In January 2009, the BfB RapMan 3D printer became the first commercial 3D printer available for sale. Since then, the 3D printing industry has flourished, with 80,000 desktop 3D printers sold in 2013, 160,000 sold in 2014, and 275,000 in 2015. A July 2016 report from CONTEXT, an IT market research company, forecasts the global 3D printing industry to grow to $18.4 billion in 2020. This growth largely stems from individuals like you and me entering into desktop or personal 3D printing.

For those of you who enjoy DIY home improvement projects, we have some great tips. First, you can change the layout of your furniture in any room. Sometimes, even the smallest change can make a big difference! One idea is to move the furniture away from the windows to let in more natural light. Another tip is to remove any unnecessary furniture to help make a room look bigger. Simply getting rid of clutter can also make a world of difference.

For many of us, 3D printing may be just something we hear about on the news or online articles when checking our e-mails. We know they are capable of doing great things like building houses for people to live in, and small (often novel) things like a Grumpy Cat figurine. Have you ever thought about what you would make if you had a 3D printer? We know the prices can be pretty steep, and often associate 3D printers with hobbysists with a little extra time and cash on hand, but in due time this may change.

Drawing with 3D pens is a little like creating things out of thin air, isn’t it? You glide your hand and out appears your drawing just as you imagined. In fact, the most popular 3D print pen, “3D Doodler”, has a tagline that pretty much sums how it works: “It’s a pen that can draw in the air! Lift your imagination off the page!”. As Wired.com put it once, the “3D Doodler is for “anyone with a passion for making”.

Photo by: MakerBot Industries We have spoken about 3D printing and 3-D printers before; about the various applications that are possible right now, and about some amazing things that could become a reality in future. It sounds a little like something out of a Sci-Fi film that you can simply create objects – three dimensional objects with limited or full utility by the simple press of a button and yet this could well become reality in the not so distant future.

3D printing has opened up a vast number of possibilities not just for designers and innovators but also for the regular people. Just think about it, with 3D printing we can create actual objects just at the touch of a button! From healthcare applications where lives could be saved to easing everyday functions of life – the possibilities are endless! Perhaps we will have edible objects that are created using syringes containing actual food.

Three-dimensional printing is causing a huge buzz in the technology world, and was celebrated by Forbes as a potential world-changing invention. However, 3D printing isn’t printing in the traditional sense of ink on paper; to understand the close-to-perfected invention of 3D printing you’ll need to rethink “printing” as you know it. How does 3D printing work? Three-dimensional printing is based on the same basic concept as a 2D printer: ink is taken from a well in the printer and distributed onto the printed material.