3D printing has utilities in reducing part weight, materials used, and energy in production. However, CAD tools need to evolve to support complex designs that 3D printers can now create. Specifically, CAD software is currently limited by only allowing basic geometric shapes, while 3D printers can create any twisting or undulating shape from a design file. For CAD to keep pace with 3D printing advancements, the software will need to move to the cloud and become more intuitive to use, allowing designers to sketch freely as they would on paper.

1. 3D Printing & It’s Utilities

2. l3D printing enables reduce part weight, raw material and
cut total energy used in production. But to take
advantage of 3D printing, engineers need updated,
intuitive and easy-to-learn CAD tools.
lSo in order to keep pace with deveopment in 3D printing,
CAD technology must move into the cloud, become
easier to use and be better able to support eccentric and
not-yet-dreamed-of designs.
lIf CAD technology can evolve everyday objects like
electric toothbrush, blender or even the engine within
your automobile, will take the shape of nothing one has
ever seen before.

4. lThat matter is CAD keeping up with 3D printing. Most 3D
printers take their printing instructions from 3D CAD files.
Since the 3D printer receives its instructions from CAD
files, the printers are limited in the shapes they print that
those CAD systems generate.
lThe 3D printers can print objects with geometries yet
unimagined. Any shape, no matter how twisting,
undulating or odd, it might be.
lBut CAD software allows for designers to work with
recognized geometries: circles and ovals, squares and
rectangles, and so on.

6. lGuided by the design file, a 3D printer lays down layer
after layer of a material to print an object in 3D. Some of
today’s printers and materials can create objects that can
instantly be utilised, doing away with the need for another
manufacturing step.
lWhile CAD continues to evolve, changes to that software
are seen in the way engineers interact with the software
rather than in the designs and shapes they can create
with the software.
lFor example, sketching applications that allow engineers
to draw their designs as they would on paper, instead of
pulling or piecing together existing geometries.
Catchbook, from Siemens PLM, is one such example.