3D Printing/History

Origins
In 1982 modern 3D Printing was devised by Dr. Hideo Kodama.

In Charles Hull invented sterolithography in 1984. Scott Crump would invent FDM (FFF) printing in 1989.

Starting in 2004 the Open Source Rep Rap project resulted in a number of derivative commercial printers being made that were more affordable then previous offerings.

Adoption
The then cheap and open source 3D printers offered by Makerbot caught the public imagination around 2010. In 2012 Makerbot stopped open sourcing hardware and soon was acquired by Stratasys, where it would soon cease manufacturing their own printers in 2016.

The 3D printer market contracted a bit in 2015. Budget Creality printers became popular during this time.

In the 2010's, both LulzBot and Prusa operated their own commercial scale printer farms to produce parts for their commercial 3D Printers.

In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, makers used tools like 3D printers to produce millions of PPE parts while supply lines were disrupted.