Ancient people used crude tools to restore the scenes at that time in ancient cliff paintings which appear to be plain and coarse, but they might never think about that, from today’s view, those paintings are

Called plane graphics or 2D painting.

Futurist Alvin Toffler believes that

Human civilization has experienced three waves.

The first wave lasted for thousands of years, the second hundreds of years and the third might last for only several decades.

The industrial revolution introduced the roaring train

And worked as a train running and clashing with the society, ethic, religious, science and technology at that time.

In fact, humans have never stopped in the trip of scientific and technological development.

Mathematician John von Neumann in the United States proposed a new structure of computer program storage and started to develop the computer in 1943 with the financial aid from the United States Army. The first real computer was born in February 1946 and named specially as ENIAC.

Since the beginning of the mankind, humans’ science and technology have developed several branches. In fact, interdisciplinary science studies did exist. In 99% of human history.

There was a small amount of interdisciplinary science studies which had made slow progress.
But when it comes to the information age

Mankind made several interdisciplinary science studies quickly. Many theoretical researches and applied technologies found an explosive era. Some people believe that the present-day people are harvesting the “past results” since many pure theories in the past were not able to be validated through technical approaches.
Mankind discover numerous nebulas in the universe and has created its own digital nebula in the human world. This virtual network is, at different levels, driving closer connection among the human being.

The idea of 3D printing originates from the United States at the end of the 19th century

But, luckily, meets the people and the digitalization created by them in the 21st century,3D printing is a kind of additive manufacturing (AM) based on the theory of dispersed/accumulated forming, and a science and technology system of parts manufacturing directly driven by their 3D models.

3D printing represents another accomplishment and the process of the exponential growth of the human technology.
3D printing is a digital application and a remote-control manufacturing technology

Data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China shows that the number of mobile applications detected on the market has increased by 420,000 to 4.49 million in 2019. Without massive data and applications, smart phones are useless; without digital networks, 3D printing will have little value.
The vitality of 3D printing relies on massive data models and the entire industrial ecology system, which is growing constantly.
The vitality of 3D printing also depends on networks to realize remote-control manufacturing in the real sense.

3D printing fits the future demand of human civilization
3D printing is a derivative of mankind’s self-replication

Same with other creatures, mankind’s ultimate goal is reproduction and iterative evolution, which are irreversible forces driving constant self-replication and self-evolution in humans. 3D printing offers a possibility to enable humans accomplish this process without physical efforts. Such possibility might be locked up by the human or applied at some point in the future.
Of course, self-replication does not only mean human cloning. Perhaps you also desire deep in your heart Rolls Royce, precious jewelry and seaside detached villa that belong to the super rich. Mankind’s self-motivation is achieved by duplicating their surroundings: climate, environment, commodity, natural instinct, culture and learning.

3D printing is a cloud-based service
3D printing is digital intelligent creation
3D printing is an intelligent factory

What a future factory looks like? You may be amazed when walking into a future factory, and seeing no roaring machines or busy robot arms but rows of 3D printers working inside, without knowing what they are printing.
With more understanding, you will find out that the future factory is intelligent and able to customize commodities based on each consumer’s demands. Moreover, future factories will be intelligent in a different way than how today’s intelligent factories run. It will be able to conduct automatic order receiving, AI design, production scheduling and shipment, etc.

Industry 4.0, 5G, AI and 3D Printing

Humans’ original concept and planning for Industry 4.0 might be overturned by 3D printing, with the application of AI in each link of 3D printing, such as business negotiation, design, production, logistics and transportation, and the beneficial influence from 5G that offers stable and fast data transmission for remote control and production, and ensures the popularization of 3D printing cloud service.

But mankind is experiencing the same story:
Moral and social challenges brought by new technologies.

Is it necessary to re-adjust legal provisions? Government shall re-formulate policies to address social problems generated by the new industry;
Is the craftsmanship still important? The combination of 3D printing and AI is able to go beyond humans’ creativity and artistic creation;
How to protect intellectual property rights? 3D printing can easily push the limits. The present pattern will be destroyed if there is no proper guidance;
Human morality is seriously damaged? Organs made by 3D printing can benefit mankind, but also trigger tough discussions around social morality;
Update of business mode and logic? There are always people being left behind and people wining their bets. The application of new technologies leads to the update of business modes. But every one shall think about how to find a feasible business mode.

3D printing turns models into finished products
3D printing turns 20 to 80 in Long Tail Effect

The extensive application of 3D printing has dramatically lowered and gradually removed the threshold of manufacturing introduced by the standard large-scale production since the industrial revolution, and realized delayering and decentration in manufacturing.
Previous manufacturing processes taking place in factories and managed by professionals could be accomplished by any ordinary people with 3D printing and sharing network resources, such as open source hardware, well-developed networks, open knowledge bases, IoT and big data on cloud. With all those resources, people are able to manufacture almost anything and work on design, procurement and production through remote crowdsourcing. In this way, people are equipped with the capability to conduct independent design and product manufacturing. Since it costs as few money in producing a piece of article as large-scale production, consumers’ pent-up desire for innovation is fully inspired and released. Then, they are not satisfied with products from cheap large-scale production and with the same look.
Featured by high flexibility in production, 3D printing will substantially drive the change from linear and standard process manufacturing to non-linear discrete manufacturing. Delayering and decentration are two possible and inevitable trends in the development of the manufacturing industry.
Linear Manufacturing (Large-scale Manufacturing) / Process Manufacturing ——> Non-Linear Manufacturing (Large-scale Customization) / Discrete Manufacturing ——> Intelligent Manufacturing

3D printing’s technical features in line with human development

Highly flexible in production:
It is able to manufacture 3D works in any complicated shapes. To produce part models in different shapes, it only needs to modify CAD models and re-set parameters.
Directly driven by CAD models and highly integrated design and manufacturing:
3D printing technology enables seamless connection of CAD/CA and high integration of design and manufacturing. It is a typical presentation of digital design and manufacturing technology.
Production cost stays constant:
Production scale and product complexity almost cannot affect the product cost.
Highly automatic:
Fully automated processing does not require manual intervention. It is basically able to achieve unattended production.