3D printing company Materialise has announced what they believe to be the de facto standard for the selective laser melting industrial 3D printing process. The SLM Build Processor is optimised for industrial 3D printer manufacturer SLM Solutions’ line of metal 3D printers and is now available for purchase.
Materialise is one of the largest providers of 3D printing software and process solutions for the advanced manufacturing and medical industries. The Belgian company has been at the front of many of the 3D Printing Industry’s advancements (notably on the software and application fronts) and has been part of shaping it into the nearly four billion dollar industry that it is today.
3D printers are more than manufacturing machines, they are essentially robots that require complex programming to provide the best quality print in the most efficient manner. Build processors are how the robots are told what to print, how quickly, at what temperature and what path to take along the build platform. Sort of how 2D printers use print drivers, 3D printers use build processors in a similar – although much more complex – way.
The quality of the printer is almost immaterial without good software, so Materialise often works closely with 3D printer manufacturers to create better communication between printers and the computers that operate them. The build processors that they create don’t just drive the robot, they actually allow the robot to talk back to the computer and record data on specific jobs.
According to Materialise the range of SLM Solutions metal 3D printers will see a significant improvement in the user experience. The new build processors have streamlined the transfer of data, resulting in a higher quality of prints, lower rate of print failure and allowing for more print complexity. Materialise isn’t done however, this is only the first of many new build processors that they are working on in partnership with other 3D printer manufacturers.
