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3D printing , the summons of earn a three - dimensional solid object from a digital example , is set to inspire the direction industries fabricate contribution .

First , a 3D paradigm is created using a figurer - help design software program ( CAD ) . The CAD file is institutionalize to the 3d printer .

Infographic: How 3D printing turns a digital computer model into a solid object.

The process of creating 3D solid objects from a digital computer model.

The printer put down successive layers of liquid state , powder , report or alloy material and build the model from a series of cross segment .

A motor quarter a filament of plastic , melting the credit card and pushing the melted plastic through a nozzle .

Several different 3D - print processes have been invented since the recent seventies .

Two rabbits on a heart shaped rug.

The extrusion process habituate a pliant strand or metallic element telegram that is wound on a gyre and unreeled to provide material to an extrusion honker . This process works with thermoplastics , eutectic metals , edible material or metal admixture .

The granular outgrowth selectively fuses stuff in a granular layer . constituent are fuse level by bed until the object is built . This outgrowth work with metal alloy , Ti metal , thermo- plastics , metal powders , ceramic gunpowder or adhesive plaster .

The lamination process retrace objects from thin layers of moldable film , paper or alloy foil .

Person uses hand to grab a hologram of a red car.

In the light polymerisation outgrowth , a vat of liquid polymer is repeatedly queer to twinkle . The unwrap limpid polymer hardens in small increments until the mannequin has been work up . The remaining melted polymer is drained from the tub , leaving the solid theoretical account . Another system sprays photopolymer materials in ultra - thin layers until the theoretical account is fill out .

Illustration of the circular robots melting from a cube formation. Shows these robots can behave like a liquid.

A futuristic glowing quantum computer unit, 3d render.

The Pantheon in Rome

An abstract illustration of blobs of wavy light

This image represents the new isotope, magnesium-18.

Prometheus

Gallium

vanadinite

temporary gels

A replica of a mass spectrometer used by the physicist J.J. Thompson in the 1910s.

Infographic: The layers and functions of the human skin.

science budgets for federal government

infographic of nuclear power plant

Fukushima fuel rod infographic

infographic of human body sweat

Today�s GoFIgure looks at phobias, defined as irrational fears of things which are not likely to be dangerous.

an abstract illustration depicting the collision of subatomic particles