How does 3D printing work?

You may not have 3D-printed something before, but I am willing to bet you’ve printed something on paper using a boring, old-fashioned printer at least once. While this printing method doesn’t get as much hype as it used to, we can use it to make some connections between the different processes.

In order to print something (on paper), we need to complete a few steps, as shown in Figure 10.4:

Figure 10.4: An overview of the steps to print a document using a typical desktop printer

As illustrated in Figure 10.4, I need a design before I can print anything. Sure, it might be a simple 2D design, perhaps a letter, a poster, or even this book. Regardless, it needs to be formatted so that it will fit on the paper loaded into my printer. After I have my design ready, I can press print to send it off to the machine.

But before the machine receives it, the document is processed through a print driver. This driver reformats...