Additive manufacturing and AI – how to leverage artificial intelligence

What 3D printing and artificial intelligence have in common is that, just a few decades ago, they both seemed like utopian ideas. Now that they are reality, the only limit to both is the human imagination. Combining these two technologies increases the possibilities even further.

At present, artificial intelligence has not yet been widely adopted in industrial-scale 3D printing, but expectations are high for the near future.

So far, AI has mainly been used to acquire information and generate the code needed for workflows. In other words, AI is used as a support function and to execute existing processes, rather than to develop new things, which is what it is best capable of.

We are now considering the combined benefits of artificial intelligence and 3D printing specifically from our customers’ perspective: how can AI be used right now to help plan additive manufacturing needs and support business operations?

Iikka Rytkönen, who has always been interested in technological development, focuses particularly on 3D printing in his work, and he had already been testing the possibilities of artificial intelligence before ChatGPT came along. ChatGPT has made this even easier. Rytkönen’s main message is that this resource should not be left unused: artificial intelligence can be a huge help in finding ways to use additive manufacturing in your business.

AI has access to all the information on the internet about additive manufacturing. The potential or need that your company has is likely to have been experienced by another company before. Every company contributes data to the internet, which is then woven together by AI and constantly supplemented with new data. AI can provide you with real-life examples that will help you refine your plans and, if not ideas that can be implemented as they are, then at least some starting points that you can build on.

AI provides you with information on the technical possibilities of additive manufacturing, giving you the background knowledge you need for your plans. You can quickly find applications, material information, and other necessary information without spending hours searching Google. You can ask AI for wild ideas that may well lead to something feasible. You can use image generators to get a sense of what the finished piece might look like.

AI can also act as a commercial sparring partner, helping you understand in which products 3D printing would save money and time throughout the product’s life cycle. You can compile data to calculate the total life cycle costs of each product or item. Who can manufacture the product, with what materials and at what price? What is the delivery time for implementation, what about storage cycles, their costs, and logistics costs with the appropriate mode of transport, and so on. In addition, AI can help you find a suitable provider for 3D printing.

Ask AI anything you can think of about additive manufacturing, or anything you would ask someone else who knows about the subject. If you are not sure what to ask the AI, ask what you should be asking about the topic in question. Of course, you should not blindly trust the AI, but asking questions will at least broaden your perspective.

In other words, treat AI as your own 3D expert, who searches for information, summarizes it—and nowadays even provides surprisingly good analysis—and brainstorms with you about the possibilities of 3D printing.

Artificial intelligence is transforming coding from an expert tool into a tool for every designer. It can be used to create Python scripts that connect directly to the API interfaces of design software. This is revolutionary, especially in routine and repetitive work phases: where designers previously had to make hundreds of manual clicks, code created with the help of artificial intelligence can handle the same process in seconds. This means that coding skills are no longer an obstacle to design automation and significant process acceleration.

In the consumer sector, it will certainly not take long before it is possible to use AI to order a 3D-printed replacement part for a broken household appliance based on a photo of the device. Among amateur enthusiasts, 3D models are already being created very successfully based on photos or mini figures. In the industrial sector, however, the level of precision required is quite different, and there is still some way to go.

The creation of finished 3D models using AI is not yet at a level where we can significantly reduce our own design work. In any case, development has been really fast over the last two years. When AI becomes a tool for 3D modeling, it will bring opportunities and solutions to many projects that would previously have failed due to the lack of a 3D model.

There are still shortcomings in combining images and text in artificial intelligence, so it is not yet easy to determine the dimensions of an object in an image, for example. However, developments are constantly taking place, for example, in how AI can combine images taken from different angles.

AI will certainly streamline the 3D printing process when it is used to automate digital processes, such as during the nesting phase, when the software transfers data to the drive files. There will also be great benefits if AI can be used in the future to facilitate simulation, i.e., how the object behaves during printing. Currently, for example, cleanability and hole shrinkage still have to be tested manually.

One thing that every company can start investing in right now is collecting its own data for AI. AI learns from the data that is gradually accumulated, and it can help to streamline operations in many ways, from production processes to product development.

In addition to opportunities, the use of artificial intelligence in additive manufacturing also involves aspects that should be viewed critically. One important thing to note is that the information provided by AI can sometimes contain errors, so it is always a good idea to check it against a reliable source – in the case of 3D printing, for example, us as your supplier.

Another important issue is data protection, which must be taken into account carefully. AI requires data to be fed into it constantly as a basis for learning, but not everyone wants their files to be used for AI development. Although we constantly generate good data that we could feed to AI, we always take our customers’ wishes into account. However, we can use our own test samples to develop AI.

One threat that the increased use of AI may bring is the blurring of responsibility. If something goes wrong in a manufacturing chain that uses AI, who is to blame—the manufacturer, the designer, or perhaps the material selection?

The unauthorized use of other people’s designs is also likely to increase. How can intellectual property rights be secured when copying becomes so easy? This threat already exists, of course, but it is likely to grow.

On the other hand, it is important to remember that any technology can be used either correctly or incorrectly. At 3D Formtech, we strive to be open to the opportunities that AI can bring to additive manufacturing, but at the same time, we firmly adhere to the quality we offer our customers.