The history of 3D printing: from 1981 to today
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The 3D printer on your desk seems like a new invention. In fact, the idea is over 40 years old. It leads from a Japanese laboratory via a hot glue gun to today’s fast multi-colour printers.
1981: Hideo Kodama and the liquid resin
It begins with Hideo Kodama of the Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute in Japan. In May 1980 he filed a patent, and in November 1981 he described his process in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments: liquid, light-sensitive resin is cured with UV light, layer by layer, until a model emerges.
This is exactly how resin printers still work today. Kodama’s patent, however, never came to be: according to reports, the money was missing to submit the full documents in time.
1984 to 1987: Chuck Hull, SLA and the STL format
The American Chuck Hull worked independently on the same idea. In 1984 he filed his patent for stereolithography (SLA), and it was granted on 11 March 1986. In the same year he founded 3D Systems, the first company to sell 3D printers commercially.
A legacy from that time is probably on your hard drive right now: the STL format. It was developed in 1987 by the Albert Consulting Group for 3D Systems, for their first commercial printers. It is still one of the most common formats today. More on this in File formats.
1988 to 1992: Scott Crump and the hot glue gun
The process that most home printers use has a nice origin story. In 1988 Scott Crump wanted to make a toy frog for his little daughter. He took a hot glue gun filled with a mixture of polyethylene and candle wax and built up the shape layer by layer. That gave him the idea of automating the whole thing.
In 1989 he founded the company Stratasys with his wife Lisa and filed the patent on 30 October 1989. It was granted on 9 June 1992. In April 1992 the first machine came onto the market, the “3D Modeler”. Stratasys had the name Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) protected as a trademark.
2005 to 2009: RepRap and the end of the patent
In 2005 Adrian Bowyer, a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath, started the RepRap project. The idea: a printer that can print its own parts and whose plans are free for everyone. On 29 May 2008 the RepRap “Darwin” managed to produce a complete set of its own printed parts. Screws, motors and electronics still had to be bought.
Because “FDM” was a protected trademark, the RepRap community introduced the free term Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF). In October 2009 Crump’s patent expired. From then on anyone could build and sell FDM printers without paying licence fees to Stratasys.
2008 to 2013: MakerBot and Thingiverse
MakerBot came out of the RepRap community. In November 2008 Zach Smith launched the Thingiverse platform, and in January 2009 he founded MakerBot Industries with Bre Pettis and Adam Mayer. The Cupcake CNC kit appeared in April 2009.
MakerBot brought 3D printing into schools and living rooms. In June 2013, of all companies, Stratasys bought the company for 604 million US dollars. Thingiverse showed how important a platform for sharing models is, see Finding models.
2010 to 2017: Prusa
The Czech Josef Průša presented the Prusa Mendel in September 2010, a simplified RepRap variant. The Prusa i3 followed in 2012, and in the same year the company Prusa Research. The i3 became the model for countless copies: in 2016 it was considered the most widely used 3D printer in the world.
From 2018: the boom in cheap printers
With the end of the patent and open build plans, prices fell sharply. A well-known example is the Creality Ender 3, which was available on offer in 2018 for around 170 US dollars. 3D printing became a mass hobby.
From 2020: fast, CoreXY and colourful
The next big wave was about speed. The Klipper firmware introduced input shaping in late 2020, which compensates for vibrations at high accelerations. Community projects such as Voron showed how fast enclosed CoreXY printers can be.
In 2022 Bambu Lab raised over 7 million US dollars from 5,575 backers on Kickstarter with the X1 series. The machines promised 500 mm/s and 20,000 mm/s² acceleration, automatic calibration and, with the AMS, a system for four filaments, expandable to up to 16. Multi-colour printing had existed before, for example with Prusa’s Multi Material Upgrade from 2016, but now it became practical for everyday use. Since then many manufacturers have been building fast CoreXY printers with a multi-colour system, in 2024 for example Prusa as well with the Core One. How the designs differ is explained in Bed slinger or CoreXY.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1980 | Hideo Kodama files a patent in Japan for curing resin layer by layer |
| 1981 | Kodama publishes his process in Review of Scientific Instruments |
| 1984 | Chuck Hull files his patent for stereolithography |
| 1986 | Hull’s patent is granted, founding of 3D Systems |
| 1987 | The STL format is created for the 3D Systems printers |
| 1989 | Founding of Stratasys, patent application for FDM |
| 1992 | FDM patent granted, first Stratasys printer comes onto the market |
| 2005 | Adrian Bowyer starts RepRap at the University of Bath |
| 2008 | RepRap Darwin prints its own parts, Thingiverse goes online |
| 2009 | FDM patent expires, founding of MakerBot |
| 2010 | Josef Průša presents the Prusa Mendel |
| 2012 | Prusa i3 and founding of Prusa Research |
| 2018 | Cheap kits such as the Ender 3 cost under 200 US dollars |
| 2020 | Klipper introduces input shaping |
| 2022 | Bambu Lab X1 with AMS on Kickstarter |
| 2024 | Prusa also brings out a CoreXY printer with the Core One |
Continue with: What is 3D printing? or why everyone prints the same little boat: 3DBenchy.