cross-sectional planes.
Build Adhesion
On most printers, primarily FDM machines, the 3D printed parts stick to the build plate as they are printing, and a very small contact area may result in the part falling off the build plate. The side of your part has the most surface area on the same plane is usually the side you'll want to print on, although this can change depending on the features of a given printer.

Step 12: Overhangs and Arches

As I mentioned previously, most printers require printed support structures to hold up flat overhanging features of their parts. Because material is laid down layer by layer, most printers (primarily FDM and SLA printers) can handle up to about 45 degrees of overhang from the horizontal without requiring supports, and can also create features like vertical holes or round arches with minimal drooping. To avoid support material, note where the flat or low-angle overhangs are and either re-orient the part or make sure that they are supported by other part features, like angled overhangs or arches.

Step 13: Interfacing With Other Parts

Most 3D printers involve the heating and melting of plastic or resin, so parts tend to shrink slightly when they cool down. This means that printing parts like gears, sliders, or holders that will interface with other objects can be tricky.
Tolerances
If you are designing a part that will fit into or around something else, make sure you leave some clearance tolerance between the two parts. This tolerance will depend upon the printer you are using, so you may want to print out a few test pieces to try out the fit.
Holes
On many 3D printers, holes are never going to be as precise as they would be if you drilled or reamed them out. This is because the shrinking of the parts alters the size of the part slightly, and also because usually a cartesian-based printer is being used to make a circular hole. To ensure precise holes on your parts, design the hole to be slightly undersized (by a few thousandths of an inch) and then use a reamer to drill out the hole to the right size.
Threads
When designing parts that screws or nuts will screw onto, don't print the threads, because the tolerances may not be able to make them as precise as the threads on the components. To fix a screw to a 3D printed part, make the hole slightly smaller than the thread diameter of the component and tap the hole after the print is finished.
Part Corrosion
Most 3D printers use plastic that have relatively low melting points because the plastic needs to be feasibly heated and safe when hot. This is why ABS and PLA are commonly used for FDM machines. However, a low melting point means that they corrode very easily with applied friction. SLA printers usually produce very brittle parts because of the type of resin they require. 3D printed parts are usually not well suited for high speed or high force situations because features tend to rub off after a while, or parts break. Sliding, spinning, or moving parts will work when 3D printed, but will wear down.

Step 14: Related Technologies

CNC Machines
3D printers fall under a category of machines called "Computer Numerical Control" (CNC) Machines. CNC machines are machinces whose operations are controlled by a computer. The machine controller gives the machine a CAD file, and the machine goes through a series of operations to create that object. CNC machines are usually much more precise and reliable than human-operated machines. 3D printers are additive manufacturing CNC machines because they are computer controlled and they add material to create a part. Other machines, like mills and lathes, are subtractive manufacturing machines because they remove material to make parts, just how you would cut up a piece of paper to make a shape.
Laser Cutters
Laser Cutters, like 3D printers, are another type of rapid prototyping CNC technology. Laser Cutters are very quick, efficient tools that use lasers to cut or etch flat material based on two dimensional CAD drawings. They can be used to make functional prototypes out of wood, plastic, and sometimes metal, among other materials, and can also be used to make works of art because of their rastering capabilities.
3D Scanners
A 3D scanner is another piece of technology that usually goes hand in hand with 3D printing. 3D scanners generate 3D CAD models of real world objects. To scan objects, 3D scanners map points on the object to distances from the scanner, and can thus generate a 3D representation of the object, which can be 3D printed or used for more design work.

Step 15: Resources

Desktop Printers Industrial Printers

Wide range of many different sizes and types of industrial 3D printers

One of the first 3D printing companies, still produces high quality industrial printers

Solidscape: Creates 3D printers primarily for medical and mold making applications

3D Printing Services 3D Model Sites

Thingiverse: A great site to share and find 3D printable designs

MyMiniFactory:A site where you can buy and sell 3D printable designs

Shapeways: Purchase parts that others have made via Shapeways

Free 3D Design Software
Tinkercad:A very simple, free CAD program designed to create and print 3D content.
3D Printing News and Resources:

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3D Printing Basics: A 3D Printer is a manufacturing tool used to create three-dimensional artifacts that have been designed on a computer. 3D printers have a wide range of shapes, sizes, and types, but in essence they are all computer controlled additive manufacturing ...

