The History of 3D Printing

Hey Everyone 😊 Welcome back to the 3D printer vault this will be one of our final blog
posts!. We hope that you have enjoyed learning about 3D printers just as much as we have
the last couple of weeks and thank you for reading!!. In this blog post I will be discussing the
history of 3D printing

3D printing has been around for a lot longer then I could have imagined according to {
www.me3d.com.au } the first documented record of a 3D printing process was from ‘the
Japanese inventor Hideo Kodama in 1981’ the product he created used ultraviolet lights to
harden and create solid objects, however Kodama did not get to complete his process as he
was never granted the patent. It was 1983 when Chuck Hull first came up with his idea of the
3D printer as sourced by [ www.blog.drupa.com] Hull was working at a company where his
job was to use UV light to harden tabletop coatings and prototype plastic parts that had to be
injected into a mold he described these jobs as a ‘really tedious process’ ,this led him to his
creation of stereolithography. [www.dictionary.com] defines stereolithigraphy as ‘a process
for creating three-dimensional objects using a computer-controlled laser to build up the
required structure , layer by layer from a liquid photopolymer that solidifies’. There is often
a debate about who really invented 3D printing Hideo Kodama or Chuck Hull [ comment
below your thoughts!]

Here’s an image of Chuck Hull with the first ever 3D printer , sourced from

https://www.3dsourced.com/guides/history-of-3d-printing/

Not long after stereolithography was created other forms of the layering of 3D objects began
to develop as sourced from [ www.cadcrowd.com] in 1987 Carl Deckard filed a patent for
Selective Laser Sintering , this form of 3D printing went on to be the only 3D printing
technology that was capable of producing metal objects, After this Fused Deposition
Modeling was developed by Scott Crump in 1990 and is most commonly known today as a
‘desktop 3D printers’ due to it being one of the most common forms of 3D printing
technology used today. The popularity of 3D printers within the general public began in the
early 2000s according to [ www.medium.com ] , in 2007 ‘3D Systems’ released its first
printing system under $10,000 this price wasn’t low enough yet for widespread general
public use but was a beginning to the prices of 3D printing technology being brought down to
consumer friendly levels. Shortly after in 2009 a 3D printer based on ‘RepRep’ concept was
made commercially available and this was just the beginning to 3D printers becoming a form
of reliable technology within all industries and the general public. The evolution of 3D
printers being more commonly used is constantly expanding and improving with Mattel a toy
manufacturer ‘unveiled its new $300 3D Pinter, the ‘ThingMaker’ which will allow children
to print their own toys at home’ sourced from [ www.techcrunch.com] this exposes 3D
printing technology to a younger demographic that the technology has never been exposed to
before in its history and I believe that this is just the beginning for 3D printing being used by
all individuals in all industries.

References

Brooke Hahn, 2018, ‘History of 3D printing. [online]. <https://me3d.com.au/2018/history-of-

3d-printing/> [ Accessed 1st April 2021]

Dana Goldberg , 2018. ‘History of 3D printing: Its Older Than You Are’ [online]
<https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/history-of-3d- [ Accessed 1st April 2021]

www.3dsourced.com, 2020. ‘The Complete History of 3D Printing’ [online]

<https://www.3dsourced.com/guides/history-of-3d-printing/> >
[Accessed 1st April 2021]

Drupa Redakation,2020. ‘Pioneers of Printing’ [online] <https://blog.drupa.com/en/chuck-

hull-3d-printing-en/> [Accessed April 1st 2021]

Joseph Flynt , ‘ A Detailed History of 3D Printing’ [online] <https://3dinsider.com/3d-

printing-history/> [Accessed 1st April 2021]

Erin Winick , 2017. ‘3D printings 30 year History and why its popular now’ [online] <
> [Accessed 1st April 2021]
Sarah Perez , 2016. ‘Mattel Unveils ThingMaker’ [ online ] < >
[Accessed 1st April 2021]