Inside 3D Printing San Diego 2016 in Photos

The view right outside Hall C of the San Diego Convention Center

Another whirlwind show has come and gone, and left us with a lot to talk about! Inside 3D Printing San Diego, held in conjunction with RoboUniverse and Virtual Reality Summit as part of the Frontier Tech Forum, was held on December 14th and 15th in sunny San Diego, California, bringing together members of the 3D printing community with some of the biggest names in the industry. From the lively exhibit hall floor to some truly enlightening panel discussions and keynotes, I3DP Conference’s latest showing in the US showed the enthusiasm for and growth in the industry — and we’d like to share a look insight the busy conference!

3DPrint.com was on the scene for the entire show, and reported up to the minute on the latest in keynotes from industry experts Hod Lipson and Terry Wohlers, as well as panels such as one on the importance of diversity in technology today and one presenting results from Uformia‘s anticipated Nature Game, as well as introducing a new technology from Collider, revealed for the first time in San Diego as the company emerged from stealth with a game-changing approach to tooling, and the first-ever co-winners of the Frontier Tech Showdown competition for startups. We additionally saw an innovative 10-year-old business owner and a new 3D printer from Cubibot on the floor in San Diego and a presentation from Additive Manufacturing Research highlighting important market trends.

Here’s a look inside the San Diego Convention Center from the latest Inside 3D Printing Conference:

Panels

Informative panels and presentations last week in San Diego followed several program tracks, so attendees could select those best suited for their interests. The programs offered a wide variety of presentations, and while I was unable to attend even half of the sessions that piqued my interest, I was pleased to see several excellent speakers expound upon the latest industry insights and news.

Exhibit Hall

I enjoyed sitting at our 3DPrint.com booth to talk with visitors during the show

While this event did not have the largest floor space, every available inch was put to use as interested attendees weaved among the busy booths. From EnvisionTEC to Asimov Ventures, each booth on the floor saw plenty of foot traffic, and all had something to show — 3DPrint.com had a booth there as well, where I was pleased to actually sit for a bit to chat with our own visitors.

I had the opportunity to stop to chat a bit with 3Diligent‘s CEO, Cullen Hilkene, as he filled me in on the company’s recent introductions.

“We’ve had a strong base of industrial technology since the beginning,” Hilkene told me. “We offer not only traditional laser melting across platforms, and electron beam melting; binder jetting we’ve brought on meaningfully in the last 6 to 12 months, as a cost-effective way to get into metal. What we announced today are more metal 3D printing technologies to arrive at cost-effective metal parts, more for modeling than for technical applications. One thing we’re committed to doing for customers is providing a one-stop shop — to basically alleviate the procurement headaches. The industry is growing so fast, for anybody to keep up with this change is difficult. We keep it easy, so customers do not have to do that song and dance in procurement whether in 3D printing or CNC machining. Things are great, we’re growing very fast, loving the breadth of industry that find solutions with us.”

I also had the chance to catch up briefly with NVBOTS‘ AJ Perez, the company’s founder and chairman. It’s been a pleasure to run into him several times recently, since New York’s Inside 3D Printing event back in the spring, and in San Diego he filled me in on some more updates from the company and illustrated the company’s 3D printing prowess with whistles that had been printed in a single piece on the show floor. At this show, Perez spoke in a presentation titled “Achieving Industry 4.0 Success Through Additive Manufacturing”, for which he gave us some background just a few months ago.

AJ Perez of NVBOTS

Other familiar faces on the exhibit hall floor included those from the teams at MatterHackers, EnvisionTEC, Formalloy, 3D Platform, Leopoly (showing off their new VR tech) — and even a robotic R2-D2!

Check out a tour of the floor here (click any photo to enlarge):