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this video can provide some good information for beginners who wish to purchase a 3D printer or who show some interest in this matter.

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10 Best Cheap 3D Printers for Beginners To Print Anything

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This Article

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3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional objects from a digital file.

The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced cross-section of the object.

There is one exception though, and it's called volumetric 3D printing. With volumetric printing entire structures can be formed at once without the need for layer-by-layer fabrication. It's worth noting, however, that as of now, volumetric technology is primarily in the research phase.

3D printing is the opposite of subtractive manufacturing which is cutting out / hollowing out a block of material with for instance a milling machine.

3D printing enables you to produce complex shapes using less material than traditional manufacturing methods.

How Does 3D Printing Work?

It all starts with a 3D model. You can opt to create one from the ground up or download it from a 3D library.

3D Software

There are many different software tools available. We've created an overview on our 3D software page.

We often recommend beginners to start with Tinkercad. Tinkercad is free and works in your browser, you don't have to install it on your computer. Tinkercad offers beginner lessons and has a built-in feature to export your model as a printable file e.g .STL or .OBJ.

Now that you have a printable file, the next step is to prepare it for your 3D printer. This is called slicing.

Slicing: From file to 3D Printer

Slicing basically means slicing up a 3D model into hundreds or thousands of layers and is done with slicing software.

When your file is sliced, it's ready for your 3D printer. Feeding the file to your printer can be done via USB, SD or Wi-Fi. Your sliced file is now ready to be 3D printed layer by layer.

3D Printing Industry

Adoption of 3D printing has reached critical mass as those who have yet to integrate additive manufacturing somewhere in their supply chain are now part of an ever-shrinking minority. Where 3D printing was only suitable for prototyping and one-off manufacturing in the early stages, it is now rapidly transforming into a production technology.

Most of the current demand for 3D printing is industrial in nature. Acumen Research and Consulting forecasts the global 3D printing market to reach $41 billion by 2026.

As it evolves, 3D printing technology is destined to transform almost every major industry.

Examples of 3D Printing

3D printing encompasses many forms of technologies and materials as 3D printing is being used in almost all industries you could think of. It's important to see it as a cluster of diverse industries with a myriad of different applications.

A few examples:

- consumer products (eyewear, footwear, design, furniture)

- industrial products (manufacturing tools, prototypes, functional end-use parts)

- dental products

- prosthetics

- architectural scale models & maquettes

- reconstructing fossils

- replicating ancient artefacts

- reconstructing evidence in forensic pathology

- movie props

Rapid Prototyping & Rapid Manufacturing

Companies have used 3D printers in their design process to create prototypes since the late seventies. Using 3D printers for these purposes is called rapid prototyping.

Why use 3D Printers for Rapid Prototyping?
In short: it's fast and relatively cheap. From idea, to 3D model to holding a prototype in your hands is a matter of days instead of weeks. Iterations are easier and cheaper to make and you don't need expensive molds or tools.

Besides rapid prototyping, 3D printing is also used for rapid manufacturing. Rapid manufacturing is a new method of manufacturing where businesses use 3D printers for short run / small batch custom manufacturing.

Automotive

Car manufacturers have been utilizing 3D printing for a long time. Automotive companies are printing spare parts, tools, jigs and fixtures but also end-use parts. 3D printing has enabled on-demand manufacturing which has lead to lower stock levels and has shortened design and production cycles.

Automotive enthusiasts all over the world are using 3D printed parts to restore old cars. One such example is when Australian engineers printed parts to bring a Delage Type-C back to life. In doing so, they had to print parts that were out of production for decades.

Aviation

Aviation loves additive manufacturing, largely due to the promise of lightweight and stronger structures offered by 3D printing. We've seen a whole bunch of innovations in the domain of aviation lately, with the appearance of more critical parts being printed.
Turbine Center Frame
One such large component printed this year was the turbine center frame which was printed by GE as part of the EU Clean Sky 2 initiative.

The Advanced Additive Integrated Turbine Centre Frame (TCF) is a 1 meter diameter part printed in nickel alloy 718 by GE and a consortium from Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), TU Dresden (TUD) and Autodesk. It is one of the largest single metal parts printed for aviation.

