3D printing
3D printing is a process whereby a 3D design is turned into a real object. First, software is used to slice the 3D design into layers, and then the design is printed layer by layer on a 3D printer.
Because each object is built up uniquely, 3D printing is the choice for people and companies who want to make unique and customized items, or small series of objects. In contrast, other processes, such as injection molding are much better at making thousands or millions of copies of something cheaply.
The correct technical term for 3D printing is Additive Manufacturing. However, the public almost exclusively uses the term 3D printing.
applications
Traditionally, 3D printing has been used for concept cars, visual models for consumer electronics, surgical guidesand prototypes. Nowadays, 3D printing is also used for jewelry and fashion design, art, architecture, toys, and interior design.
technologies
There are a number of 3D printing technologies such as Fused Deposition Modeling, Laser Sintering, Stereolithography, Direct Metal Laser Sintering, Polyjet etc. and they all work differently.
how does 3D printing work?
3D printers
More consumers are discovering 3D printing and using 3D printing services and home 3D printers to make gifts, toys, art and much more. Home 3D printers are either desktop 3D printers such as the Objet24, or Kit 3D printers such as the UP!, Makerbot, and Ultimaker. 3D printing services, on the other hand, use high end commercial systems by companies such as 3D Systems, EOS, Objet, Stratasys, Z Corp, Arcam, Layerwise, and Concept Laser.
materials
You can now 3D print in a host of different materials such as ABS plastic, polyamide (nylon), glass filled polyamide, stereolithography materials (epoxy resins), titanium, steel, wax, photopolymers and polycarbonate.
design
Currently you need a 3D design to 3D print. These designs could come from any 3D design software such as Sketch Up, ZBrush, or Rhino. The 3D printers themselves work with the STL file format and this is still the most popular in the industry. However, rest assured we accept a wide variety of file formats in our 3D print lab.
To design an object for 3D printing a number of things must be taken into account such as: manifoldness, water tightness, correct normals, scale and wall thickness. Once again, our 3D print lab comes to the rescue when you upload a file that doesn’t meet thett requirements for a printable file.
3D printing vs mass production
According to Joris Peels, former Community Manager i.materialise, 3D printing will not be used by “everyone to make anything” but rather be used by some to make the things they care about most. Furthermore, he believes that through this path, 3D printing will come to slow down mass production and to slack the heavy burden that mass manufacturing is exacting on our planet. Joris wrote a nice series of blog posts about this topic, which are quite worth reading.