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Additive manufacturing software and hardware suppliers collaborate to speed industry’s growth

Top execs at Materialise, nTopology, and XponentialWorks call for 3D printing software and hardware companies to partner more to move the industry forward faster

Additive manufacturing software and hardware suppliers collaborate to speed industry’s growth

Partnerships among 3D printing hardware and software providers are needed to take the industry to the next level.

Anyone who’s been around manufacturing long enough will tell you that the current situation with additive manufacturing (AM) software is similar to what occurred roughly 50 years ago, when CNC lathes and machining centers began to gain popularity. Back then, the software needed to program machine tools was expensive and hard to come by, and its capabilities lagged behind the hardware it was meant to control.

Fast forward to today. The harmony between machine tools and software is evident. They’re dance partners waltzing to the same tune.

AM? Not so much.

Over the Top

“The software side of additive is less mature,” said Alex Meckes, solutions architect for nTopology Inc., New York, noting that there are “few players in the game. Compared to hardware, the number of software innovations and gradual improvements has been fairly minimal.”

nTopology’s CEO, Brad Rothenberg, offered a reasonable explanation for this discrepancy. “Innovation always happens in the factory before the supporting processes needed to leverage it become available,” he said. “This includes the tooling, the software—and often the way of thinking needed.”

One might argue that the additive industry should have learned the lessons of its subtractive predecessors and brought better software tools to the table earlier.

Rothenberg discounts that argument. “The big difference today is that unlike traditional processes, additive gives you much greater control over every aspect of the workpiece: the material properties, the geometry, and how the part is actually built. It’s far more complex, with literally thousands of build parameters and nearly unlimited design possibilities. That’s what the additive industry is currently grappling with.”

Another part of the problem is that 3D printers have long been what Rothenberg described as “black boxes,” meaning that users had limited access to the build parameters just described. But that’s begun to change as 3D printer builders open up the inner workings of their machines to end users and software developers alike. The result is a surge of collaborative effort to fully exploit the immense capabilities of additive manufacturing.

Though Rothenberg is quick to describe his company’s product as “engineering software for advanced manufacturing,” it’s clear that its capabilities are well-suited for additive.

Additive manufacturing software and hardware suppliers collaborate to speed industry’s growth

Materialise, which offers additive manufacturing software and 3D-prints parts, looks for “meaningful partnerships” when they make sense.

nTopology’s nTop Platform offers “unbreakable” implicit modeling functions and the ability to manage lattice structures, structural ribbing, and topology optimization. This eliminates the constraints found in traditional boundary representation (B-rep) and mesh-based models, which tend to fail in the complex world of 3D printing because of their inability to reliably support routine functions such as offsetting and drafting.

“We’re actually ahead of the curve and can design things that can’t yet be built,” Rothenberg said.

Go Your Own Way

Fried Vancraen, founder and CEO of Leuven, Belgium-based Materialise NV, began 3D-printing parts in 1990—a time when few in industry were thinking about AM partnerships or the future impact the then-novel technology would have on product designers.

And since third-party AM software was virtually nonexistent back then, he began developing his own tools to make the process more manageable.

“Today, roughly 70 percent of the 3D printing industry uses one or more of our products for their manufacturing operations,” said Stefaan Motte, head of the software division at Materialise.

The company’s deep market penetration, however, doesn’t mean it dismisses opportunities to partner with others. In fact, partnerships are alive and well at Materialise.

“We’re always looking at what the other players in the value stream are doing, teaming up with them when it makes sense,” Motte said. “For example, we have meaningful partnerships with Siemens and (global software supplier) PTC, as well as many of the machine builders, each of which has their own distinct strengths in additive manufacturing.”

There’s no reason for companies to reinvent the wheel, he said, nor does it make sense for anyone to attempt the development of an end-to-end solution on his or her own, certainly not in an industry this complex. “Everyone should focus on what they’re best at,” Motte said. “This provides a win-win for all of us and, more importantly, generates the most effective total solution for end users.”

What Materialise is best at, according to Motte, is build-preparation software, scheduling and nesting utilities, additive design optimization, remote monitoring and data collection, as well as a suite of tools that facilitate part production in an economically viable way.

Additive manufacturing software and hardware suppliers collaborate to speed industry’s growth

The parts shown were built using generative design software from XponentialWorks startup ParaMatters. Photo courtesy of Trinity Wheeler.

“Designing a part for additive manufacturing is one thing,” said Motte. “Getting those parts into a certifiable, production-ready state that will yield repeatable results across 10 or 100 machines, that’s something else entirely. That is where we’ve been investing our software development dollars.”

Partnerships Unlock Potential

Avi Reichental, founder and president of product development firm XponentialWorks Inc., Ventura, Calif., is in full agreement with those who say that 3D printing hardware has outstripped the capabilities of existing design software.

“Consider how difficult it is for direct metal 3D printing companies to leverage all that their equipment is capable of,” he said. “We definitely need better tools if we’re to unlock the full potential of additive manufacturing.”

The good news is there is an increasing number of examples of software developers that have done exactly that. Said Reichental, “Look at the great work on generative design and topology optimization that ParaMatters is doing with its CogniCAD software. Unfortunately, nobody can deliver all of the necessary elements on their own.

“That’s why we need partnerships, and it is why ParaMatters entered into an open innovation program with Techniplas and Nexa3D and NXT Factory. And, a number of organizations are working with 3D printer manufacturers to help them achieve the maximum they can from their equipment.” [Note: ParaMatters, Nexa3D, and NXT are part of XponentialWorks’ investment portfolio.—Ed.]

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will help further these efforts, he said, noting that these technologies help manufacturers create designs more easily. This puts enormous power in the hands of designers to experiment, test, and optimize concepts in ways that were inconceivable only a few years ago.

The only human requirement from an AI-driven paradigm is to input design goals and material parameters. The software does the rest.

With all the talk of smarter, more capable software, one might wonder where the 3D printer manufacturers fit into this equation. What’s stopping the people who build the machines from developing their own smart solutions?

“Nothing,” said Reichental, except the practical limitations of available resources and the priorities that go with continuous product development.

A smarter play might be to leverage the combined knowledge of third-party software providers and the vast number of end users. Harnessing the “wisdom of the crowd” would allow rapid development of a robust ecosystem, one that would deliver exponential progress rather than incremental gains.

“I think there has never been a more opportune time to activate the additive community and to create a coalition that can truly integrate software and hardware, thus creating a quantum leap in manufacturing,” Reichental said. “The technology is simultaneously exploding and converging, and it is our job is to create a business climate that enables this type of partnership and collaboration.

“The time is now.”

About the Author

Kip Hanson

Kip Hanson is a freelance writer with more than 35 years working in and writing about manufacturing. He lives in Tucson, Ariz.