Regular, Medium, and Large Format 3D Printing Explained

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At Additive Manufacturing (AM) Research and on 3DPrint.com, we use the terms regular, medium, and large format to segment the 3D printing market. We developed these terms to help bring clarity to the market. Generally, they serve as a rough guide to indicate or understand a market segment. Currently, the terms work well for material extrusion, but we expect more metal and other polymer processes to have additional segments over time.

I thought the time was ripe to explain when we use these terms now. We are not a standards body, so these terms have evolved since we first started using them. It’s important to clarify what they mean. In many instances, our differentiation doesn’t really make sense. Take powder bed fusion, for example. However, for Material Extrusion in particular, the segmentation is useful.

In short, large format is any process with a build volume over 1 meter in all directions, medium format is less than a meter to 50 CM in all directions and regular format is the familiar industrial and desktop printers that we know and love.

Regular Format

When we talk about material extrusion, we don’t use the term Regular Format because, for nearly all of our industry, this is what 3D printing is and was. These are the desktop and industrial systems we often deal with. These systems need to be usable and have good software attached to them. Controls on the machine should be easy, as should slicing, sending files to the printer, and more. Advanced features like nesting and custom toolpathing are not really required here. The default operator can be anyone—your kid, a schoolteacher, or a professional should be able to use these systems. They can be used for prototyping or manufacturing, but typically, they will produce objects smaller than human-sized. Items that are hand-sized or meant to be handled by people will typically fall into this category.

Layer adhesion and the aesthetics of the part are very important here. A wide variation in materials is crucial in this market segment. These printers are the most widely used in any segment across any technology worldwide. They have the broadest assortment of users, use cases, applications, and materials. In particular, open source is appreciated in this segment, whereas in other segments, being open is more critical. The value here lies in the appearance of the final product, its acceptability to consumers, the use of particular materials, or the ability to approximate another type of part. Part attractiveness is supremely important compared to other segments. The ability to use many different materials well and to change easily between them is also appreciated. Value can be found in speed, time to part, and, most of all, ease of use.

There are no typical users in this segment, but the desktop community, enterprises in prototyping, and industrial manufacturing of objects close to artisans are common here. In hearing aids, jewelry, in-hospital 3D printing, orthoses, prosthetics, some jigs and fixtures, the chairside nature of these machines is supremely important. The fact that the form factor lets a technician or artist conveniently make items next to or on their current desk drives adoption. Integration into existing or optimal workflows is also crucial in this segment. Features such as easy use while working, noise reduction, fume extraction within the system, and filament drying are paramount. Integration with order-picking systems, along with often proprietary internal systems, is also desired. Ergonomics and safety drive adoption in this segment. Costs vary enormously from $160 to $150,000, but the most prevalent are desktop machines, of which several million are sold yearly.

Medium Format

Material format material extrusion systems are usually operated on the factory floor by experts. They feature a nice light on top and emergency cut-off switches. Ergonomics, ease of use, and ease of workflow are less important here, as are the optics of a part. While smaller systems in production are used 24/7 for many parts, fewer larger parts are printed in this segment. A single build, which may take many hours or even days, is typical for production. Systems can be filament-based but are often granulate-based to reduce part costs.

Fewer materials are used, but these materials are used more intensively. Materials such as PEKK, PEI, PP GF, PA GF, and ABS are prevalent, with a lot of interest in filled materials such as CF and GF. Many printers have enclosed environments, though some are open. Warpage is an issue, but less so than in the Large Format segment. Objects in this segment may be rough and are often finished by milling or other processes. Tooling, fixtures, B-side parts, furniture, industrial parts, and more are made here.

Defense, automotive, industrial, and other segments dominate use. Parts are often full human-sized, and dimensional accuracy is important. For molds, finished part smoothness is very important, often achieved through milling or other processes. Objects are often out of sight, not handled or used close to humans. Vendors in this space include 3D Systems Titan, BigRep, Juggerbot, Qbig, Modix, and others.

Hidden Applications

Tiffany’s new 3D printed façade at Changi Airport. Image courtesy of Tiffany & Co.

