3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer control, with the material being added together (e.g. plastics, liquids, or powder grains being fused), typically layer by layer.
In the 1980s, 3D printing techniques were considered suitable only for the production of functional or aesthetic prototypes, and a more appropriate term for it at the time was rapid prototyping. , the precision, repeatability, and material range of 3D printing have increased to the point that some 3D printing processes are considered viable as an industrial-production technology; in this context, 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 that would be otherwise infeasible to construct by hand, including hollow parts or parts with internal truss structures to reduce weight while creating less material waste. Fused deposition modeling (FDM), which uses a continuous filament of a thermoplastic material, is the most common 3D printing process in use .
Terminology The umbrella term additive manufacturing (AM) gained popularity in the 2000s, inspired by the theme of material being added together (in any of various ways). In contrast, the term subtractive manufacturing appeared as a retronym for the large family of machining processes with material removal as their common process. The term 3D printing still referred only to the polymer technologies in most minds, and the term AM was more likely to be used in metalworking and end-use part production contexts than among polymer, inkjet, or stereolithography enthusiasts.
By the early 2010s, the terms 3D printing and additive manufacturing evolved senses in which they were alternate umbrella terms for additive technologies, one being used in popular language by consumer-maker communities and the media, and the other used more formally by industrial end-use part producers, machine manufacturers, and global technical standards organizations. Until recently, the term 3D printing has been associated with machines low in price or capability. 3D printing and additive manufacturing reflect that the technologies share the theme of material addition or joining throughout a 3D work envelope under automated control. Peter Zelinski, the editor-in-chief of Additive Manufacturing magazine, pointed out in 2017 that the terms are still often synonymous in casual usage, but some manufacturing industry experts are trying to make a distinction whereby additive manufacturing comprises 3D printing plus other technologies or other aspects of a manufacturing process.
Other terms that have been used as synonyms or hypernyms have included desktop manufacturing, rapid manufacturing (as the logical production-level successor to rapid prototyping), and on-demand manufacturing (which echoes on-demand printing in the 2D sense of printing). The fact that the application of the adjectives rapid and on-demand to the noun manufacturing was novel in the 2000s reveals the long-prevailing mental model of the previous industrial era during which almost all production manufacturing had involved long lead times for laborious tooling development. Today, the term subtractive has not replaced the term machining, instead complementing it when a term that covers any removal method is needed. Agile tooling is the use of modular means to design tooling that is produced by additive manufacturing or 3D printing methods to enable quick prototyping and responses to tooling and fixture needs. Agile tooling uses a cost-effective and high-quality method to quickly respond to customer and market needs, and it can be used in hydroforming, stamping, injection molding and other manufacturing processes.
Although the terms 3D printing and additive manufacturing can both be seen as the same thing, some standards organizations make a distinction between them. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) says that international standards such as IS0/ASTM 52900 define additive manufacturing as the process of building parts from 3D model data and adding material layer by layer. In comparison, 3D printing is described as creating objects by depositing material through a print head or some variation of a nozzle type of device. In industrial and technical settings, additive manufacturing is often the preferred term, and 3D printing is used more by the general public.
History 1940s and 1950s The general concept of and procedure to be used in 3D-printing was first described by Murray Leinster in his 1945 short story "Things Pass By": "But this constructor is both efficient and flexible. I feed magnetronic plastics — the stuff they make houses and ships of nowadays — into this moving arm. It makes drawings in the air following drawings it scans with photo-cells. But plastic comes out of the end of the drawing arm and hardens as it comes ... following drawings only".M. Leinster, Things Pass By, in The Earth In Peril (D. Wollheim ed.). Ace Books 1957, USA, List of Ace SF double titles D-205, p.25, story copyright 1945, by Standard Magazines Inc.
It was also described by Raymond F. Jones in his story, "Tools of the Trade", published in the November 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. He referred to it as a "molecular spray" in that story.
1970s On 27 July 1971, Johannes F Gottwald received U.S. patent 3596285A for the "Liquid Metal Recorder", after applying on 11 July 1969 a continuous inkjet metal material device to form a removable metal fabrication on a reusable surface for immediate use or salvaged for printing again by remelting. This appears to be the first patent describing 3D printing with rapid prototyping and controlled on-demand manufacturing of patterns.
The patent states:
In 1974, David E. H. Jones laid out the concept of 3D printing in his regular column Ariadne in the journal New Scientist.
1980s Early additive manufacturing equipment and materials were developed in the 1980s.
