You can now request a formal inspection with a dimensional report for your additive manufacturing projects! This new offering, similar to inspection options for CNC and sheet metal parts, will produce a formal report that will ship with your order. This report will showcase measurement data on criti

Once your files are ready to go, you can get a quote by uploading them to the Xometry Instant Quoting Engine®! After your files have been analyzed, click the configure part button to go to the part configuration screen. In the printing technology drop-down menu, select PolyJet. If you would like us

3D printers produce parts on a layer-by-layer basis, fusing or bonding one cross-section at a time until the whole object is formed. For powder bed fusion processes, such as SLS, HP Multi Jet Fusion, and DMLS, the machines melt layers of powder and then moves incrementally up to create the next leve

A 3D printing software is used to build, slice, and prepare 3D models for creation using a 3D printer. For modeling software programs that do not come with slicer capabilities, a slicer software application such as Fusion Autodesk 360 may be used. A slicer transforms the model built with the CAD sof

In Part 1 of our series, we explore differences between 3D printed parts made using various additive manufacturing processes. This continues in Part 2, where we compare more processes head-to-head to highlight their strengths and trade-offs. Now in Part 3 of our series, well highlight two common cus

Lychee Slicer® and Chitubox® are both powerful software packages designed to prepare 3D models for printing on resin printers such as SLA (stereolithography), DLP (digital light processing), and LCD (liquid crystal display). Lychee Slicer has powerful automated workflow capabilities, and mesh repair

What is Metal 3D Printing?First, the basics: there are multiple metal additive manufacturing methods, including the more widespread DMLS (direct metal laser sintering) as well as the more recently popular method of metal binder jetting. In DMLS, metal powder is directly melted (or sintered) by a las

Is 3D Printing Food-Safe?3D printing has matured as a manufacturing technology over the past decade, inching closer to becoming a mainstream manufacturing technology. This is in large part because 3D printing technology has gotten more sophisticated, leading to more consistent, durable, and complex

Xometrys vapor smoothing service is an excellent way to improve the look and feel of your custom-ordered 3D printed parts. Utilizing automatic vapor smoothing technology, we are able to achieve consistent and repeatable results with ease. While there are many benefits of chemical vapor smoothing, in

We often receive questions from customers regarding the maximum size of a part that can be printed with Xometrys 3D printing service. It’s a great question and the answer depends entirely on the process you decided to use. To help inform your decision please refer to the sections below for the maxim

In a time when many products are created to meet customers’ insatiable needs, product developers are looking for ways to improve their manufacturing processes, specifically on the cost or speed of production. This opens up the need for rapid prototyping technologies. Rapid prototyping is the use of

SolidWorks® and Onshape® are both computer-aided design (CAD) software that allows engineers and manufacturers to draw 2D and 3D models and simulate their designs as drawings, parts, or assemblies. SolidWorks is the more established software with a larger market share that uses device-based software

Brittleness is a material property that describes its tendency to fracture with little to no plastic deformation when stress is applied to it. Brittle behavior results when atoms in a material cannot slip past each other while maintaining the overall integrity of the atomic lattice structure. Cracks

TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer) is a rubber that has both thermoplastic and elastomer properties. TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane), on the other hand, is a form of TPE. TPU and TPE are flexible filaments used as 3D printing materials for designs that require stretch or bend qualities. They also give a

Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM) is an elegantly simple concept that builds prototypes out of cut sheet materials. Sheet materials are placed over the whole build table to selectively bond to the layer below and then cut, either with a laser or a traveling knife, to extract the 2D slice from the

MSLA, short for masked stereolithography apparatus, is an enhanced form of SLA (stereolithography) 3D printing that matches an LCD screen with a powerful LED light source to selectively cure photosensitive resin. When successive layers are cured upon the previous ones, they form a three-dimensional

The AMF (Additive Manufacturing File) file format is used to store data about 3D objects in CAD software. It was created specifically for the 3D printing industry and was recently developed by the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM).A single AMF file can contain information about one or mo

FreeCAD and OpenSCAD are both open-source CAD (computer-aided design) packages but they work very differently. FreeCAD is designed to be a free alternative to commercial CAD packages and offers many of the same features. While FreeCAD can be more difficult to use than some, it is significantly more

What is Stereolithography, and Why Should You Use it?Stereolithography, otherwise known as SLA, is a powerful 3D printing technology that produces highly accurate, high-resolution parts perfect for product development, rapid prototyping, concept models, and injection mold design verification. This a

When comparing Inventor® vs Fusion 360®, it’s important to consider the different functions of each software. Both are computer aided design programs, but they differ in complexity, and usability. Inventor is a professional, desktop-only CAD platform built for detailed mechanical design and complex