Outline
3D printing is any of various processes in which material is joined or
solidified under computer control to create a three-dimensional object,
with material being added together (such as liquid molecules or powder
grains being fused together). 3D printing is used in both rapid
prototyping and additive manufacturing. Objects can be of almost any
shape or geometry and typically are produced using digital model data
from a 3D model or another electronic data source such as an Additive
Manufacturing File (AMF) file (usually in sequential layers). There are
many different technologies, like stereolithography (SLA) or fused
deposit modeling (FDM). Thus, unlike material removed from a stock in
the conventional machining process, 3D printing or Additive
Manufacturing builds a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided
design (CAD) model or AMF file, usually by successively adding material
layer by layer.
A MakerBot three-dimensional printer.
The term “3D printing” originally referred to a process that deposits
a binder material onto a powder bed with inkjet printer heads layer by
layer. More recently, the term is being used in popular vernacular to
encompass a wider variety of additive manufacturing techniques. United
States and global technical standards use the official term additive
manufacturing for this broader sense.