History of 3D Printing: It’s Older Than You Are (That Is, If You’re Medically speaking, this was a great

at decade in the history of 3D

Under 30) printing. In just 10 short years, scientists from different institutions
and startups fabricated a functional miniature kidney, built a
prosthetic leg with complex component parts that were printed
within the same structure, and bioprinted the first blood vessels
using only human cells.

This was also the decade where 3D printing met the open-source
movement. In 2005, Dr. Adrian Bowyer’s RepRap Project launched
an open-source initiative to create a 3D printer that could basically
build itself—or at least print most of its own parts. Its 2008 release,
Darwin, is a self-replicating printer that’s able to do just that.
Suddenly, people everywhere had the power to create whatever
What’s 30 years old but looks brand new? Believe it or not, it’s 3D stuff they could dream up on their own. (See also: Kickstarter, which
printing. Yep, additive manufacturing technology has been around launched in 2009 and has since crowdfunded countless 3D-printing-
since the Reagan era. Here’s a brief tour through the history of 3D related projects.)
printing.
By the mid-2000s, the democratization of manufacturing had
1981–1999: The Toddlerhood of Additive Manufacturing captured the public’s imagination, as had the idea of mass
customization (which, unlike jumbo shrimp, is not actually an
In 1981, Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research oxymoron). The first SLS machine became commercially viable in
Institute published his account of a functional rapid prototyping 2006, which opened the door to on-demand manufacturing of
system using photopolymers (more on those in a minute). A solid, industrial parts. 3D-printing startup Objet (now merged with
printed model was built up in layers, each of which corresponded Stratasys) built a machine that could print in multiple materials,
to a cross-sectional slice in the model. Sound familiar? which allowed a single part to be fabricated in different versions,
with different material properties.
Three years later, in 1984, Charles Hull broke new ground by
inventing stereolithography. Stereolithography lets designers The intensely creative innovations of the decade were topped off
create 3D models using digital data, which can then be used to with the launch of collaborative co-creation services such as
create a tangible object. Shapeways, a 3D-printing marketplace where designers can get
feedback from consumers and other designers and then affordably
The key to stereolithography is a kind of acrylic-based material
fabricate their products. As the cherry on top, MakerBot hit the
known as photopolymer. Hit a vat of liquid photopolymer with a UV
scene, providing open-source DIY kits for makers to build their own
laser beam, and the light-exposed portion will instantly turn into
3D printers and products. At this point, the barriers to entry for
solid piece of plastic, molded into the shape of your 3D-model
designers and inventors were falling every day.
design. Needless to say, this new technology was big news to
inventors, who could now theoretically prototype and test their 2011–Present Day: 3D Printing in Its Prime
designs without having to make a huge upfront investment in
manufacturing. Today, looking back over just the past few years, it’s hard not to feel
like we’re living in the future. Coming soon: 3D-printed jetpacks!
In 1992, Bill Clinton played sax on The Arsenio Hall Show—and 3D
Systems (Charles Hull’s company) created the world’s first Well, almost. While the price of 3D printers has fallen rapidly and
stereolithographic apparatus (SLA) machine, which made it possible the accuracy of 3D printing has improved, innovators are pushing
to fabricate complex parts, layer by layer, in a fraction of the time the envelope in ways that Charles Hull could only dream of.
it would normally take. That same year, startup DTM produced the Designers are no longer limited to printing with plastic. Case in
