Must-Have 3D Printing Dictionary

As 3D printing explodes in growth, plenty of processes, tools and other bit’s and bobs turn up, needing proper names. This is where the world of language takes over.

There isn’t any sort of governing body for naming everything, but the beauty of it is that anyone can contribute to the world of 3D printing, rather than relying on a large company to do it all for them and leave the masses with things they may not agree with or could do with improvement.

ZMorph has put together what they call ‘The Ultimate 3D Printing Dictionary’ which is an online dictionary published on medium.com, documenting as many terms as ZMorph could manage to find associated with 3D printing.

Having all of this information gathered in one place rather than scattered across the depths of the internet is certainly useful, especially for beginners. Even the best of us can find ourselves pondering over a new acronym, so beginners and experts alike can use this important resource to make sure everyone’s on the same wavelength.

Here’s a quick excerpt of a few of the terms:

Additive manufacturing — It refers to various fabrication processes used to manufacture 3D objects by adding layers of the material. It’s another name for 3D printing.

Artifact — An object or form printed on the worktable next to the actual object. It’s used as a transitional and cleaning artifact when using ZMorph dual-head extruder or Dual PRO in order to clean the nozzle between filament changes.

Brim — A few layers of filament printed in a distance from the object itself to ensure proper filament flow before actual printing.

The terms include examples of products that ZMorph sells, so it does bring up an argument that in this case, people are in fact relying on a company to provide them with definitions for terms within the 3D printing community.

Despite this, its still a well-organised tool which can benefit a wide range of people. Another thing to mention, is that users can even contribute to the dictionary by leaving a comment, though obviously it has to be approved to be featured.

Even if this doesn’t end up as your choice place to go for definitions there is always google, but if you want something that’s carefully organised and not littered with links to site upon site with differently worded explanations, this one is certainly worth a try. The handy Ctrl+F function allows you to search through everything just the same as on google too.