Typically components like this are manufactured using casting, and consist of multiple parts. In the case of the 3D printed version, it was reduced from an assembly of 150 parts down to just 1 single piece. The printed version also benefits from a reduction of both cost and mass by 30%, and a reduction in lead time from 9 months to just 10 weeks.
Metal Parts Certified by EASA
Back in June 2022 it was reported that Lufthansa Technik and Premium AEROTEC had created the first load-bearing metal part that had been approved for use in aviation.

The new A-link was produced using LPBF and had demonstrated higher tensile strength compared to the traditionally-forged version.

The part was made at Premium AEROTEC's facility in Varel, Germany, and a large number of test parts were printed and tested to ensure quality and repeatability for certification.

Printing the part represented a cost saving for the component and set the stage for using this manufacturing method for creating structurally important metal parts in the future. It was also used to test the process and to demonstrate the certification process of load-bearing AM parts.
Hypersonic Fuel Injector
This next printed item was never destined to be fitted to an aircraft, but rather it was designed to be installed in a facility for testing flow conditions at hypersonic speeds.

When flying in the hypersonic flight regime above (Mach 5), the air passing around the vehicle becomes incredibly hot, and the pressure increases significantly. These conditions can cause the air itself to become chemically reactive, which causes issues for fuel burning vehicles.

Simulating flow conditions with computational flow diagnostics (CFD) is computationally expensive (if not impossible), and so to replicate the flow conditions, researchers at Purdue fabricated a giant burner to recreate the hot, fast, high pressure experienced in hypersonic flight. In short, they basically built a rocket nozzle and they placed the test components in the exhaust plume to see how they performed.

The injectors that they printed feed fuel and air into the combustion chamber to create specific turbulent flow fields and a stable flame.

The injectors were printed with Hastelloy X, which is a superalloy with superior temperature resistance. The team printed multiple different injectors in rapid time, and tested them all in the burner to see which performed the best.

Now they are able to replicate the hypersonic conditions for flight on Earth at a fraction of the cost (and risk) associated with doing it miles above the Earth's surface. This can benefit fast aircraft such as scramjet powered vehicles as well as space vehicles.
Relativity Space
US-based rocket printing company Relativity Space has a super large metal printer, dubbed the "Stargate". The 4th gen Stargate 3D printer is capable of printing objects measuring 120ft long and 24ft in diameter.

This AI-assisted robotic printer has been able to achieve fast print speeds thanks to its innovative multi-wire print head. This print head allows for multiple metal feedstock wires to be fed into it at the same time, resulting in higher deposition rates.

The company has made their first LEO test flight of the printed Terran-1 rocket in 2023, so we just thought we would give them an honorable mention in this article as a reminder.

You can see the Terran-1 undergoing a hot fire test in the video below.

Construction

Is it possible to print walls? - yes it is. 3D printed houses are already commercially available. Some companies print parts prefab and others do it on-site.

Most of the concrete printing stories we look at on this website are focused on large scale concrete printing systems with fairly large nozzles for a large flow rate. It's great for laying down concrete layers in a fairly quick and repeatable manner. But for truly intricate concrete work that makes full use of the capabilities of 3D printing requires something a little more nimble, and with a finer touch.

Consumer Products

When we first started blogging about 3D printing back in 2011, 3D printing wasn't ready to be used as a production method for large volumes. Nowadays there are numerous examples of end-use 3D printed consumer products.
Footwear
Adidas' 4D range has a fully 3D printed midsole and is being printed in large volumes. We did an article back then, explaining how Adidas were initially releasing just 5,000 pairs of the shoes to the public, and had aimed to sell 100,000 pairs of the AM-infused designs by 2018.

With their latest iterations of the shoe, it seems that they have surpassed that goal, or are on their way to surpassing it. The shoes are available all around the world from local Adidas stores and also from various 3rd party online outlets.
Eyewear
The market of 3D printed eyewear is forecasted to reach $3.4 billion by 2028. A rapidly increasing section is that of end-use frames. 3D printing is a particularly suitable production method for eyewear frames because the measurements of an individual are easy to process in the end product.

