3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material.3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other additive manufacturing technologies. 3D printers offer product developers the ability to print parts and assemblies made of several materials with different mechanical and physical properties in a single build process. Advanced 3D printing technologies yield models that can serve as product prototypes.Standard applications include design visualization, prototyping/CAD, metal casting, architecture, education, geospatial, healthcare and entertainment/retail. Other applications would include reconstructing fossils in paleontology, replicating ancient and priceless artifacts in archaeology, reconstructing bones and body parts in forensic pathology and reconstructing heavily damaged evidence acquired from crime scene investigations.
More recently, the use of 3D printing technology for artistic expression has been suggested.Artists have been using 3D printers in various ways.
3D printing technology is currently being studied by biotechnology firms and academia for possible use in tissue engineering applications where organs and body parts are built using inkjet techniques. Layers of living cells are deposited onto a gel medium and slowly built up to form three dimensional structures. Several terms have been used to refer to this field of research: organ printing, bio-printing, and computer-aided tissue engineering, among others.3D printing can produce a personalized hip replacement in one pass, with the ball permanently inside the socket, and even at current printing resolutions the unit will not require polishing.
The use of 3D scanning technologies allow the replication of real objects without the use of molding techniques, that in many cases can be more expensive, more difficult, or too invasive to be performed; particularly with precious or delicate cultural heritage artifacts where the direct contact of the molding substances could harm the surface of the original object.
There have been several, often related, efforts to develop 3D printers suitable for desktop use, and to make this technology available at price points affordable to many individual end-users. Much of this work was driven by and targeted to DIY/enthusiast/early adopter communities, with links to both the academic and hackercommunities.
RepRap is a project that aims to produce a FOSS 3D printer, whose full specifications are released under the GNU General Public License, that can copy some part of itself (the printed parts). As of November 2010, the RepRap can only print plastic parts. Research is under way to enable the device to print circuit boards too, as well as metal parts. The average price of a RepRap printer is about 400 euro.
3D printer kits can also be obtained. Kits exist for Thing-O-Matic, Ultimaker, and Shapercube 3D printers.Prices of these printers are about 1500 euro.
The MakerBot is an open source 3D printer from MakerBot Industries.MakerBot Thing-O-Matic
Fab Home is an open source personal injection printer developed at Cornell University, designed for printing food and many other materials.
