3D printing company Stratasys announced that Danish shoe manufacturer Ecco is using their Origin One 3D printing technology to accelerate product development, allowing conceptual footwear samples to be reviewed early in the development cycle using 3D printed moulds and lasts (mechanical forms shaped like a foot) with resin materials from Henkel Loctite.

For Local Motors' autonomous electric vehicle Olli 2.0, Italy-based CRP Technology manufactured two applications using Windform composite materials. As additions to the original Olli 2.0 model, the 3D printed parts have supported the individual approval for a project in Europe.

A novel 3D metal printing technique from a Doncaster-based precision engineering business reduces the company's environmental impact and that of its customers. Agemaspark spent several years developing and trialling the new technology, which reduces cycle times for multi-impression mould tools.

Hexagon has partnered with DED 3D printer OEM Sciaky, enabling its customers to optimise how they use its high-speed innovative Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (Ebam) printing process for high-value parts in G-code before deposition with accurate high-speed simulation and analysis.

Computer-aided-manufacturing (CAM) software introduced by Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division provides the digital tools needed to prepare 3D-printed components for manufacturing using powder bed fusion (PBF) technologies.

What happens when three specialists go wild in their field of expertise can be seen on a workpiece for tool and mould making. A project developed for an online seminar demonstrates the know-how and the successful cooperation. The clamping specialist Schunk, the programming professionals from Open Mind and the tool experts from Horn were on board. New approaches met proven technologies.

South Korea — Desktop Metal and the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (Kitech) announced a partnership to accelerate the industrialisation and adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) in South Korea starting with the installations of the Desktop Metal Shop System and Production System P-1 platforms.

Germany – Trumpf recently presented its new ‘TruTops Print’ software which aims at enhancing the efficiency of 3D printing without diminishing part quality. The highlight of this software is its ‘Z-segmentation’ feature which assists the 3D printer to generate thicker or thinner layers for each part depending on the importance of each segment.

Companies across many industries have come to the conclusion that additive manufacturing will make them less dependent on traditional supply chains. However, an essential pre-condition for this approach is that the post processing operations must comply with the requirements for volume production.

UK – Renishaw has launched its latest range of 3D printing machinery – The RenAM 500S Flex, a single laser additive manufacturing machine and the RenAM 500Q Flex, a four laser AM machine. Both the machines are variants of the RenAM 500 range and come equipped with a powder handling system which proves beneficial for manufacturers who regularly swap build materials during production.