Whereas applications in the regular segment are often straightforward and well-known, there are many hidden applications in this segment. Examples include window frames for refurbished houses, gargoyles for restoration projects, façade elements, painted architectural elements for interiors, molds for “authentic” interior details, custom furniture, custom construction elements, formwork, and other applications. These are widely used in the restoration of houses and have rarely, if ever, been discussed publicly.

This segment is, therefore, the iceberg segment where many people are making profitable parts that are scarcely known outside of their industries. If regular-sized 3D printers are used by regular folk and the 3D printing industry, these printers are used by specialized individuals within industries. Many applications are valuable but not seen, not discussed, and unknown to the wider industry.

Market Landscape and Competitiveness

XtreeE’s technology has been used to 3D print multiple reef structures for habitat restoration.

With fegular format 3D printing, you must be active at RAPID + TCT and Formnext and attend dental and prosthetic shows. In medium format, you could go to RAPID and Formnext and need to attend specialized conferences in dozens of industries. Meanwhile, in large format, you’ll probably get most of your revenue from automotive, defense, and aerospace sectors, so you should attend their industry events.

There are hundreds of vendors in the regular format space, with sales often via channels to companies and individuals. Medium format sales are direct, with dozens of players. Sales are made to various companies. In large format, there are perhaps two dozen credible players, and sales are direct to large and specialized small companies. Large format is extremely focused, with a large portion of revenue coming from a few clients, materials, applications, and types of components.

In regular format, you will probably not know your customers or fully understand them. In medium and large format, you will learn a lot about your customers, their materials, and their applications. However, for both segments, you might not know exactly what the printers are being used for. Being from the country you’re selling to is crucial in medium and large format, as is having local service people, local language support, local application development, a local presence, local advertising, local clients, and a lobbying and government arm. The larger your 3D printer, the higher the chance you will sell it to the US Government.

Regular format often does application development and industrialization for entire industries, possibly with a lighthouse customer, but in the larger segments, you will know the names of the people in the organization. The larger formats have few key decision-makers, and you will have a good relationship with all of your customers.

Large Format

The large format market is smaller, with far fewer players and more technical sales to much bigger customers. Customer needs are very specific, and printers may print very few geometries. In this segment, a printer could repeatedly print the same or similar areas. Inline or combined milling is often integrated into the system. There is a lot of exploration going on in this segment, but so far, applications like large aerospace tooling and boat hulls have been stellar. Indeed, these two segments could grow to become much larger than the rest. Boats and similarly shaped drone hull parts could become multi-billion dollar industries. Automated construction could also become much bigger than the rest of the 3D printing industry, a distinction not applicable to many other segments.

Here, we see very little competitiveness and too few competitors, whereas in other segments, there can be too many. The printers and their parts are much larger than humans in this segment. Surface quality can be important, and warp is a significant issue. All materials are currently filled in this segment, and printers have open chambers, creating a feedback loop. Materials are more limited here, but one application can see a huge amount of uptake. While gantry systems dominate other segments, robot arms are very prevalent here. Specific materials are rarely made in this segment but are required.

In this segment, items produced are those that humans fit into, such as submarines, cockpits, jacuzzis, swimming pools, houses, or planes. This segment has comparatively little investment. Generally, some large players are working in obscurity and making significant amounts of money while everyone else focuses on making a better desktop machine or m290. Vendors in this space include CEAD, Caracol, Cincinnati, Belotti, Thermwood, CMS, and others.

Conclusion

Here, I’ve tried to give you a rough, and hopefully informative, guide to a logical market segmentation, especially for material extrusion. We’ve done this market segmentation to make your life easier. When looking at the market through this lens, there are a lot of new ideas and insights to be had.

For example, we can see that as a service, the medium format space is potentially one of the most profitable and underserved areas of 3D printing. As a materials vendor, the large format segment is criminally underserved. As an OEM, the large format segment is underserved, the medium format has too many weak players, while the regular format is too competitive. Ten million invested as an OEM would get you nowhere in the regular segment, get you a competitive system in the medium format, and get you two machines in the large format. As a materials vendor, five million invested in regular 3D printing will get you nowhere unless it is very specific, while you can dominate specific applications in the other segments. If you wanted to make money with 3D printing as a designer or entrepreneur, it is super easy to do this in medium format if you have a little capital. It’s hard to make consistent money in the smaller or larger segments. Hopefully, you’ll find this segmentation helpful.

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