Editorials / Opinions
The Desire Engine: Machine Learning and 3D Printing
Machine learning will impossibly transform our world. I say “impossibly” because we can not foresee the implications and changes that artificial general intelligence will bring to bear on society. The…
3D Printing Everything that Matters
Bits flow through our lives. The modern world is permeated by information being broadcast continuously. If we walk today, we are accompanied by accelerometers, gyroscopes, motion and light sensors taking…
IMTS 2022: 3D Printing is a Manufacturing Technology. Now What?
About a decade ago, 3D printing began to transition into an actual production technology. This saw makers of industrial additive manufacturing (AM) systems engaged in a variety of endeavors to…
Looking to Dominate Medical 3D Printing, Formlabs Appoints President of Healthcare
From Kickstarter to a president of Healthcare, it has been a heady journey for professional desktop 3D printing company Formlabs. The company announced that Guillaume Bailliard is to be its…
Digital Textures Can Hasten the Adoption of 3D Printed Products
Recently, I’ve been conducting more research via touch. I slide my fingertips over a new MYKITA Studio pair of sunglasses. The sensation is like Arkema’s Rilsan material with an AMT…
Markforged Buys Digital Metal: What Does it Mean for the 3D Printing Industry?
This PRO article was originally published in July 2022 and is being re-shared here as Markforged has completed its acquisition of Digital Metal. It’s been a few months since the additive…
Wang Laboratories: The PC and the Future of 3D Printing
A friend of mine pointed out the incredible degree of strategic replication in the 3D printing market. Due to this, I try to second guess all of my own opinions…
Unseen Opportunity: What Is the Ideal In-Hospital 3D Printer
Just a few years ago, 3D printers were rare inside hospitals. Now, over the past five years, we’ve seen a huge growth in 3D printing adoption inside hospitals. This includes…
What a Market Dip Means for 3D Printing Consolidation
So far, startups in 3D printing have mainly consisted of bootstrapped firms aiming for profitability, control over their own futures, and long-term growth. We have comparatively few turbocharged, venture capital…
3D Printing Beyond the Nanoscale Could Yield Completely New Machines
“After all this, you have just got one little baby lathe four thousand times smaller than usual.¨ – Richard Feynman For decades, humanity has searched for ways in which we…
Can 3D Printing Make Your Organization Innovative?
No, 3D Printing Alone Cannot Make an Organization Innovative Can additive manufacturing (AM) simply make an organization innovative by throwing a few 3D printers at it? Is it able to…
Cadillac’s 3D Printed CELESTIQ: Is $300,000 Too Expensive for a Custom Car?
German car firms have been working on 3D printing for decades. Many have extensive labs and have been doing research and product development at scale for many years now. Their…
3D Printing the Metaverse: Where Are the Additive Opportunities?
As a concept, the metaverse is gaining ground. After being popularized by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, countless articles have been written about it. A cynic may very well think that,…
Can 3D Printing Make You Antifragile? 3D Print Your Way to Antifragility
Previously, we’ve looked at antifragility as a concept in itself, as well as if 3D printing can make a business antifragile and whether additive manufacturing (AM) as an industry could…
The Importance of the Bambu Lab X1 3D Printer
I was incredulous when I first saw the Bambu Lab X1 3D printer. A printer with a core XY architecture, it has a material enclosure for four spools of filament….
Can 3D Printing Make You Antifragile? Surviving Current Economic Shocks
In this, series we’ve looked at what being antifragile means and whether or not 3D printing can make a business antifragile. However, can 3D printing be antifragile as a good…
Biden’s AM Forward Signals that 3D Printing Is Ready for Prime Time
Before the Biden administration announced AM Forward, the last time the president of the United States mentioned additive manufacturing was back in 2013. At the time, President Barack Obama said…
New 3D Printing Industries: Connected Healthcare Devices
The confluence of data, healthcare, software, private enterprise, and personalized healthcare devices will be a powerful one. Your Fitbit, smartphone or Apple Watch, will be interconnected with your fitness apps,…
Can 3D Printing Make You Antifragile? An Argument for Skunk Works
The idea of being antifragile means that you as a person, company, or other system can withstand shocks well and then emerge even better from them. In part one of…
Can 3D Printing Make You Antifragile? First, What Is Antifragility?
Antifragile as a desirable concept was popularised by Nassim Taleb. In the 2012 book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder, he postulates that there are fragile things, people, and organizations…
Tips for Surviving Your First 3D Printing Trade Show
With the most severe COVID restrictions seemingly paused, at least for the moment, it seems as though trade show season is back n full swing. And, if the crowd at…
Uses for 3D Printing Exist. Companies Just Suck at Finding Them
I’m seeing something curious happening. In personal conversations, I’ve heard people exclaim that there are not enough 3D printing applications. People are arguing that it is this lack of use…
The State of 3D Printing: Reading the Room at RAPID + TCT
As far as cliches go, “timing is everything” is a pretty good one. It’s especially useful to keep in mind for when you’re making predictions: voice your prediction too early…
Buying the Death Star: Ultimaker Merges with MakerBot. Takes Stratasys Investment
When I used to work at Ultimaker, Makerbot was the enemy. They were closed, corporate, didn’t care about customers and didn’t care about values and open hardware. We did everything…
