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The 3D printing process builds a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design (CAD) model, usually by successively adding material layer by layer, which is why it is also called additive manufacturing. The term "3D printing" covers a variety of processes in which material is joined or solidified under computer control to create a three-dimensional object, with material being added together, typically layer by layer. In the 1990s, 3D-printing techniques were considered suitable only for the production of functional or aesthetic prototypes and a more appropriate term for it was rapid prototyping. As of 2019, the precision, repeatability, and material range have increased to the point that some 3D-printing processes are considered viable as an industrial-production technology, whereby the term additive manufacturing can be used synonymously with "3D printing". One of the key advantages of 3D printing is the ability to produce very complex shapes or geometries, including hollow parts or parts with internal truss structures to reduce weight, and a prerequisite for producing any 3D printed part is a digital 3D model or a CAD file.
The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators world wide. RepRap is short for replicatingrapid prototyper.
3D Systems, headquartered in Rock Hill, South Carolina, is a company that engineers, manufactures and sells 3D printers. Chuck Hull, the CTO and former president, invented stereolithography in 1986. The company creates product concept models, precision and functional prototypes, master patterns for tooling, as well as production parts for direct digital manufacturing. It uses proprietary processes to fabricate physical objects using input from computer-aided design and manufacturing software, or 3D scanning and 3D sculpting devices.
Z Corporation was founded in December 1994 by Marina Hatsopoulos, Walter Bornhorst, James Bredt and Tim Anderson, based on a technology developed at MIT under the direction of Professor Ely Sachs. The Company was sold to Contex Holding in August 2005, and was ultimately acquired by 3D Systems on January 3, 2012.
MakerBot Industries, LLC is an American desktop 3D printer manufacturer company headquartered in New York City. It was founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith to build on the early progress of the RepRap Project. It was acquired by Stratasys in June 2013. As of April 2016, MakerBot has sold over 100,000 desktop 3D printers worldwide. Since 2009, the company has released 6 generations of 3D printers, with the latest being the Replicator+ and Replicator Mini+. It was the leader of the desktop market with an important presence in the media but its market share is in decline. MakerBot also founded and operates Thingiverse, the largest online 3D printing community and file repository.
Materialise NV, headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, is one of the largest and most long-established independent companies in the 3D printing / additive manufacturing sector.
Shapeways is a Dutch-founded, New York-based 3D printing marketplace and service, startup company. Users design and upload 3D printable files, and Shapeways prints the objects for them or others. Users can have objects printed in over 55 materials and finishes, these include: plastics, precious metals, steel and food-safe ceramics, which were discontinued and have been replaced by porcelain materials. As of 2019, Shapeways printed and sold more than ten million user-created objects.
Construction 3D Printing (c3Dp) or 3D construction Printing (3DCP) refers to various technologies that use 3D printing as a core method to fabricate buildings or construction components. Alternative terms are also in use, such as additive construction, Autonomous Robotic Construction System (ARCS), Large scale Additive Manufacturing (LSAM), or Freeform construction (FC), also to refer to sub-groups, such as '3D Concrete', used to refer to concrete extrusion technologies.
Ultimaker is a 3D printer-manufacturing company based in the Netherlands, with offices and assembly line in the US. They make FFF 3D printers, develop 3D printing software, and sell branded 3D printing materials. Their product line includes the Ultimaker S5, Ultimaker 3 series, Ultimaker 2+ series and Ultimaker Original+. These products are used by industries such as automotive, architecture, healthcare, education, and small scale manufacturing.
Formlabs is a 3D printing technology developer and manufacturer. The Somerville, Massachusetts-based company was founded in September 2011 by three MIT Media Lab students. The company develops and manufactures 3D printers and related software and consumables. It is most known for raising nearly $3 million in a Kickstarter campaign and creating the Form 1, Form 1+, Form 2, Form Cell, Form 3, Form 3L, and Fuse 1 stereolithography and selective laser sintering 3D printers.
Fused filament fabrication (FFF), also known under the trademarked term fused deposition modeling (FDM), sometimes also called filament freeform fabrication, is a 3D printing process that uses a continuous filament of a thermoplastic material. Filament is fed from a large coil through a moving, heated printer extruder head, and is deposited on the growing work. The print head is moved under computer control to define the printed shape. Usually the head moves in two dimensions to deposit one horizontal plane, or layer, at a time; the work or the print head is then moved vertically by a small amount to begin a new layer. The speed of the extruder head may also be controlled to stop and start deposition and form an interrupted plane without stringing or dribbling between sections. "Fused filament fabrication" was coined by the members of the RepRap project to give a phrase that would be legally unconstrained in its use, given trademarks covering "fused deposition modeling".
