This week in Chicago the 3D printing industry will convene at “Inside 3D Printing”, a conference designed to express the current state of the industry and highlight potential business opportunities additive manufacturing will provide. The program Chair of the event, Hod Lipson, will be hosting the introduction as well as a session on the future of 3D printing.
As an Associate Professor at Cornell University Hod is the author of a number of 3d printing research papers and an expert in the field of additive manufacturing. Recently he and co-author Melba Kurman published “Fabricated: The World of 3D Printing”. I picked up a signed copy at Inside 3D Printing New York.
Fabricated is a solid read and does a great job of covering the current state of 3D Printing. The opening chapter paints a sci-fi scene years in the future where printers are used to create everything. After this foray into the theoretical the rest of the text focuses on what has already been done and the implications of the techonlogy.
Hod and Melba do a great job of describing the three decade development of additive manufacturing, the varous different methods (SLS, SLA, FDM, DMLS, etc.) and even touch on the legal implications. Interviews with experts using 3D printing for various industries and stories from the Cornell lab where Hod is an instructor offer a broad look at the impacts 3D printing is already making in a number of different fields.
For anyone attending “Inside 3D Printing – Chicago”, Hob and Melba are likely to be doing another signing.