world’s first selective laser sintering (SLS) machine—which shoots a point: You can now print the engagement ring of your dreams using
laser at a powder instead of a liquid. gold or silver. Engineers at the University of Southampton have
flown the world’s first 3D-printed unmanned aircraft, and KOR
These technologies were in their infancy and weren’t perfect; there Ecologic prototyped Urbee, a car with a 3D-printed body that’s built
was some warping in the material as it hardened, and the machines to get 200 mpg on the freeway.
were prohibitively expensive for home inventors, but their
potential was undeniable. Decades later, 3D printing history has That takes us up to the present day—although by the time this
shown that this potential is still unfolding. article is published, there will surely have been countless other
additive manufacturing breakthroughs happening somewhere in
the world. It’s almost impossible to keep up. In the future, our kids
will build art projects with their classroom’s 3D printer, and our
1999–2010: 3D Printing’s Adolescent History
dentist will be able to call in a prescription for a custom-printed set
The lead-up to Y2K was thrilling—not just because, in 1999, the of dentures. In the meantime, I’ll be watching the news and waiting
original Beverly Hills 90210 entered its last season on the air, but for my jetpack.
also because the first 3D-printed organ was implanted in humans.
Three Random, Cool, Unexpected Facts About 3D Printing
Scientists at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine
printed synthetic scaffolds of a human bladder and then coated  NASA is a major proponent of 3D printing—from food to
them with the cells of human patients. The newly generated tissue the first zero-gravity 3D printer in space.
was then implanted into the patients, with little to no chance that
their immune systems would reject them, as they were made of  There’s a 3D printer on the market (the Photonic
their own cells. Professional GT) that can create objects no wider than a
human hair.
  Louis DeRosa used a 3Doodler—the 3D-printing pen made used. Each slice represents a single layer of the constructed object.
famous by netting $2.3 million on Kickstarter—to create a Different printers use different materials and different binding
working hexacopter-framed drone. processes, but generally a powder of ceramic, nylon, or even metal
is used as the base material and fused together into the pattern for
Source: the layer currently being created. After the completion of a layer,
the machine moves on to the next layer until it is completed.
https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/history-of-3d-printing/
For example, Z Corporation printers lay down a full layer of a
composite powder then use an inkjet printer to print the binding
The Future of 3D Printing agent and any color dyes onto the powder. The powder treated
with binding agent solidifies, the rest of the powder remains loose.
Imagine printing a new valve for a broken water faucet or a new Two to four layers are printed per minute and the excess powder
plate when your five-year-old drops the good dishes. Imagine not just falls off and can be reused in the next print job.
being limited by commercial pipe sizes or designs requiring
individual pieces that can be fit together by current commercial Desktop Factory printers use a slightly different approach. Powder
equipment. Imagine custom creating every gift given to each friend is applied to a roller and a halogen lamp etches the pattern for a
or family member to incorporate favorite song lyrics, literary single layer onto this coating. When the layer is complete, it’s rolled
quotations, inside jokes, or photographs. This world isn’t yet a off into a build area, the roller is cleaned, and the process begins
reality, but it’s getting closer every day thanks to advancements in again for the next layer. Layers are joined in the build area using
the field of rapid prototyping and 3-dimensional printing. heat and pressure.

