Re: Re: Who coined the term "3D printing"?

From: Jim McMahon <jim_at_layergrownmodel.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 12:07:45 -0500

Hello Marshall:

I know his article was about 3D Systems SLA technology and I agree it was
in it's infancy. I also think there may have been inherent limitations
because the actual support software was not finished until the mid 1990's
according to my findings. Please reference Terry Wohlers Volume 11, No 4
April 1992 and the section on Supporting the part. A company called
Bridgeworks which developed software that improved the support structures.
Terry states the new version of Bridgeworks can create supports in 5
minutes instead of up to 2 hours. People have told me that SLA machines
were not that good until the mid 1990' or even till 2000. I have been
looking for more information about this and have not proved it. It should
also be common knowledge that the Helinski patent was licensed and then
acquired by 3D Systems. The Patent was not issued until Aug 2002 and so it
couldn't have been licensed till after that.
My point was that support is critical to 3D printing and customers working
with machines were frustrated if it wasn't good. The true 3D printing I
reference was that a fully usable support system is needed to a true 3D
printer. It is an opinion and I thought it was accepted in industry these
days.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 11:19 AM, Marshall Burns <ListMail2_at_fabbers.com>
wrote:

> Jim, you wrote,
>
> > But the term "3D Printing" appears to have come from Terry Wohlers in
> 1988 even though he was describing 2.5D printing in those days.
>
>
>
> The second part of that sentence, that he was describing
> 2.5-d printing, is not true. His article was about 3D Systems’
> Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA). The model photographs in the article do
> have a 2.5-d sense to them (no overhangs), but that was because utilization
> of the technology was in its infancy, not because of inherent limitations
> in the technology itself. Terry talked a good deal in the article about the
> use of support structures, which in time would allow utilization to mature
> to fabrication of fully 3-d objects.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* rp-ml-owner_at_rp-ml.org [mailto:rp-ml-owner_at_rp-ml.org] *On Behalf
> Of *Jim McMahon
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 15, 2017 07:45
> *To:* ListMail2_at_fabbers.com
> *Subject:* [rp-ml] Re: Who coined the term "3D printing"?
>
>
>
> Hi Marshall:
>
>
>
> It is interesting to know that the term printing is normally associated
> with the process of putting material on a surface for reading. There was a
> lot of activity in the 60's-80's using inkjet for printing. In the 1960's
> wax was used in inkjets for military printing of documents that could be
> heated to easily melt the text. It was called Project 176. A Teletype
> Inktronic printer was manufactured in Skokie, Ill by AT&T, a Teletype
> Division in 1966. Alphanumeric s as well as graphics could be printed. The
> Inkjets were continuous jetting and over 200 of built were made at the
> time. One was recently sold on Ebay to a collector. These were sent around
> the world to US military sites. The printing was sometimes printed over
> itself a few times and the letters stood off the page. Braille printing
> (raised bumps) was experimented with by Teletype but the wax peeled off the
> paper and the Braille project was dropped. This was all prior to the 1970's
> and then in 1972 Steve Zoltan invented the drop-on-demand inkjet. Exxon
> Office Systems began in 1978 with Steve Zoltan hired to produce a printer
> with his glass jets. Wax inks were patented and improvements were made to
> inkjet printers. Howtek, Inc started in 1984 by Robert Howard who wanted to
> go even further. The glass jet was molded in Teflon and Thermoplastic inks
> were developed. These same style inkjets and modified thermoplastic
> materials are in use today in Solidscape printers. This technology was the
> basis for the Helinski (worked at Howtek) patent of two material three
> dimensional printing with removable support. This first support patent in
> the industry, was applied for in November 1989, was licensed by other
> companies for years who needed to print true 3D models . The prototype
> machine, the Sculptor, designed to demonstrate this patent and the prior
> art of inkjet printers can all be seen at Layer Grown Models inkjet
> printer collection in New Hampshire.
>
> It should be pointed out that any research into early 3D printing seldom
> lists this Drop-On-Demand inkjet technology as being involved with 3D
> models even though it is described by me as the oldest true 3D printing
