Best wishes to the 3D printer

Nowadays we hear a lot about 3D printers, which are also widely used: the 3D printer represents the latest frontier of the global manufacturing industry, and while it can certainly be said to have been reached, there remains much to explore. Perhaps surprisingly, the 3D is 30 years old: indeed, 11 March 1986 was the day that saw the publication of the patent for the first machine capable of producing objects by overlaying thin layers of material. The creator of what was, and to an extent still is, a pioneering instrument was Charles “Chuck” Hull, an American inventor who, in the same year, founded 3D Systems, the first-ever 3D printing company.

Initially, this “apparatus for the production of three-dimensional objects”, as it was described in the patent, found only limited uses and spread slowly. In recent years, though, thanks in part to constant improvements in technology and the development of  increasingly high performance materials, there has been a real boom in 3D printing, which has graduated from the production of gadgets and prototypes to that of large components with structural features for passenger cars, aircraft, and so on. Most recently, it has also entered our homes for low-cost personal productions.