In 1986, Charles Hull was granted the patent and in the same year Co-founded 3D Systems, which is now one of the largest 3D Printing organizations. He patented the technology in 1984 itself. The trio however still filed for a patent but sadly the had to abandon the project as their funding dried out.Īround the same time, in 1983, Charles Hull, an American Engineer, invented Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA) which also marked the year the first-ever part was 3D printed. On a personal front, Andre was interested in the idea but the CNRS rejected their proposal to fund. The two of them then brought their idea to Jean-Claude André who was working at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Olivier was quickly interested and his background in lasers meant that he knew of materials that could be cured/hardened on application of laser energy. But still determined to pursue his ideas, he shared his thoughts and ideas with Olivier de Witte who was working with a subsidiary or Alcatel at that moment. He consulted with his colleagues about such a prototyping system but they were not interested in his ideas. Kodama, a French researcher, Alain le Méhauté also got interested in the rapid prototyping system when he was working for Alcatel in early 80’s. The end piece of the jigsaw puzzle was still eluding many researchers. The RP system was in itself a great ideological breakthrough but with no practical use. Kodama could not do so and the application expired its one-year deadline. He was to subsequently file for a patent but somehow Dr. He imagined a system of printing layers of a model on a platform and building layer above layer to form the final product. Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute, Japan, published a paper on Rapid Prototyping (RP) system. The technology generated quite a buzz but nothing substantial could be achieved in the following half-decade. The birth of 3D printing can be traced back to late 1970s when the first inkjet printer was manufactured. It may seem a fairly new technology but it is not. When we talk about the history of 3D printing we will have to start from the late 1970s, even before the first technology – Stereolithography – was invented. 5 Some Chronologically Important Milestones in the History of 3D Printing.
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