Introduction Shapeways, an on-demand 3-D printing service aimed more at

consumers than manufacturers, supports several different types of
Traditional fabrication methods involve a great deal of effort, printing processes. Some of their parts are built using selective laser
expense, and time. Specialists often have to create individualized sintering (also called SLS), a process similar to the one used by Z
molds, assemble multiple components, and construct items from Corporation but using lasers to fuse powders together rather than
multiple pieces. The process can involve many different materials, binder applied by inkjet technology. Other objects are built using
a wide variety of highly trained workers, and several expensive trials fused deposition modeling (also called FDM) which involves
before the perfect object is finally created. extruding material through a nozzle onto a support structure that is
later removed or dissolved. They also use a third printing method
Rapid prototyping and 3-dimensional printing remove some of the
called Objet. Objet is a proprietary process; its details are not
time and expense from the process of creating new commercial and
publicly available but Shapewaysdoes reveal that it involves lasers
industrial objects. Instead of utilizing a factory to create a sample
and a photo polymer.
for testing, self-contained printers create items from three-
dimensional CAD drawings. These items are printed one layer at a There are several other methods of this type of layer-by-layer rapid
time, permitting more creativity and control over the final shape prototyping, and more are being developed all the time.
than any other construction method. Printing is also faster, cutting
the creation process down from days or weeks to mere hours for Regardless of the physical printing process, 3-D printing generally
most items. begin from CAD drawings that are sliced into layers that act as
templates for printing. Depending on the printer or service used,
History there may be software that does this slicing automatically or the
user may be responsible for creating each layer (generally speaking,
Rapid prototyping is not a new technology. Professor Herbert
the process is automated in higher end models and manually
Voelker (then at the University of Rochester, now at Cornell
performed for open source or less expensive printers).
University) began considering ways to take the output from
computer designs and use them in some of the automated Some printers or on-demand services incorporate more user-
machinist tools just starting to appear in factories in the late 1960s. friendly design interfaces that don’t require extensive knowledge of
His efforts resulted in the first real mathematical models and CAD drawing systems. This is often accomplished by restricting the
algorithms for describing three dimensional parts. His work is the design elements or feeding user chosen options into basic designs
basis for most design tools used today and made rapid prototyping created for them by experts. For example, Shapeways creates its
possible. Lightpoems with one basic design adjusted for specific text input by
each customer. Specialty printers lower the bar further by getting
The next step involved a series of tools and machines that tried to
data from outside sources such as a gaming world or geographic
automate object creation by cutting away at a solid mass of metal
databases requiring little input from the customer beyond a simple
or other material based on a preset 3-dimensional design. This
definition of the desired data (the name of a character, the
method continued to be popular (with mixed results) through the
coordinates of a location, selecting a location from a provided map,
1970s and early 1980s. Then in the mid-80s. University of Texas
etc.).
researcher Carl Deckard came up with the idea of printing objects
layer by layer. The first commercial rapid prototyping machines Different options may be available for different users with different
using this layering technique were produced in 1987 by 3D Systems backgrounds. For example, all Z Corp printers include software for
and unveiled to the public at the AUTOFACT trade show in Detroit designing models, software for slicing existing CAD drawings into
in November of that year. This technique is still in use today, layers, and software that allows medical personnel with little
although it has been refined considerably. computer training to convert 3-dimensional medical scans into
designs for 3-D models.
How Does 3-D Printing Work?
The State of 3-D Printing Today
The basic concept behind all 3-D printers is the same. 3-dimensional
CAD drawings are sliced into layers ranging from approximately 3-D printing and rapid prototyping have become more and more
0.09 to 0.25 millimeters thick depending on the machine being prominent in the past few years as new materials and processes
have expanded the capabilities and lowered the cost to the point There is certainly a market for customized keepsakes and 3-D
where small businesses and even individual consumers can now printing can take that industry to new heights. Shapeways is already
afford to create their own 3-dimensional objects. There’s even an marketing several basic designs of customized keepsakes using
open source 3-D printer designed by Carnegie Mellon that can be either personalized text or photographs supplied by the customer.
built at home for only $2,400. Will we reach a time when all of our personal items are customized
to exact user specifications? Perhaps not, but some people feel
3-D printing is moving from a prototyping system to a we’re headed in that direction. There may come a time when
manufacturing system in some industries. For example, the UK- choosing new cutlery doesn’t involve selecting a pattern at the
based Atkins Project is investigating the use of 3-D printers to store but designing it on your computer and printing out the
manufacture lightweight, aerodynamic parts for aircraft that resulting pieces. One day we may dial up just the right level of edge
cannot be produced through more conventional methods. This for a child starting to use sharp knives, build customized ergonomic
manufacturing method also has the advantage of efficient use of handles that fit each individual’s hands perfectly (perhaps color
