Murray Leinster’s short story Things Pass By , published in 1945, includes what may be the first description of 3D printers:

But this constructor is both efficient and flexible. I feed magnetronic plastics – the stuff they make houses and ships of nowadays – into this moving arm. It makes drawings in the air following drawings it scans with photo-cells. But plastic comes out of the end of the drawing arm and hardens as it comes … following drawings only.

Practical 3D printers, or additive manufacturing as it is also known, have been around since the 1980s. After some theoretical experiments, American Bill Masters developed and patented several techniques that laid the foundation for the first commercial 3D printers. 40 years later, 3D printers have become so cheap and easy to use that

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