Who invented 3D printing?

Charles (Chuck) Hull is known as the father of 3D printing. He was born on May 12, 1939, in Clifton, Colorado. In 1961 he received a BS in engineering physics from the University of Colorado.

In 1983 he worked for a company that used UV light to put thin layers of plastic veneers on tabletops and furniture. He had an idea that if he could place thousands of thin layers of plastic on top of each other and then etch their shape using light, he would be able to form three dimensional objects. After a year of tinkering with ideas in a backroom lab after hours, he developed a system where the light was shone into a vat of photopolymer – a material which changes from liquid to plastic-like solid when light shines on it – and traces the shape of one level of the object. Subsequent layers are then printed until it is complete.

In 1986 he got the patent on the “Apparatus for Production of Three-Dimensional Objects by Stereolithography” and set up 3D Systems in Valencia, California.The first commercial product came out in 1988 and proved a hit among car manufacturers, in the aerospace sector and for companies designing medical equipment.

Chuck Hull was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014, thirty-one years after he first printed a small black eye-wash cup using a new method of manufacturing called stereolithography, now known as 3D printing.