But did you know it's also possible to 3D print lenses? Traditional glass lenses don't start out thin and light; they're cut from a much larger block of material called a blank, about 80% of which goes to waste. When we consider how many people wear glasses and how often they need to get a new pair, 80% of those numbers is a lot of waste. On top of that, labs have to keep huge inventories of blanks to meet the custom vision needs of their clients. Finally, however, 3D printing technology has advanced enough to provide high-quality, custom ophthalmic lenses, doing away with the waste and inventory costs of the past. The Luxexcel VisionEngine 3D printer uses a UV-curable acrylate monomer to print two pairs of lenses per hour that require no polishing or post-processing of any kind. The focal areas can also be completely customized so that a certain area of the lens can provide better clarity at a distance while a different area of the lens provides better vision up close.
Jewelry
There are two ways of producing jewelry with a 3D printer. You can either use a direct or indirect production process. Direct refers to the creation of an object straight from the 3D design while indirect manufacturing means that the object (pattern) that is 3D printed eventually is used to create a mold for investment casting.

Healthcare

It's not uncommon these days to see headlines about 3D printed implants. Often, those cases are experimental, which can make it seem like 3D printing is still a fringe technology in the medical and healthcare sectors, but that's not the case anymore. Over the last decade, more than 100,000 hip replacements have been 3D printed by GE Additive.

The Delta-TT Cup designed by Dr. Guido Grappiolo and LimaCorporate is made of Trabecular Titanium, which is characterized by a regular, three-dimensional, hexagonal cell structure that imitates trabecular bone morphology. The trabecular structure increases the biocompatibility of the titanium by encouraging bone growth into the implant. Some of the first Delta-TT implants are still running strong over a decade later.

Another 3D printed healthcare component that does a good job of being undetectable is the hearing aid. It is estimated that 99% of hearing aids manufactured are made with the use of additive manufacturing, and it's clear to see why.
Dental
In the dental industry, we see molds for clear aligners being possibly the most 3D printed objects in the world. Currently, the molds are 3D printed with both resin and powder based 3D printing processes, but also via material jetting. Crowns and dentures are already directly 3D printed, along with surgical guides.
Bio-printing
As of the early two-thousands 3D printing technology has been studied by biotech firms and academia for possible use in tissue engineering applications where organs and body parts are built using inkjet techniques. Layers of living cells are deposited onto a gel medium and slowly built up to form three dimensional structures. We refer to this field of research with the term: bio-printing.

Food

Additive manufacturing invaded the food industry long time ago. Restaurants like Food Ink and Melisse use this as a unique selling point to attract customers from across the world.

Education

Educators and students have long been using 3D printers in the classroom. 3D printing enables students to materialize their ideas in a fast and affordable way.

While additive manufacturing-specific degrees are fairly new, universities have long been using 3D printers in other disciplines. There are many educational courses one can take to engage with 3D printing. Universities offer courses on things that are adjacent to 3D printing like CAD and 3D design, which can be applied to 3D printing at a certain stage.

In terms of prototyping, many university programs are turning to printers. There are specializations in additive manufacturing one can attain through architecture or industrial design degrees. Printed prototypes are also very common in the arts, animation and fashion studies as well.

Types of 3D Printing Technologies and Processes

Below we discuss six types of 3D printing. These are:

Vat Photopolymerisation

A 3D printer based on the Vat Photopolymerisation method has a container filled with photopolymer resin. The resin is hardened with a UV light source.
Stereolithography (SLA)
SLA was invented in 1986 by Charles Hull, who also at the time founded the company, 3D Systems. Stereolithography employs a vat of liquid curable photopolymer resin and an ultraviolet laser to build the object's layers one at a time. For each layer, the laser beam traces a cross-section of the part pattern on the surface of the liquid resin. Exposure to the ultraviolet laser light cures and solidifies the pattern traced on the resin and fuses it to the layer below.

After the pattern has been traced, the SLA's elevator platform descends by a distance equal to the thickness of a single layer, typically 0.05 mm to 0.15 mm (0.002″ to 0.006″). Then, a resin-filled blade sweeps across the cross section of the part, re-coating it with fresh material. On this new liquid surface, the subsequent layer pattern is traced, joining the previous layer. Depending on the object & print orientation, SLA often requires the use of support structures.
Digital Light Processing (DLP)
DLP or Digital Light Processing refers to a method of printing that makes use of light and photosensitive polymers. While it is very similar to SLA, the key difference is the light source. DLP utilizes other light sources like arc lamps. DLP is relatively quick compared to other 3D printing technologies.

Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP)

CLIP is a proprietary 3D printing technology developed by Carbon. CLIP uses an oxygen-permeable window which creates a "dead zone" (a thin liquid interface) of uncured resin between the window and the object. This prevents the part from adhering to the bottom of the print basin. This technology allows for a continuous printing process, which significantly speeds up production.

