Materialise
As TCT Asia 2024 approaches, TCT has been speaking to some of the companies who have exhibited at each and every event throughout its first ten years.
Materialise, a leader in additive manufacturing software and services, is among those companies.
Here, we talk to Materialise about what the company will be showcasing in Shanghai, how the Chinese AM market is progressing, and what challenges the AM space still needs to overcome.
Register to attend TCT Asia 2024 and visit Polymaker on booth 8F61. TCT Asia runs from May 7-9, 2024.
What is Materialise presenting on the show floor at TCT Asia 2024?
- Our total software solution, including major new updates of our Magics 3D Print suite from design to data preparation, and the CO-AM platform.
- 3D printed parts/products in various materials and technologies, empowered by our software solutions.
- VR experience for Medical applications for visualisations.
- We will also have a full-day education session in the hall for university students on the first day May 7th.
Can you tell us about an exciting application that visitors will be able to see at the event?
Magics 28: The latest version of Magics (28) will launch on May 15, but TCT Asia visitors will get an exclusive preview. Magics is the software of choice for large and complex data, and this is reflected in the addition of beam lattice technology in Magics. This not only opens new design and printability opportunities, but also significantly speeds up the workflow by working with lighter data. We consider our users’ needs and requests for every release, so Magics is now faster than ever and even includes a dark theme option. This allows users to switch to a dark user interface, creating a more soothing user experience. We also enable connectivity with other lattice design packages (via 3MF, mxp), external lattice Libraries such as BASF and HP, and DfAM packages such as nTop. General performance upgrades also include label planning improvements that offer a speed increase of up to 90% and a reduction of memory usage of up to 45%, depending on the size of the part (the more complex the bigger the gain).
NxG Build Processor: In the past five years, there has been significant progress in metal 3D printing technologies due to the rising customer demand for printing larger and more complex parts, resulting in larger files sizes. Consequently, numerous OEMs have made substantial investments in developing larger printers with expanded print volumes and increased laser capacity.
Materialise has responded by proactively upgrading their classic BPs to help 3D Printer OEMs accelerate their development cycle with off-the-shelf NxG BP, and with a customisable BP software development kit (BP SDK) to meet customer application-specific demands. This empowers OEMs to harness Materialise's 30+ years of AM expertise by offering a comprehensive suite of BP capabilities to improve quality, processing and production speed – tailored to suit various AM technologies and specific applications with their own resources or with the support of our Services Team.
TCT Asia is celebrating its 10th anniversary. What are your thoughts on how the AM market, and specifically in China, has evolved in that time?
Five years ago, Materialise surveyed Chinese manufacturing companies to gauge their interest and attitude toward 3D printing. The survey showed that China was mostly focused on prototyping in its adoption of 3D printing and remained doubtful about the readiness of the technology for manufacturing final products. In fact, Chinese manufacturers believed global adoption of 3D printing could even challenge China’s position as the ‘factory of the world’.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
Fast forward five years and it’s a very different picture. Perhaps even more so than in other regions, we are seeing significant advancements in China. Costs are under control; new machines provide quality and efficiency at scale and affordable materials make much larger orders feasible. We are seeing large-scale applications such as mobile phone components being produced in substantial volumes, and razor-thin titanium hinges for folding phones, and the mass production of smartwatch cases. We’re talking millions of parts per year.
Materialise recently launched its e-Stage for Metal+ software to automate support generation for metal 3D printing – What are the biggest challenges this will solve for manufacturers?
For Machine OEMs, e-Stage Metal+ will streamline the learning curve for new-to-metal customers, enabling faster and more effective onboarding. This improvement will allow customers to produce parts with greater precision and quality, while reducing costs, thereby accelerating their ability to scale operations.
Since launching CO-AM, what impact has it had on how manufacturers use 3D printing technology?
In today's dynamic industry landscape, platforms like CO-AM are critical for boosting the efficiency of additive manufacturing (AM) production workflows. As our customers manage their expanding manufacturing networks, they require a unified solution that integrates seamlessly across all sites, blending traditional and AM technologies effectively.
A key advantage our customers and partners emphasize is the open architecture and versatility of CO-AM. This feature allows for effortless integration of preferred tools, offering the flexibility to customize processes to meet specific business needs. CO-AM supports both traditional and additive manufacturing capabilities, while also connecting smoothly with existing production systems and a variety of manufacturing technologies.
Furthermore, CO-AM harnesses data to foster continuous improvement, aligning with the lean manufacturing cycle of plan, do, check, and learn. This approach helps our customers and partners' ecosystems to pursue sustainable growth and manage risks effectively.
In your view, what is the biggest challenge that the AM industry faces today?
An important challenge is the need for our industry to meet the increasing demands of the market effectively, particularly in enhancing the accessibility and cost-effectiveness of 3D printing technologies. Central to this vision is the role of software in reducing the overall costs and complexities associated with producing parts via additive manufacturing. There’s a lot of expertise and knowledge that we can build into our software to guide users and help bridge the expertise gap in the market.
You have been part of the TCT Asia journey right from the start. What has been your highlight?
We appreciate that TCT Asia is not only a very important platform for us to introduce our latest technology to China/Asia markets, but also an opportunity to share our company values and culture. In 2021, we surprised visitors by planting a real banana tree at TCT Asia. It was a reference to our “Bananas for Every Woman” project, an initiative started in the African country of Benin, that aims to improve nutrition in the region and provide women with financial autonomy.
How do you envision the AM industry progressing over the next decade?
Manufacturers are convinced of the unique benefits that AM offers but when they adopt AM and are looking to scale their operations they are running into all kinds of challenges. In other words, convincing companies of 3D printing's benefits is yesterday's challenge. Today, the focus shifts from convincing companies to guiding them as they struggle to optimize the production process and scale up to volume production.
Software emerges as an important player, injecting intelligence into the process, enabling traceability, and quality control at every step of the 3D printing journey. However, software alone cannot address these challenges. It requires collaboration. Our industry needs to unify to create a stable and harmonious ecosystem with increased interoperability. Our industry needs to define standards and simplify the adoption process, making it cost-effective for manufacturing companies to serve their markets with high-quality final parts in high volume.
But we also need to collaborate with our customers. To remove existing barriers so they can scale up their AM production. Our industry will have to make additional efforts to address the challenges they encounter, including training and workforce development, identifying new business models, and easier-to-use software and hardware.
Register to attend TCT Asia 2024 and visit Polymaker on booth 8F61. TCT Asia runs from May 7-9, 2024.
