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:
The first 3D Printed Tactile Art collection by Ioan Florea is composed of interactive GLB digital files with unlockable content of the physical 3D printed object, 3D paintings on canvas and more. GLB is a 3D file format used in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), that can be converted…
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Designed by Khawarizm Studio, Ward is a brand new 3D printed collection consists of a 3D printed pot, vase, and smart lam. Ward the Arabic word for “Flowers” is a name that reflects the concept behind the design, collection main inspiration is the Egyptian Lotus flower, a flower that regarded…
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Genovese architect Renzo Piano is among the world’s most famous architects and his company, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) is behind dozens of the highest-profile projects in many countries. The practice permanently employs about 110 architects together with a further 30 support staff including 3D visualization artists, model makers,…
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Designer and artist Filippo Nassetti has been featured on these pages several times, as he and studio MHOX were among the very first to show the utilization of 3D printing in artistic and futuristic product concepts and artworks. In his latest work, the Postnatural Head, Nassetti uses 3D printing to…
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The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing all social venues – including museums and exhibits – to close their doors to slow down the virus’ diffusion. For the Raffello exhibit, which marks the 500-year anniversary of famous Italian painter’s death, Factum Arte created the spectacular starting point of the exhibition: a rematerialization…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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