Dear Desktop Engineering Reader: When I go to trade shows, I like to listen to people like you ask questions of the dudes and dudettes demonstrating something. It's a great way to take a quick pulse of DE's audience. Anyway, I was at this show – in Chicago, where else? -- loitering around the Z Corporation booth. This one guy was peppering the Z gent with questions. Basically, this guy was mesmerized with the latest Z Corp. 3D printer on display. But he wasn't able to assimilate all the data he was getting from the Z dude. He should have had today's Check It Out to read. Entitled How 3D Printing Works: The Vision, Innovation and Technologies Behind Inkjet 3D Printing, this 15-page PDF is simply one of the best overviews of how a company's technology works that I have read. This is a straightforward account of Z Corporation's technology that begins at the very beginning and takes you right through 15 years of technological evolution to today's state of the art. How 3D Printing Works is richly illustrated with, say, a half dozen technical drawings that clearly show the major hardware components and their workflow. Another six or so illustrations provide a well-executed treatment of how the software takes your file, processes it for 3D printing and your options during processing. It then shows how the software controls the production of your 3D part. Each hardware and software step along the way is explained in hype-free detail and – best of all – as if you are an intelligent individual and not some consumer barely able to ingest a child's reading materials. Other good reads in How 3D Printing Works include a section that clearly explains infiltration, how it works, and your options as defined by your needs. The paper has a partial list of applications that readily provide 3D printing-ready files, and cost and speed metrics are provided so that you can judge for yourself the cost-benefit potential of making a leap into 3D printing technology. When I was assigning writers to come up with the great stuff that you get from Desktop Engineering, I would always impress upon them that they should simply state the story and resist the urge to hyperventilate over a product. Whoever wrote Z Corporation's How 3D Printing Works did a great job making that happen. It's well worth your time checking out this paper. Check out the white paper. Thanks, pal. -- Lockwood Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering
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