Material Jetting

In this process, material is applied in droplets through a small diameter nozzle, similar to the way a common inkjet paper printer works, but it is applied layer-by-layer to a build platform and then hardened by UV light.

Binder Jetting

With Binder Jetting two materials are used: powder base material and a liquid binder. In the build chamber, powder is spread in equal layers and binder is applied through jet nozzles that "glue" the powder particles in the required shape. After the print is finished, the remaining powder is cleaned off which often can be re-used printing the next object. This technology was first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993.

Material Extrusion
Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)
FDM works using a plastic filament which is unwound from a spool and is supplied to an extrusion nozzle which can turn the flow on and off. The nozzle is heated to melt the material and can be moved in both horizontal and vertical directions by a numerically controlled mechanism. The object is produced by extruding melted material to form layers as the material hardens immediately after extrusion from the nozzle.

FDM was invented by Scott Crump in the late 80's. After patenting this technology he started the company Stratasys in 1988.
Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)
The exactly equivalent term, Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), was coined by the members of the RepRap project to give a phrase that would be legally unconstrained in its use.

Powder Bed Fusion
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)
SLS uses a high power laser to fuse small particles of powder into a mass that has the desired three dimensional shape. The laser selectively fuses powder by first scanning the cross-sections (or layers) on the surface of a powder bed. After each cross-section is scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer thickness. Then a new layer of material is applied on top and the process is repeated until the object is completed.
Multi Jet Fusion (MJF)
Multi Jet Fusion technology was developed by Hewlett Packard and works with a sweeping arm which deposits a layer of powder and then another arm equipped with inkjets which selectively applies a binder agent over the material. The inkjets also deposit a detailing agent around the binder to ensure precise dimensionality and smooth surfaces. Finally, the layer is exposed to a burst of thermal energy that causes the agents to react.
Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS)
DMLS is basically the same as SLS, but uses metal powder instead. All unused powder remains as it is and becomes a support structure for the object. Unused powder can be re-used for the next print.

Due to of increased laser power, DMLS has evolved into a laser melting process. Read more about that and other metal technologies on our metal technologies overview page.

Directed Energy Deposition

This process is mostly used in the metal industry and in rapid manufacturing applications. The 3D printing apparatus is usually attached to a multi-axis robotic arm and consists of a nozzle that deposits metal powder or wire on a surface and an energy source (laser, electron beam or plasma arc) that melts it, forming a solid object.

Materials

Multiple materials can be used in additive manufacturing: plastics, metals, concrete, ceramics, paper and certain edibles (e.g. chocolate). Materials are often produced in wire feedstock a.k.a. filament, powder form or liquid resin. Learn more about materials on our materials category.

Services

Looking to implement 3D printing in your production process? Get a quote for a custom part or order samples on our 3D print service page.

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What is 3D printing? How does a 3D printer work? Learn 3D printing

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Learn how to 3D print. 3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file.

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this article contain some information that could be helpful for people who are just learning about 3D printing

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Now that 3D printers are cheaper to produce, experts predict it won't be long before they are common in our homes. Even today, more companies realise the potential for 3D-printed applications in their own businesses. Since the technology moved from the theoretical to the real, people are expanding the boundaries of what's possible to print from very practical applications for manufacturing and medical devices to those just for fun. Here are just a few of the amazing real-world examples of 3D printing in 2018.

