The History of 3D Printing
In the early 1980s, S. Scott Crump submitted a patent for Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), a new process for manufacturing objects by adding layers of thermoplastic material. After his patent was approved, he and his wife started a company called Stratasys. This new industry grew rapidly, and fought for contracts in industrial prototyping with mass-market manufacturers. In 1987, three companies released their first commercial FDM printers and three more followed soon after. The first patents related to 3D printing were issued in 1954 by Raymond F. Jones. He described it as a "molecular spray." In 1953, Johannes F Gottwald patented a machine known as the Liquid Metal Recorder. This machine used a liquid metal to form a reusable surface for fabrication. The resulting object can then be salvaged and printed again. The Liquid Metal Recorder appears to be the first patent describing 3D printing. Stereolithography was introduced in 1981 by Hideo Kodama, who developed a techniq...