Various forms of Rapid Prototyping have been around since the ’80s. Compared to manufacturing a prototype through traditional means, RP was all the rage. It’s never become, however, a daily-use engineering tool as was expected. Is all that about to change?

Editors get to see a lot of really cool stuff, most often before it’s introduced to a given marketplace. I was one of the lucky ones in the ’80s who witnessed the dawn of what is probably one of the most powerful technologies to come down the road in a long time or since: Rapid Prototyping. Such RP methods as stereolithography, laser sintering, and laminated object manufacturing, for example — compared to alternatives — were dazzling, gee-whiz processes. While these and other forms of RP are alive and well, the technology generally fell way short of the promise: RP for every engineer. Marketers told us that RP was about to become as common and easy to use as the office LaserJet. Not surprisingly, the marketing gurus were, well, just a tad off-base. Or, maybe their rose-colored glasses enabled them to see a remarkable twenty years down the road.

In its old forms, even ‘rapid’ prototyping was oftentimes a laborious process of software first deconstructing a 3D model into thin slices, after which hardware reproduced each of those slices — layer after painstaking layer applied to the previous — to build a representative 3D model that one can see and touch.

The marketers’ promise of making RP as easy as sending a print job may finally be happening with the advent of 3D printing—namely from Z Corp., a 3D printing innovator since 2000. The company has already taken 100 orders for its latest 3D printing system, the Spectrum Z(tm) 510, priced at $49,900. What is 3D printing? It’s RP based on desktop printing technology: layers of inks and waxes instead of, for example, polymers and cut, glued, layered paper products. Is 3D Printing the Holy Grail of RP? That remains to be seen. See an interesting article in Time-Compression Technologies, for example, entitled The Top Ten Myths About 3D Printing. Also, Jon Hirshtick — founder and former CEO of SolidWorks — in a new Desktop Engineering article, Following the Path of 3DP, says “3D printing is as close to magic as possible with technology; reminiscent of the replicator on the U.S.S. Enterprise of Star Trek fame. In addition to the cool factor, 3D printing has matured sufficiently to cross the chasm between being an interesting infant technology to existing as a proven, beneficial application ready for prime time. It is finally ready for everyone.” Mr. Hirshstick is also on the Z Corp. board of directors.

Ready for primetime? It appears that it’s close. Primetime, however, involves economies of scale that will by definition need to be addressed — if not intentionally, then naturally as the technology matures — before there’s a 3D Printer in every engineering office. Think Xerox, Sharp, Ricoh, and H-P, for example. Then it will be primetime.