3D Printing
In this page you will find materials to understand essence of 3D printing, its history and future.
3D printing is not as new as people think! Actually, AM (Additive manufacturing) technology became widely known around 2010.
At some point, a lot of people actually thought that FDM was the only additive manufacturing technology. But FDM is not even the first 3D printing technology developed, and 3D printing actually started in the 1980s.
The current situation is that there is a vast need for producing accurate parts from their digital models, because products are designed digitally. Product geometry is getting more complicated every year and now it is the most complicated than ever. However, the production process should be as simple as possible. Many production technologies are available, but none of them is perfect. 3D Printing is making a revolution in manufacturing. The ideal manufacturing process would be fully automatic, very simple to use and as cheap as possible, fulfilling technical and economical requirements. 3D Printing has great chance providing that all.
3D Printing is a manufacturing a process where physical parts are made directly from a 3D CAD model using layer-by-layer material addition technologies.
No special tools are used and the proportion of handicraft is minimal. There is no direct need for part drawings in this process, although they may still be used for additional operations such as quality control. This, in turn, allows errors to be avoided (because the technological chain is shorter) and reduces the amount of human work. The process can be easily managed by computer systems.