What is 3D printing?
3D printing had its start in the 1980s when Chuck Hull designed and printed a small cup. Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D-printed objects are created from a digital file and a printer that lays down successive layers of material until the object is complete. Each layer is a thinly sliced cross-section of the actual object. It uses less material than traditional manufacturing. Most materials used in 3D printing are thermoplastics-a type of plastic that becomes liquid when heated but will solidify when cool and not be weakened. However, as the technology matures, researchers are finding new materials-even edible-that can be 3D printed.
Prosthetic limbs and other body parts
From vets who have made a 3D-printed mask to help a dog recover from severe facial injuries to surgical guides, prosthetic limbs and models of body parts, the applications for 3D printing to impact medical strategies is vast. In an experiment conducted by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, a mouse with 3D-printed ovaries gave birth to healthy pups which could bode well for human interventions after more research is done.
Homes and other buildings
In less than 24 hours, a 400-square-foot house was constructed in a suburb of Moscow with 3D printing technology. The possibilities for quickly erecting houses and other structures with 3D printing are intriguing when time is critical such as to create emergency shelters for areas after a natural disaster. Additionally, the potential for new architectural visions to be realised, that weren't previously possible with current manufacturing methods will lead to design innovations. An entire two-storey house was 3D printed from concrete in Beijing in just 45 days from start to finish. Researchers from Germany even 3D-printed a house of glass -currently only available in miniature size-but they were the first to figure out how to 3D print with glass.
Edible 3D-printing
When you think about traditional cake decorating techniques-pushing frosting through a tip to create designs-it's very similar to the 3D printing application process where material is pushed through a needle and formed one layer at a time. Just as it's done with 3D plastic printing, a chocolate 3D printer starts with a digital design that is sliced by a computer programme to create layers; then the object will be created layer by layer. Since chocolate hardens quickly at room temperature, it's an ideal edible material for 3D printing, but companies have printed other edible creations from ice cream, cookie dough, marzipan and even hamburger patties.
Firearms
Defence Distributed was the first to create a 3D-printed firearm in 2013 called the Liberator. While there are 3D printers that can use metal, they are very expensive, so the Liberator was printed using plastic. The advances of 3D technology and the ability to print your own firearm from home has raised questions about how to address the technology in gun control regulations.
Manufacturing
There are many applications across several industries including automotive, aerospace and more for 3D printing in manufacturing from printing replacement parts of machinery and prototyping new products (with the added benefit of recycling the models after you're done) to creating moulds and jigs to improve the efficiency of the production process. The bodies of electric vehicles and other cars have been 3D printed. Manufacturers can use 3D printing to lower costs and produce products quicker.
Musical instruments
From an incredible 3Dvarius, inspired by a Stradivarius violin, to flutes and banjos, several musical instruments and parts of instruments such as mouthpieces have been created using a 3D printer. In fact, the world's first live concert with a 3D-printed band (drum, keyboard, and two guitars) took place at Lund University in Sweden.
Anything your mind can imagine
The extraordinary thing about 3D printing is that it can be used to create just about anything your mind can conjure up. It just requires the digital file and the right material. While experts are still troubleshooting how to incorporate 3D printing processes into all areas, weekend warriors are finding all kinds of clever hacks to create with their 3D printers including trash cans, cup holders, electric outlet plates and more.

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7 Amazing Real-World Examples Of 3D Printing

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Now that 3D printers are cheaper to produce, experts predict it won't be long before they are common in our homes. Even today, more companies realise the potential for 3D-printed applications in their own businesses.

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The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to 3D Printing - Part 1

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Introduction: 3D Printing Basics

A 3D Printer is a manufacturing tool used to create three-dimensional artifacts that have been designed on a computer. 3D printers have a wide range of shapes, sizes, and types, but in essence they are all computer controlled additive manufacturing machines. Similar to how paper printers lay down ink in one layer to create an image, 3D printers lay down or cure material layer by layer to create a three-dimensional object.

3D printers have a huge range of applications; designers use them to test out product ideas, manufacturing companies use them to make complicated parts for assemblies, and makers use them for DIY fabrication for anything they can imagine. Although the different types and uses of 3D printers vary widely, all 3D printers can be simply described as tools; they allow people to make things that they weren't able to make before.

From this guide you will learn what 3D printers are, how they work, when they should be used, and how to design for them and use them. I'll also provide some resources on purchasing printers and 3D printing services. Once you're through it, hopefully you'll be able to print some things yourself!

Step 1: What Is 3D Printing?

3D printers as machines fall under a couple different categories. They are controlled by a computer, making them CNC, or Computer Numerical Controlled, machines. Because of the way that 3D printers work, they are referred to as additive manufacturing machines. Instead of the machine cutting or drilling parts out of a block of raw material to form a certain shape (subtractive manufacturing), 3D printers add material bit by bit to form their work, making them additive manufacturing machines. To sum everything up, this means that 3D printers are machines controlled by computers that add material to create a shape that you tell it to create.

Compared to other CNC industrial machines, 3D printers are inefficient because they take on the scale of hours to make parts, while other machines, like injection molding machines, can produce stronger, more durable parts in minutes. Different 3D printers have different drawbacks and benefits, but most 3D printers produce relatively weak, small parts because of the way the parts are created. So why use 3D printing?