In April 1980, Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute invented two additive methods for fabricating three-dimensional plastic models with photo-hardening thermoset polymer, where the UV exposure area is controlled by a mask pattern or a scanning fiber transmitter.Hideo Kodama, " Background of my invention of 3D printer and its spread", Patent Magazine of Japan Patent Attorneys Association, vo.67, no.13, pp.109-118, November 2014. He filed a patent for this XYZ plotter, which was published on 10 November 1981. (JP S56-144478). His research results as journal papers were published in April and November 1981. However, there was no reaction to the series of his publications. His device was not highly evaluated in the laboratory and his boss did not show any interest. His research budget was just 60,000 yen or $545 a year. Acquiring the patent rights for the XYZ plotter was abandoned, and the project was terminated.
A US 4323756 patent, method of fabricating articles by sequential deposition, granted on 6 April 1982 to Raytheon Technologies Corp describes using hundreds or thousands of "layers" of powdered metal and a laser energy source and represents an early reference to forming "layers" and the fabrication of articles on a substrate.
On 2 July 1984, American entrepreneur Bill Masters filed a patent for his computer automated manufacturing process and system (US 4665492). This filing is on record at the USPTO as the first 3D printing patent in history; it was the first of three patents belonging to Masters that laid the foundation for the 3D printing systems used today.
On 16 July 1984, Alain Le Méhauté, Olivier de Witte, and Jean Claude André filed their patent for the stereolithography process. The application of the French inventors was abandoned by the French General Electric Company (now Alcatel-Alsthom) and CILAS (The Laser Consortium). The claimed reason was "for lack of business perspective".
In 1983, Robert Howard started R.H. Research (later named Howtek, Inc. in February 1984) to develop Pixelmaster, a color inkjet 2D printer using Thermoplastic (hot-melt) plastic ink, which was commercialized in 1986. A team was put together, 6 members from Exxon Office Systems, Danbury Systems Division, an inkjet printer startup and some members of Howtek, Inc group who became popular figures in the 3D printing industry. One Howtek member was Richard Helinski, responsible for patent US5136515A ("Method and Means for constructing three-dimensional articles by particle deposition", application 7 November 1989 granted 4 August 1992). He formed C.A.D-Cast, Inc (later renamed to Visual Impact Corporation (VIC) on 22 August 1991), a New Hampshire company. The company's prototype VIC 3D printer is available with a video presentation showing a 3D model printed with a single nozzle inkjet. Another employee, Herbert Menhennett, formed HM Research, a New Hampshire company, in 1991 and introduced the Howtek, Inc, inkjet technology and thermoplastic materials to Royden Sanders of SDI and Bill Masters of Ballistic Particle Manufacturing (BPM), where he worked for a number of years. Both BPM 3D printers and SPI 3D printers use Howtek, Inc style Inkjets and materials. James K. McMahon, who was hired by Howtek, Inc to help develop the inkjet, later worked at Sanders Prototype and now operates Layer Grown Model Technology, a 3D service provider specializing in Howtek single nozzle inkjet and SDI printer support. McMahon worked with Steven Zoltan, inventor of the 1972 drop-on-demand inkjet at Exxon and holder of a 1978 patent that expanded the understanding of the single nozzle design inkjets (Alpha jets), to help perfect the Howtek, Inc hot-melt inkjets. This Howtek hot-melt thermoplastic technology is popular with metal investment casting, especially in the 3D printing jewelry industry. Royden Sanders licensed the Helinksi patent prior to manufacturing the Modelmaker 6 Pro at Sanders prototype, Inc (SPI) in 1993. The first customer of the Modelmaker 6Pro was Hitchner Corporations, Metal Casting Technology, Inc in Milford, New Hampshire, a mile from the SDI facility in late 1993–1995 casting golf clubs and auto engine parts.
On 8 August 1984 a patent, US4575330, assigned to UVP, Inc., later assigned to Chuck Hull of 3D Systems Corporation was filed, his own patent for a stereolithography fabrication system, in which individual laminae or layers are added by curing photopolymers with impinging radiation, particle bombardment, chemical reaction or just ultraviolet light lasers. Hull defined the process as a "system for generating three-dimensional objects by creating a cross-sectional pattern of the object to be formed". Hull's contribution was the STL (Stereolithography) file format and the digital slicing and infill strategies common to many processes today. In 1986, Charles "Chuck" Hull was granted a patent for this system, and his company, 3D Systems Corporation was formed and it released the first commercial 3D printer, the SLA-1, later in 1987 or 1988.
The technology used by most 3D printers to date—especially hobbyist and consumer-oriented models—is fused deposition modeling, a special application of plastic extrusion, developed in 1988 by S. Scott Crump and commercialized by his company Stratasys, which marketed its first FDM machine in 1992.
Owning a 3D printer in the 1980s cost upwards of $300,000 ($650,000 in 2016 dollars).
1990s