Additive manufacturing (AM) has a history with two distinct timelines. In the very beginning, when Kodama, Hull, and Deckard brought it to life, 3D printing was pretty much just for big industry. But it was Scott Crump who introduced FDM, and it really laid the foundation for AM to be more widely adopted… eventually.
The early days of 3D printing were defined by being slow, expensive, industrial, and inaccessible to the general public, primarily serving heavy-hitting sectors like automotive, aerospace, and defense. The technology was largely inaccessible, and public awareness was pretty much limited to obscure science fiction and complex industrial applications.
