Professional Additive Manufacturing
By “professional additive manufacturing”, we intend all those categories of 3D printing adoption that relate to the creative and artistic spheres. These include applications in architecture, construction, design, arts & crafts as well as entertainment (movies and animation) and designer consumer products such as furniture and jewelry.
This category of adopters has grown enormously in recent years as the cost of professional level AM systems has decreased from over $100,000 to between $20,000 and $5,000. This enormous paradigm shift has opened up 3D printing to a wide demographic of users that have innovated and imagined new application possibilities for AM. The process is still very much ongoing as the abundance of news and articles in this section clearly indicate.
Several artists and creatives have embraced plastic and in many cases ceramics based technologies to explore new possibilities in both end-use products and their supply to the final user. 3D printing is seen as the key technology that will enable the production of mass customized items, produced on-demand, on location, by professionals in any part of the world.
Global professional and B2C additive manufacturing services such as Shapeways, iMaterialise and Sculpteo have also contributed to expanding this area of AM by making high-end 3D printing technologies easily accessible and affordable for more people all over the world.
Latest professional AM news:
-
Since its founding in 2017, Dutch company Aectual has taken the tenets of 3D printing—including customization, design freedom and sustainability—to heart, applying them to the areas of architecture and interior design. Many of our readers will be familiar with the company: in 2018, it gained notice for 3D printing a…
Read More -
Architect and professor Ronald Rael joined a movement championed by Alight that aims to bring radical hospitality to stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border. The move further extends Rael’s additive manufacturing profile into the humanitarian space. His architecture studio, Rael San Fratello, recently bridged the border using seesaws in a living art…
Read More -
Leavine Family Racing selected the MakerBot‘s METHOD X 3D printer to leverage MakerBot’s portfolio of materials and advanced thermoplastics available for both rapid prototyping and end-use parts. METHOD’s ability to print at extremely high temperatures was also a benefit for Leavine, which needed materials with high strength and high heat resistance…
Read More -
Using multi-jet fusion technology from HP 3D printing, Korean 3D printing service HS HITECH helped create uniquely designed architectural elements, allowing designers and engineers to design freely while supporting large-quantity production of customized products. See the video above for more information on this project. HS HITECH’s Seungkyu Yoo and Yena…
Read More -
The National Centre for Additive Manufacturing (NCAM), a United Kingdom research center, created a high-stress automotive part using electron beam melting. This AM process is typically reserved for aerospace manufacturing. NCAM translated this aerospace technology to build a critical automotive part in a Formula-grade electrical racing vehicle for Oxford Brookes…
Read More -
Designing an interior space is more than just coming up with the size and form of rooms: to really build an environment for human-use other elements must be taken into account, like sound. Acoustics play an integral role in how humans experience a space, whether it’s a concert arena, restaurant…
Read More -
3D sculpture scanning and printing perfected the design of a twenty-five-meter-tall bronze statue commemorating the 2.3 million dead and wounded soldiers lost in the Battles of Rzhev, which took place between January 1942 and March 1943. The sculptor, Andrey Korobtsov, and his architect partner, Konstantin Fomin, enlisted Thor3D’s scanning technology,…
Read More -
Almost a year ago, we got wind of an immense 3D printing undertaking in Nevada: the new Allegiant Stadium, soon to be the home of the Las Vegas Raiders (formerly Oakland Raiders) NFL team, was installing a giant 3D printed structure to commemorate the late Al Davis, a long-time owner…
Read More -
The Netherlands has proven to be a fertile environment for construction 3D printing, with established construction companies like Bruil and BAM embracing concrete 3D printing as a building method, and technology developers like CyBe and Vertico paving the way to new applications and more adoption. Vertico, a young Dutch company…
Read More -
After years in the making, a massive 12-meter 3D printed sculpture has finally been installed in Rotorua, New Zealand. The beautiful piece, which honors the region’s native Te Arawa history and culture, was designed by artists at the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute and was 3D printed in…
Read More
