The 3D Printing Ecosystem

Understanding The 3D Printing Ecosystem

Andreas Bastian | October 29, 2015

[...]By shifting our perspective when regarding 3D printing, and viewing it as a system of constituent parts, we can change our understanding of its capabilities. Typically, we break the system into the following components:

• Design: This largely means what we, the users of the technology, ask it to make for us.

• Hardware: The machines that actually do the work of the additive processes to make physical things.

• Materials: These include every type of resin, metal, ceramic, plastic or raw material that are turned into functional objects by 3D printing technology.

• Software: Converts design data into fabrication data, as well as the software onboard the machines and the software that routes data to the machines.

Source: https://www.frost.com/sublib/display-market-insight.do?id=291289448

<more at http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/28/understanding-the-3d-printing-ecosystem-breaking-it-down-and-building-it-up/; related links: http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/06/19/coming-ecosystem-3d-printing/ (The Coming Ecosystem of 3D Printing. June 19, 2014) and http://3dsolver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/TMK-Presentation-for-UNCW-on-3D-Printing-Opportunity-1.17.14-FOR-DISTRIBUTION.pdf (The 3D Printing Ecosystem. Excitement in Context)>