The Many Implications and Applications of a Growing Technology

3D printing is something that most people would have considered impossible as recently as fifty years ago. In fact, the concept was not something anyone had even begun to put into motion until the early 1980s. As technology progresses, however, we have not only discovered to means for 3D printing but have continued to improve upon it. The question for some, though, is this: what exactly is 3D printing? Simply put, 3D printing is a means of creating a physical object from a digital design using a specialized machine. There are different 3D printing technologies and materials that we can now print with, but all of these work based on the same principle: the program turns a digital model into a solid three-dimensional physical object by adding material layer by layer. If this seems amazing, consider that it is now becoming somewhat commonplace at schools, libraries, and similar institutions while some companies have even created models for use in the home. Not only that, but the process has been further advanced with the creation of 3D pens, with dozens of models now available on the market. Before going into detail, though, there are some other more basic facts to consider about 3D printing and its many implications. Read more »

Creating 3D print models can take excessive amounts of time and usually requires special professional level software that is prohibitively expensive for many people.  Even if someone has the model that they want to input into a 3D printer, making even small edits to it involves using this complex and time-consuming software.  This situation prevents anyone from making quick edits or last second changes to 3D print models before using them.  Read more »