materials; scraps of titanium and other expensive materials that coded for easy identification), or shape spoon bowls to generate
would otherwise be unusable with traditional manufacturing the perfect mouthful every time.
methods can be reused with 3-D printing.
Another area of growth in the 3-D printing arena is replacement
Companies are offering specialized custom printing services aimed parts production. Need a new screw for your laptop? A new gear
at niche users. For example, 3D Outlook Corporation offers 3- for your heirloom grandfather clock? A new piston for your car?
dimensional topographical mapsaimed at hikers, real estate Instead of trying to track down the part, pay for shipping, and
moguls, resorts, and others. Several new companies print models waiting weeks for its arrival, you’ll just be able to print it out and go.
of avatars designed for various online games and virtual worlds. Mechanics will keep specs for every part of every car ever sold in a
Although no longer available, there was even a service that let kids database and print out whatever they need immediately with no
design and print their own superhero figures. In a similar vein, in difficulty. While it would save time and money for any part, it’s a
addition to their customized design uploads, Shapeways specializes particular boon for restoration jobs of all kinds where the original
in customized designs of memorabilia for a slightly older crowd; one parts are extremely difficult to find or may not even exist anymore.
of their best sellers is the Lightpoem, a poem or other quote printed
in a cylinder surrounding a LED candle. Another intriguing area is customized food production. Evil Mad
Scientist Laboratories has created a low cost, low resolution
Medical applications of 3-D printing are also starting to appear, capable of printing models made from ordinary granulated sugar.
although they are still in the very early stages. These applications We could soon see edible centerpieces, customized candy gifts,
are surprisingly varied. For example, surgeons at Walter Reed novelty lollipops customized for gift shops attached to tourist
Medical Center are starting to use 3-D printers to create practice attractions, or chocolate sculptures rivaling the most complex ice
models for complex surgeries. The designs for the models are based sculptures out there. It’s unclear exactly how far we could go with
on images from CT scans and exactly model the bodies of specific printed food and if it will ever move out of the novelty area, but
patients. More generic models are being used to explain specific certainly an area to watch in the future.
procedures to patients who may have trouble following technical
jargon without a visual aid. 3-D printing is even beginning to make Q: Where do you see the industry going over the next five years?
inroads into the prosthetic industry. The University of Tokyo A: (CL) As I have mentioned before materials and new applications
Hospital recently completed a small test project that created will continue to evolve as people become more familiar with the
artificial bones using 3-D printing and plastic surgeons are using 3-capability and the manufacturers harvest some of the materials
D printers to create masks of faces requiring prosthetic noses or investments they are making. Rapid manufacturing – one of the
ears so patients don’t have to endure plaster casting over their types of additive fabrication but for end use parts – will grow
faces. dramatically during this timeframe. I hope we see several new
options for creating a good solid object modeling file like low cost
The Future of 3-D Printing scanners and computer programs that will translate pictures into
3-D printing is moving in several directions at this time and all files. Pricing will also come down somewhat during this timeframe.
indications are that it will continue to expand in many areas in the We will undoubtedly see more medical use at the higher end of the
future. Some of the most promising areas include medical spectrum and more creative uses in the DIY area.
applications, custom parts replacement, and customized consumer A: (SH) The two major trends appear to be direct digital
products. As materials improve and costs go down, other manufacturing and the democratization of 3D data. Instead of
applications we can barely imagine today will become possible. making a prototype, there are some applications where the 3D
Perhaps the greatest area of potential growth for 3-D printing is in printed products can be sold to end customers for use. This is called
the medical field. As mentioned above, researchers are just starting direct digital manufacturing and exists today for both consumer and
to experiment with the idea of creating artificial bones with 3-D industrial applications. We expect this to expand.
printers, but the process could potentially be used for so much Democratization of 3D data refers to the increasing awareness and
more. Some companies are investigating the possibility of printing usage of 3D data by non-CAD experts. Video games like Spore,
organic materials; these materials could be used in a much wider software like Dassault’s Cosmic Blobs, or Google’s Sketch-Up are all
array of surgeries and potentially replace a much larger selection of entry points to 3D data for non-CAD types. We believe that these
defective human parts. Expect expansion of training techniques applications will grow rapidly leading to broader use of 3D printers.
based on 3-D printed models of complex human systems, a greater
effort to more explicitly explain surgeries or the workings of the A: (PW) Unique manufacturing, based on amongst others 3D
human body to patients as detailed replicas of body parts to printing will enable anyone to get personalized items. For instance,
become more common, and more precise surgical and diagnostic get personalized cups for the birthday party of your kid instead of
equipment based on designs that can be printed but not buying standard cups at the local shops. More and more things will
manufactured using traditional means. be made specifically to the demands of buyers and not mass
produced.
SOURCE: http://thefutureofthings.com/4664-the-future-of-3d- and on a great leap forward in the eyes of desktop printing
printing/ aficionados.

