Over the past decade, IMTS has been a good indicator of the changing status of additive manufacturing. The show’s floor space devoted to 3D printing expanded from 2014 to 2018, reaching pavilion status at the most recent show. It had been scheduled to grow even more at IMTS 2020 before the show’s cancellation.

3D printing is as much about the software as it is about the unique technology of the printers, and a well-designed platform brings the power of agile software engineering to the world of industrial manufacturing.

Manufacturing Engineering last covered the pluses and minuses of combining additive and subtractive machining in detail in July 2017.

The response of the 3D printing community to the specific shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic has helped to quickly raise the level of awareness of 3D printing and created a lot of buzz, but the realistic, scalable response has been somewhat different than what has been in the headlines. Matt Koons/Director of Business Development for Forecast 3D discusses this in this podcast, hosted by Bruce Morey, Senior Technical Editor for Manufacturing Engineering Magazine.

The 3MF Consortium, the organization dedicated to advancing a universal specification for 3D printing, today announced it is becoming a Linux Foundation member.

Had IMTS 2020 taken place as scheduled, it would have been clear that making parts as quickly and cost-effectively as possible remains as the primary goal in manufacturing.