What is 3D Printing?

3D Printing is a construction process by which material such as plastics are heated and extracted layer by layer to build a three dimensional object. The object is first designed with a CAD application and saved as a stereolithography or STL file. It is then sliced into gcode which is a set of instructions the 3D printer can understand. The gcode is sent to the printer and it does the rest. Special printers such as the x1-carbon shown below is capability of using multiples material, or colors, to build one object. Usually a little cleanup and or trimming is required to polish the finished product.