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3D Printing
Article by: William A. Gruver, School of Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
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A process of making physical objects directly from digital
models, usually layer-by-layer; also known as additive
manufacturing. 3D printing has been hailed as a technol-
ogy that will revolutionize many sectors of industry, medicine,
art, and other fields. As information technology significantly
enhances freedom in the digital world, 3D printing is bringing
this freedom to the physical world by blurring the boundary
between information and physical products (Fig. 1).
Advantages
Throughout human history, manufacturing technology has
often symbolized the level of civilization, from primitive cut-
ting with stones to sophisticated computer numerical control
(CNC) machining. 3D printing brings changes to manufacturing
in two major ways. One way is design freedom. In traditional
manufacturing, because of significant limitations in manufac-
turing capabilities, product designers usually put more thought
into how to make the product than into what the product
does. For example, a hollow ball would be impossible to make
by machining because of geometric constraints of the cutting
tools, so the product designer would have to modify the design
to make it manufacturable. 3D printing, however, can produce
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Key Concepts
• 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a process by which physical objects are produced from models,
usually by depositing materials layer-by-layer.
• Advantages of 3D printing include almost unlimited design freedom, the ability to print parts using multiple materials
or functionally graded materials, and digitization of manufacturing.
• Widely adopted applications of 3D printing include scaled models, prototypes, artwork, jewelry, medical devices, foods,
and medical research.
• The basic steps in 3D printing include CAD modeling, slicing, printing, and postprocessing.
• In general, 3D printers consist of a software system, an electronic system, a motion system, and a printhead system.
• The 3D printing industry consists of six major parties: machine suppliers, content providers, software providers, the
marketplace, customers, and the open-source community.
Fig. 1: Profile view into a 3D printer, which is executing a layer-by-layer deposition process to
print a three-dimensional object
(Credit: iStock.)
