Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, is an industrial production process that builds three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file. A 3D printer initiates the creation of a part or product by constructing successive layers of suitable raw material under computer control, with material being added together (printed in 3D as opposed to carved away as with subtractive manufacturing methods). 3D printing offers several advantages over conventional manufacturing methods such as enabling the creation of complex geometries that would otherwise be almost impossible to produce, requiring little or no tooling costs, and scalable component production with little additional cost for low volume parts.
The additive manufacturing market growth is driven by factors such as increasing demand from the automotive, aerospace & defense, and medical industries. 3D printing provides capabilities for designing complex customized products which conventional methods cannot produce. However, high equipment and material costs continue to restrain the adoption of 3D printing to an extent. Offset to this is the growing adoption of desktop 3D printers by small businesses and households for prototyping and small-scale production.
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