3D printers can be very inexpensive, so they allow anyone who has one to make anything very easily. They let designers go straight from ideas to reality, they allow for rapid iteration on designs, and they can create complicated geometries without much difficulty. In short, with just the push of a button, you can create whatever you imagine.

Step 2: Rapid Prototyping

Unlike most other CNC machines, 3D printers have very minimal associated setup costs or procedures. 3D printers can be used to produce custom designed parts relatively quickly and cheaply, making 3D printers one of the best rapid prototyping tools. Larger scale manufacturing machines may require precisely machined molds or fixtures for each new part, which means that they have more setup costs and steps required to produce content; they are set up to make hundreds or thousands of specific parts over and over again. Using a 3D printer, a part can be cheaply designed and made, and then its design can be modified, printed, and tested multiple times in rapid succession before the part reaches full scale production.

Step 3: Intricate Geometries

3D printing is a hands-off manufacturing process; just by pressing a button, whatever you design will be made. Other manufacturing methods, like the drill press, lathe, or milling machine, need to be operated by the maker. The workpiece needs to be aligned, measured, and machined by the user, which introduces human error into the making of the part. 3D printers, because of the way that they create parts, can make many parts with intricate geometries, including natural shapes like prosthetic limbs or animal models, or more complicated shapes like polyhedra or scale building replicas. 3D printers open up a lot of opportunity to makers just because they allow people to make things they feasibly couldn't before.

Step 4: Customized Content

As explained previously, 3D designs can be easily changed on the computer and then re-printed. This means that files can be customized for certain people or things, and printed easily, with no change to the setup of the machine. Being able to create personalized content is valuable for both small-scale manufacturing and for makers, because it allows them to create designs for specific people, or even produce designs that others give them. Personalized jewelry, custom fit prosthetics, and even 3D scans of people can be printed and modified to suit the end recipient.

Step 5: How Does 3D Printing Work?

To understand more specifically how 3D printers work and how to design for them, you'll need to understand the different types of 3D printers on the market. Although the materials and methods with which parts are created varies widely, all 3D printers construct parts by adding material layer by layer, fusing each layer together to make a solid object.

There are a couple different types of 3D printing processes: some are more well suited for larger scale manufacturing, others allow for multiple materials or colors during prints, and some types of printers can even be built fairly easily because of the way that they work. I've included the most common types of 3D printers in this guide, there are a few other types of printers out there, but for the most part they stem from the following four.

Step 9: ​Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)

In the Laminated Object Manufacturing process, a laser or knife is used to cut slices of the 3D model out of sheets of material. Each sheet of material is pulled over the previous sheet and cut out by the cutting tool, and then glue is laid down so that the next sheet will adhere to it. The printer thus generates stacks of sheet material cut out and fused together. Because LOM printers consist of stacks of paper, the paper can be printed on (in 2D) before used on the machine, meaning that these printers can actually be used to create colored 3D printed artifacts.

These printers have very low production costs because the raw materials are just reams of paper or plastic. They have the benefit of printing flexible, strong parts because of the material properties of the sheets. While the parts are strong, they are just stacks of paper, so they tend to wear easily and small part features can easily be peeled open. LOM machines are best at creating large parts with minimal small details. Each print requires a lot of post-processing to remove the part from the rest of the material. These printers usually generate a lot of waste because each part needs to be dug out of stacks of paper and the geometries of the parts created are restricted due to the way parts are manufactured.

Step 11: Part Orientation

When designing for 3D printing, there are a few design guidelines and constraints that should be followed, as there are for any manufacturing process. One of the most important considerations during the design process involves designing with a build face in mind. All printers start building the part from the print bed, so remembering what face the part is being printed from is important. While determining optimal part orientation is slightly different on all printers, designing to optimize that orientation will minimize material usage, print time, and risk of print failure.
Reducing Print Time and Support Material
By orienting your part well, you can reduce the amount of support material needed, which can minimize material and print time. Support material can be hard to remove and creates a rough surface finish, which isn't the best if you want your part to look like a finished product. In order to remove the effects of the support material, parts need to be polished and sanded down, which may affect the tolerances of your part if it is interfacing with something else.
Part Strength
On most desktop printers, parts usually tend to break along cross-sections of the part that are parallel to the build plate. Material is laid down or cured layer by layer, and the layers don't fuse as well as they do in higher end printers, creating seams along the cross-sections of the part. This means that parts can shear easily along those planes if force is applied. If you know how and where force will be applied to your part, orient your part such that the direction of force is not along those cross-sectional planes.
Build Adhesion
On most printers, primarily FDM machines, the 3D printed parts stick to the build plate as they are printing, and a very small contact area may result in the part falling off the build plate. The side of your part has the most surface area on the same plane is usually the side you'll want to print on, although this can change depending on the features of a given printer.