Perhaps sensing my ambivalence toward this device, Lewis leads

me into a glass-walled manufacturing room to see the company’s
What Lies Ahead for 3-D Printing? big guns: a brace of refrigerator-size machines fronted with small
The new technology promises a factory in every home and a whole windows and surrounded by monitors, keypads and CPUs. Electrical
lot more cables snake overhead, Shop-Vacs are ubiquitous and the floor is
slippery with powdered nylon. Squinting and shielding my eyes
Wandering the brightly lit halls of the 3D Systems’ plant in Rock Hill,from glare, I stare through the small window of a stereolithography
South Carolina, I gaze upon objects strange and wondrous. A fully machine, in which a vat filled with a photosensitive polymer is
functioning guitar made of nylon. A phalanx of mandibles studded repeatedly blasted by a laser, triggering a chemical reaction that
with atrocious-looking teeth. The skeleton of a whale. A five-color, causes a thin layer of the viscous dark blue liquid to harden.
full-scale prototype of a high-heeled shoe. Toy robots. And what Seconds pass, horizontal lightning flashes and a wiper distributes
appears to be the face of a human fetus. “That was made from an another layer of the resin.
ultrasound image,” Cathy Lewis, the company’s chief marketing
officer, tells me, shrugging. Each layer is 50 microns thick, which is equal to one-twentieth of a
millimeter. (The thinner the layers, the finer the resolution and the
This collection of objects shares one feature: All were “printed” by crisper the details.) The finished object rises while its build bed, or
machines that, following instructions from digital files, join together platform, sinks. What was this printer which costs $170,000
layer upon layer of material whether metals, ceramics or plastics producing? Lewis consults a monitor and surmises it’s jewelry, a
until the object’s distinctive shape is realized. The process is called ring of intricate design. I note that it’s a lot of machine to make a
3-D printing (or additive manufacturing, in industrial parlance) and bauble, but Lewis assures me that technicians usually build more
if you haven’t heard of it by now, you haven’t been paying enough than one bauble at a time.
attention to scores of breathless news stories and technology blogs
or to President Barack Obama, who declared in his most recent he shows me another windowed machine. This time the vat is filled
State of the Union address that 3-D printing “has the potential to not with dark blue liquid but white powdered nylon. A wiper
revolutionize the way we make almost anything.” smoothes the vat’s surface, upon which a laser lightly etches the
outlines of four rings and a miniature boomerang by fusing together
While many people only now are hearing about the technology, the powdered material (a process known as sintering). The wiper
engineers and designers have been using large and expensive 3-D swipes again, erasing the shapes, the laser flashes, and another
printers for nearly three decades, making rapid prototypes of parts layer of rings and a boomerang is sintered. The monitor tells us this
for aerospace, defense and automotive companies. Over the years, project is four inches high after 26 hours of sintering, with many
however, digital design software has matured, scanners have hours to go. The “reveal” won’t come until the excess powder is
become ubiquitous and affordable desktop printers have come excavated and the product exhumed. It might be a drone; it might
within reach of self-starting entrepreneurs, schools and home be a cast for an engine block. Lewis can’t say (it’s definitely not a
tinkerers. Technologists boisterously proclaim that 3-D printing will boomerang). But she knows this part will be as durable as whatever
democratize design and free us from the hegemony of mass traditionally manufactured part it’s replacing.
manufacturing.
My tour ends where it began, among the plastic robots and phone
But just because anybody’s ideas can take shape doesn’t necessarily cases. In two hours, the history of additive manufacturing has
mean they should a notion that struck me in 3D Systems’ lobby, passed before my eyes, starting with technical applications and
where I saw shelf after shelf of what some people try very hard not ending in homes and offices not unlike the trajectory of computers
to describe as cheap plastic crap: brightly colored miniature vases, and laser printers. With the ability to replicate or create such
phone cases, jewelry, dolls and, inevitably, skulls. (On just one 3-D objects on demand, says Dale Dougherty, publisher of Make
file-sharing site, I found 101 designs for skull rings and pendants.) magazine part of the burgeoning DIY “Maker Movement” that
The creator of these lobby tchotchkes? The Cube, manufactured by privileges customization over commodities the 3-D printer is “Wal-
3D Systems. Mart in the palm of your hand.”

“This is our consumer strategy,” Lewis explains to me, pointing SOURCE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-
toward a group of pink, turquoise and lime-green printers. The lies-ahead-for-3-d-printing-37498558/
Cubes are the size of a Mr. Coffee machine, shiny and smooth, and
have an on-off switch, a port for a thumb drive and a price tag of
$1,299. Cubes create objects through a material extrusion process,
in which a print head deposits and stacks thin layers of molten
plastic onto a platform. The process begins when users load their
digital design into the Cube, whose software helps them scale their
model up or down and automatically adds support structures if
they’re needed. (Supports are made of the same plastic as the
machine prints, and they pop off.) Then the Cube “slices” the digital
object into microns-thick horizontal layers, creating a blueprint that
the print head will follow, moving on x and y axes.

The Cube can create objects in 16 different colors, but it can print
only one color at a time (no cartridge switching mid-print). To make
a toy robot or a skull ring in more than one color during a single
printout, you’ll need a CubeX Duo, which costs more than twice as
much but has two print cartridges that automatically turn colors off