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 […]

Crowd funding is a recent hot trend that is helping to launch great new innovations in a number of emerging technologies. One of them is of course 3D printing. Some of the most successful campaigns are covered in Part 1 of the Successful Crowd sourced 3D Printers. Here are even more of the successes teams

With the coming closing of Pirate3D’s successful Kickstarter campaign there have now been a number of million dollar+ crowd funded 3D printers in the past year. Add to that the numerous smaller, though still substantial, campaigns based off of various open source and proprietary designs and it is easy to think that the future of

MakerBot Retail Store in Manhattan Recently Amazon added a whole section of 3D printing and additive manufacturing . Many sites picked this up as a sign of the increased popularity and potential market for 3D printing. Though that is one sign of the growing industry another is the increasing number of “retail” 3d printing stores.  Some

Made In Space 3D Printer during a micro gravity “Vomit Comet” What if astronauts could manufacture whatever they needed while in space? That is the question behind a NASA funded small business Made In Space. After successful testing on micro-gravity flights back in 2011 (the playfully named “Vomit Comet”) plans are in place to put

3D Printing has been the hot topic for months now. With investors and consumers being inundated with news and information on the subject it is important to understand what additive manufacturing and 3D printing can, and can not, do. Thankfully there are some great resources including a free webinar from engineering.com.   The session is

A few weeks ago I posted here about Gamification Of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and how it could bring about a new era in 3D printing. One reader pointed out a related infographic that shows past successes in other industries. Who knows, maybe someday soon this graphic will need a section dedicated to additive manufacturing.

Previous posts have made mention of the growing industry of service bureaus for 3D printing. Even as 3D printers lower in price and accessible to consumers it still requires a good deal of expertise to work through the details. This leaves an opportunity for experienced professionals to help part time and amateur designers turn their