EnvisionTEC is a privately held global company that develops, manufactures and sells more than 40 configurations of desktop and production 3D printers based on seven several distinct process technologies that build objects from digital design files. Founded in 2002, the company now has a corporate headquarters for North America, located in Dearborn, Mich., and International headquarters in Gladbeck, Germany. It also has a production facility in the Greater Los Angeles area, as well as additional facilities in Montreal, for materials research, in Kiev, Ukraine, for software development, and in Woburn, Mass, for robotic 3D printing research and development. Today, the company's 3D Printers are used for mass customized production and to manufacture finished goods, investment casting patterns, tooling, prototypes and more. EnvisionTEC serves a variety of medical, professional and industrial customers. EnvisionTEC has developed large customer niches in the jewelry, dental, hearing aid, medical device, biofabrication and animation industries. EnvisionTEC is one of the few 3D printer companies globally whose products are being used for real production of final end-use parts.
Carbon is a digital manufacturing company founded in 2013 by Joseph and Philip DeSimone, Alex and Nikita Ermoshkin, Edward Samulski, and Steve Nelson. Carbon is based in Redwood City, California. The company manufactures and develops 3D printers utilizing the Continuous Liquid Interface Production process, with its first commercial product being the Carbon M1 printer. The company introduced its proprietary CLIP process on the TED stage in 2015. The Carbon Platform combines software, hardware, and molecular science to deliver manufacturing solutions designed to allow customers to build differentiated products that reduce waste and speed time to market. In April 2017, Adidas announced the first 3D printed midsole developed using Carbon technology.
Aleph Objects, Inc. is a small manufacturing company based in Loveland, Colorado. Their business model focuses around the development of Open-source hardware for 3D printing with full support for Free and open-source software.
The Prusa i3 is an open-source fused deposition modeling 3D printer, manufactured by Czech company Prusa Research. Part of the RepRap project, it is the most used desktop 3D printer for parts ordered through the 3D Hubs fee-for-service business, and in 2016 it was the most used 3D printer in the world. The Prusa i3 was designed by Josef Průša in 2012 with the Prusa i3 MK2 being released in 2016 and the MK2S being released in 2017. The Prusa i3 MK3 was released in September 2017 with significant improvements over the prior models. A subsequent model with additional refinements to the extruder body and filament sensor was released in February 2019 as the Prusa i3 MK3S. The Prusa i3's comparable low cost and ease of construction and modification has made it popular in education and with hobbyists and professionals. Due to the printer being open source there have been many variants produced by companies and individuals worldwide, and like many other RepRap printers the Prusa i3 is capable of printing some of its own parts.
Cura is an open source 3D printer slicing application. It was created by David Braam who was later employed by Ultimaker, a 3D printer manufacturing company, to maintain the software. Cura is available under LGPLv3 license. Cura was initially released under the open source Affero General Public License version 3, but on 28 September 2017 the license was changed to LGPLv3. This change allowed for more integration with third-party CAD applications. Development is hosted on GitHub. Ultimaker Cura is used by over one million users worldwide, handles 1.4 million print jobs per week, and is the preferred 3D printing software for Ultimaker 3D printers, but it can be used with other printers as well.
In recent years, 3D printing has developed significantly and can now perform crucial roles in many applications, with the most important being manufacturing, medicine, architecture, custom art and design.
A variety of processes, equipment, and materials are used in the production of a three-dimensional object via additive manufacturing. 3D printing is also known as additive manufacturing, therefore the numerous available 3D printing process tend to be additive in nature with a few key differences in the technologies and the materials used in this process.
3YOURMIND is a Berlin-based 3D printing software company, founded by Aleksander Ciszek and Stephan Kuehr. The company was launched in 2014.
The Original Prusa MINI is an open-source fused deposition modeling 3D printer that is manufactured by the Czech company Prusa Research. The printer is the lowest cost machine produced by Prusa Research and is designed as a first printer or as part of a 'print farm'.
References
- 1 2 "German RepRap introduces L280, first Liquid Additive Manufacturing (LAM) production-ready 3D printer". 3ders.org. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
- ↑ Davies, Sam (2018-11-02). "German RepRap to present series-ready Liquid Additive Manufacturing system at Formnext". TCT Magazine. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
- ↑ "German RepRap presenting Liquid Additive Manufacturing technology at RAPID+TCT". TCT Magazine. 2017-05-10. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
- ↑ Scott, Clare (2018-11-02). "German RepRap to Present Liquid Additive Manufacturing and L280 3D Printer at Formnext". 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
- ↑ "German RepRap develops new polyurethane material for Liquid Additive Manufacturing". TCT Magazine. 2017-08-02. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
- ↑ "Dow and Dassault collaborate on QUANT-U silicone 3D printed footwear". 3D Printing Media Network. 2019-01-29. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
- ↑ Saunders, Sarah (2017-08-02). "German RepRap Introduces New Polyurethane Material, Developed with ebalta Kunststoff for Liquid Additive Manufacturing Process". 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing. Retrieved 2019-04-13.