> technology. It is used today by many industries, mostly jewelry, where
> precise models can be produced, support removed with no grinding and then
> cast into metal using the investment casting process that has been around
> for 100's of years. Customers of mine still say there is no better
> technology available today. I still have an original, 1994 Sanders
> Prototype inkjet printer installed today in USA, running and I have inkjets
> still working with Teflon nozzles made in Japan in 1985-86.
>
> I am suggesting 3D printing originated with the inkjet printing industry
> and and is still the most popular to this day. This term 3D printing has
> been borrowed by others because of association with printers. To say there
> are concrete 3D printers is makes me cringe. I am in favor of the term
> Additive Manufacturing Technology. Extrusion model forming without support
> is actually 2.5D printing as some have described it. A question that comes
> to me is, did true 3D printing originate with STL files, Stereo-lithography
> or inkjets using wax and thermoplastic inks. In the printing industry,
> raised printed characters were well known in the 1960's but it took
> computers to describe the a 3D model and that was done with HPGL graphics
> thanks to the video gaming industry. CADD programs finally caught on much
> later. The only thing left was to be able to control deposits of material
> in tiny locations for making an object. Inkjets were developed in the 50'5
> and 60's, light cured films, resins and epoxies appeared and the computer
> graphics industry was involved to describe shapes. Actually, the machine
> control programming industry wrote programs to direct tools to perform
> operations. This same machine programming language was used in Exxon Office
> Systems to print characters on paper for years. Howtek used a modified
> version to define character fonts for printing words. The need to make
> color characters required printing CMYK inks precisely in layers or near
> each other to form letters or images and this was prior art for 3D
> printing. To make a green character model you needed a group of drops of
> cyan and of yellow precisely on top of each other. This is 2.5D model
> printing. The 3D two material patent originating form Howtek was a natural
> coming from a color inkjet printing technology company but required the 3rd
> component of 3D printing, support. Without support you have no true 3D
> printing. Support defines 3D printing. The concept originated with color
> inkjet printing in 1984 at Howtek, Inc. Supported inkjet printing did not
> originate until 1989. But the term "3D Printing" appears to have come from
> Terry Wohlers in 1988 even though he was describing 2.5D printing in those
> days.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 5:34 PM, Marshall Burns <ListMail2_at_fabbers.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hi RP World,
>
>
>
> I used to think that the term “3D printing” originated at
> MIT for describing their process that was later commercialized by Soligen
> and Z Corp. Elly Sachs wrote a paper about the process that was published
> in June 1990 with the title, “Three-Dimensional Printing: Ceramic tooling
> and parts from a CAD model.” In my 1993 book, I applied the term only to
> that technology.
>
>
>
> However, I have now become aware of two earlier uses of
> the term:
>
>
>
> * Terry Wohlers wrote an article for the May 1988 issue of
> “Computer Graphics World” with the title, “3d printing: From CADD model to
> prototype.”
>
>
>
> * Norman Kinzie has told me in recent correspondence that
> he coined the term and used it in the title of a document he distributed in
> early 1988 or in 1987. My records show a document by Kinzie with the title
> “introduction to: Three-Dimensional Printing” and dated June 2, 1988.
> Unfortunately, I no longer have the paper files with that document. In any
> cases, it is dated after Wohler’s article. Kinzie tells me that he has in
> his possession an earlier version of the document, dated April 27, 1988,
> and that he believes there were versions prior to that but that he cannot
> find them at this time. Since magazines usually come out in advance of
> their cover dates, it is likely that Wohler’s article was on shelves prior
> to the earliest available date of Kinzie’s document.
>
>
>
> According to the above, it appears that the earliest known
> use of the term “3D printing” was by Terry Wohlers. Does anyone have any
> information to either support or refute that?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Marshall
>
> www.fabbers.com
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Wed Feb 15 2017 - 19:08:13 EET