Evolution_of_3D_Printing

#Evolution of 3D Printing 3D printing, that amazing technology that has recently grasped the media's attention, evoking comparisons to Star Trek's 'replicator' that could assemble any known object out of its basic molecules. Behind all the hype, what can it do, and will it really change our world?

##Early History '3D printing' as it is known today actually spans several similar manufacturing methods that were a natural evolution from CNC machine tools developed in the first half of the 20th century CE.

A manual wood lathe.

Numerical Control made old subtractive manufacturing tools (ones that cut material away from a plain starting block in order to reach a desired shape), such as lathes less prone to operator error, first by use of 'cutting by numbers' (where operators would dial in exact coordinates on a gauge to cut holes and file between them, rather than attempting to guide a cut through a straight line or curve by hand), followed by punch-card fed computerised motor controls, and eventually full digital control by microelectronics that can now be fed instructions derived directly from a CAD model or drawing.

A CNC lathe.

Those advances took production processes that were seen as a highly skilled art or craft and allowed them to produce highly standardised replaceable/interchangeable parts, and so cut the costs of repairing any given product. Most importantly, CNC mills that use an X-Y table and a cutting head that moves up and down (in the Z-axis) laid foundations for most 3D-printing technology. While these milling machines have been used heavily in recent decades by industrial giants in China, for carving out mould plates with which to injection-mould plastics into all kinds of things that people often don't need, some creative minds wondered whether we could perform that process in reverse - using a toolhead moving in 3 dimensions to deposit material rather than taking it away. Thus, through the 1970s and '80s there were several different methods patented for building up a solid object in thin layers, and a rapid prototyping industry was born.