Step 12: Overhangs and Arches

As I mentioned previously, most printers require printed support structures to hold up flat overhanging features of their parts. Because material is laid down layer by layer, most printers (primarily FDM and SLA printers) can handle up to about 45 degrees of overhang from the horizontal without requiring supports, and can also create features like vertical holes or round arches with minimal drooping. To avoid support material, note where the flat or low-angle overhangs are and either re-orient the part or make sure that they are supported by other part features, like angled overhangs or arches.

Step 13: Interfacing With Other Parts

Most 3D printers involve the heating and melting of plastic or resin, so parts tend to shrink slightly when they cool down. This means that printing parts like gears, sliders, or holders that will interface with other objects can be tricky.
Tolerances
If you are designing a part that will fit into or around something else, make sure you leave some clearance tolerance between the two parts. This tolerance will depend upon the printer you are using, so you may want to print out a few test pieces to try out the fit.
Holes
On many 3D printers, holes are never going to be as precise as they would be if you drilled or reamed them out. This is because the shrinking of the parts alters the size of the part slightly, and also because usually a cartesian-based printer is being used to make a circular hole. To ensure precise holes on your parts, design the hole to be slightly undersized (by a few thousandths of an inch) and then use a reamer to drill out the hole to the right size.
Threads
When designing parts that screws or nuts will screw onto, don't print the threads, because the tolerances may not be able to make them as precise as the threads on the components. To fix a screw to a 3D printed part, make the hole slightly smaller than the thread diameter of the component and tap the hole after the print is finished.
Part Corrosion
Most 3D printers use plastic that have relatively low melting points because the plastic needs to be feasibly heated and safe when hot. This is why ABS and PLA are commonly used for FDM machines. However, a low melting point means that they corrode very easily with applied friction. SLA printers usually produce very brittle parts because of the type of resin they require. 3D printed parts are usually not well suited for high speed or high force situations because features tend to rub off after a while, or parts break. Sliding, spinning, or moving parts will work when 3D printed, but will wear down.

Step 14: Related Technologies

CNC Machines
3D printers fall under a category of machines called "Computer Numerical Control" (CNC) Machines. CNC machines are machinces whose operations are controlled by a computer. The machine controller gives the machine a CAD file, and the machine goes through a series of operations to create that object. CNC machines are usually much more precise and reliable than human-operated machines. 3D printers are additive manufacturing CNC machines because they are computer controlled and they add material to create a part. Other machines, like mills and lathes, are subtractive manufacturing machines because they remove material to make parts, just how you would cut up a piece of paper to make a shape.
Laser Cutters
Laser Cutters, like 3D printers, are another type of rapid prototyping CNC technology. Laser Cutters are very quick, efficient tools that use lasers to cut or etch flat material based on two dimensional CAD drawings. They can be used to make functional prototypes out of wood, plastic, and sometimes metal, among other materials, and can also be used to make works of art because of their rastering capabilities.
3D Scanners
A 3D scanner is another piece of technology that usually goes hand in hand with 3D printing. 3D scanners generate 3D CAD models of real world objects. To scan objects, 3D scanners map points on the object to distances from the scanner, and can thus generate a 3D representation of the object, which can be 3D printed or used for more design work.

Step 15: Resources

Desktop Printers Industrial Printers

Wide range of many different sizes and types of industrial 3D printers

One of the first 3D printing companies, still produces high quality industrial printers

Solidscape: Creates 3D printers primarily for medical and mold making applications

3D Printing Services 3D Model Sites

Thingiverse: A great site to share and find 3D printable designs

MyMiniFactory:A site where you can buy and sell 3D printable designs

Shapeways: Purchase parts that others have made via Shapeways

Free 3D Design Software
Tinkercad:A very simple, free CAD program designed to create and print 3D content.
3D Printing News and Resources:

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3D Printing Basics: A 3D Printer is a manufacturing tool used to create three-dimensional artifacts that have been designed on a computer. 3D printers have a wide range of shapes, sizes, and types, but in essence they are all computer controlled additive manufacturing ...