variants:
or less commonly 3-D printing
Definition of 3D printing
: the manufacturing of solid objects by the deposition of layers of material (such as plastic) in accordance with specifications that are stored and displayed in electronic form as a digital model
Whereas traditional manufacturing techniques start with a solid block and cut unwanted material away from it, 3D printing … builds up material in layers, producing precisely the object desired with almost no waste.— Mark Betancourt Imagine dreaming up a toy for your kids, sketching it out on your computer, and minutes later—voilà!—you're holding the real thing in your hand. Such is the promise of 3-D printing, a niche but growing technology that Bre Pettis and his Brooklyn-based start-up, MakerBot, believe will become as common in homes as the printers that crank out our photos and household documents.— Andréa Ford et al.
— called also additive manufacturing
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Merriam-Webster unabridged
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Time Traveler for 3D printing
The first known use of 3D printing was in 1992
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