Photos of an object created by Carbon3D's "CLIP" technology and traditional 3D STL printing from an electron microscope at 130x. Why should we expect a much bigger market given likely improvements? printers can not only handle materials ranging from titanium to human cartilage but also produce fully functional components, including complex mechanisms, batteries, transistors, and LEDs. The capabilities of 3-D printing hardware are evolving rapidly, too. They can build larger components and achieve greater precision and finer resolution at higher speeds and lower costs. Together, these advances have brought the technology to a tipping point—it appears ready to emerge from its niche status and become a viable alternative to conventional manufacturing processes in an increasing number of applications. Should this happen, the technology transform manufacturing flexibility—for example, by allowing companies to slash development time, eliminate tooling costs, and simplify production runs—while making it possible to create complex shapes and structures that weren’t feasible before. Moreover, additive manufacturing would help companies improve the productivity of materials by eliminating the waste that accrues in traditional (subtractive) manufacturing and would thus spur the formation of a beneficial circular economy. Mass Customization Shoes custom fitted via scan – Is a market for custom fitted and custom designed products? The prom dress? Wedding Dress? As a complement to traditional manufacturing? additive manufacturing is already being used to get prototypes into the hands of customers faster, for quicker detailed feedback. The ability to make prototypes without tooling lets companies quickly test multiple configurations to determine customer preferences, thus reducing product-launch risk and time to market. Companies could even go into
Photos of an object created by Carbon3D's "CLIP" technology and traditional 3D STL printing from an electron microscope at 130x. Why should we expect a much bigger market given likely improvements? printers can not only handle materials ranging from titanium to human cartilage but also produce fully functional components, including complex mechanisms, batteries, transistors, and LEDs. The capabilities of 3-D printing hardware are evolving rapidly, too. They can build larger components and achieve greater precision and finer resolution at higher speeds and lower costs. Together, these advances have brought the technology to a tipping point—it appears ready to emerge from its niche status and become a viable alternative to conventional manufacturing processes in an increasing number of applications. Should this happen, the technology transform manufacturing flexibility—for example, by allowing companies to slash development time, eliminate tooling costs, and simplify production runs—while making it possible to create complex shapes and structures that weren’t feasible before. Moreover, additive manufacturing would help companies improve the productivity of materials by eliminating the waste that accrues in traditional (subtractive) manufacturing and would thus spur the formation of a beneficial circular economy. Mass Customization Shoes – custom fitted via scan Is a market for custom fitted and custom designed products? The prom dress? Wedding Dress? As a complement to traditional manufacturing? additive manufacturing is already being used to get prototypes into the hands of customers faster, for quicker detailed feedback. The ability to make prototypes without tooling lets companies quickly test multiple configurations to determine customer preferences, thus reducing product-launch risk and time to market. Companies could even go into