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Added lab intro as a concise and general overview of 3D printing.
==[[Digital technologies/3D printing|3D printing resources]]==
==[[Digital technologies/3D printing|3D printing resources]]==
Modern printing technology has enabled the accurate printing of nearly any shape in a wide variety of materials, with many different printing methods to choose from. Selecting a print method will depend on the application, material, and budget used. Materials vary from almost any metal alloy, thermoplastics, ceramics, paper, edibles, rubbers, and clay. Printing methods include extrusion (heating material and forcing through a nozzle), powder bed (placing powdered material and using adhesive or melting to attach), and light polymerized (using light to polymerize material on a build plate). 3D Printers utilize an onboard controller to control the printer head and build plate in order to print each 2D layer in the right order and position. In addition, most 3D printers have downloadable software (slicers) that allows a user to position a 3D model on a virtual build platform, as well as adjust the printer’s settings for the build before sending the data to the printer. These 3D models used by the software can be generated using [[Digital technologies/3D printing/3D modeling- Beginner|CAD (computer-aided design)]] methods, laser scanning, or photogrammetry, although CAD is typically used in conjunction with the latter two to refine the output from these methods.
===3D printing===
===3D printing===