3DP Daily
Today's digest has Formlabs' $699 resin printer, a big OrcaSlicer alpha, two vat-photopolymerization materials papers and a motion-planning paper for nozzle printing.
Deep Pick
Planning nozzle motion and process commands together for short-segment toolpaths
Nozzle printers usually plan motion and auxiliary commands (such as extrusion or valve switching) separately, which causes stalls, velocity dips and timing errors on toolpaths made of many short segments. This paper plans all three together: it rebuilds a geometrically continuous trajectory, propagates feasible velocities under curvature limits, and schedules process events to stay in sync with the motion. In simulation, acceleration and jerk violations are suppressed and velocity stays stable. It runs on a 216 MHz STM32F765 at roughly 933 commands per unit time (the available abstract is cut off before the unit). The available text is mostly simulation, and print-quality results could not be checked.
Why it matters. It treats the firmware layer below the slicer as a joint optimization problem, an area that slicer-level toolpath work usually leaves out.
New research
Photothermal dual-cure DLP resin reaches 82.5 MPa and 175 °C Tg
The resin combines a polyurethane acrylate containing hydrogen bonds and dynamic hindered urea bonds with an acrylate-modified epoxy and a latent curing agent. Acrylates set the shape during DLP printing. A heat step then cures the epoxy and dissociates the dynamic bonds, which raises crosslink density. The optimized system reaches 82.5 ± 3.6 MPa tensile strength, 9.5% elongation and a 174.8 °C glass transition, and it also shows shape memory.
Why it matters. Low photopolymerization conversion is the main reason VP parts are weaker than molded ones, and a post-print thermal stage is one direct fix.
Silane-treated mineral fillers improve vat-photopolymer strength and ductility together
The authors functionalized SiO2 (about 50 µm) and CaCO3 (about 1 µm) fillers with octadecyltrimethoxysilane and tested them in VP resins with and without plasticizer and dispersant. At 20% loading in plasticized resin, treated silica raised modulus by 16%, elongation by 12% and tensile strength by 25%. Treated CaCO3 gave gains of 11%, 21% and 12%.
Why it matters. It is a controlled look at how interface chemistry, not just filler loading, decides whether filled photoresins become stiffer without becoming more brittle.
Refining routed pipe centerlines for additively manufactured hydraulic manifolds
This technical report starts from a feasible grid-routed layout of branched fluid channels and smooths the centerlines while keeping tube clearance and routing topology. It uses a hybrid trunk-share / junction-split parameterization to resolve conflicts at multi-usage junctions. On a test with 8 groups × 8 terminals, every case passed the hard clearance check, curvature stayed at κr ≲ 1, and the soft objective dropped by about 95%. Pressure-drop optimization is left to future work.
Why it matters. It is a geometry-processing problem specific to printed manifolds, though the objective is still purely geometric.
Slicers & toolpaths
OrcaSlicer 2.5.0 alpha adds belt printing, Python plugins and parallel IDEX
The alpha combines more than 950 PRs. Belt printing rotates models to the belt angle and uses a dedicated belt purge tower. Texture Displacement bakes up to 8 stacked texture layers into the geometry, and color mixing blends 2-3 filaments as thin alternating layers. New infill options include adaptive-density Gyroid/TPMS that stays denser near walls, a Spiral Inset for top and bottom surfaces, and corner smoothing so the nozzle can hold constant speed. The project reports Gyroid slicing up to about 2× faster and non-crossing multiline over 100× faster on plates with many islands. IDEX/IQEX machines can print 2-4 parts at once with collision checks.
Why it matters. Python plugins that can reshape layers or rewrite G-code let you test toolpath ideas inside a widely used slicer without maintaining a fork.
Industry
Formlabs Form Studio 1: $699 LFD resin printer with 35 µm pixels
Formlabs' cheapest printer so far uses a new Low Force Display engine: 28 LEDs behind a custom lens array give a collimated 6 mW/cm² at the print plane, with 35 µm pixels (Formlabs says 30% finer than Form 4). Build volume is 200 × 125 × 235 mm according to All3DP and DEVELOP3D. Formlabs' own post did not list it. It works with nine Formlabs resins at launch, six of them new Alpha resins at 50-250 µm layers, and accepts third-party resins through the Resin Tank Pro. Orders opened October 14, and press reports put first shipments from November 16.
Why it matters. It is a major VP vendor moving down to the consumer MSLA price range, with a collimated-backlight design that is worth comparing to generic LCD printers.
NVIDIA open-sources USD BRep, a NURBS modeling library built on SMLib
NVIDIA released USD BRep, a geometric modeling library built around its SMLib solid modeling kernel, under the Apache 2.0 license. It gives developers NURBS boundary-representation modeling. The source article frames it as a base for AI-assisted CAD and print-preparation tools.
Why it matters. An open, permissively licensed B-rep kernel is rare, and it could be used for research on design-to-print pipelines that need exact geometry rather than meshes.
Worth reading from the past year
Metalens arrays parallelize two-photon lithography to over 100,000 focal spots
Nature, December 2025, by LLNL and Stanford. A 12 cm² metalens array forms more than 120,000 cooperative focal spots for two-photon lithography, reaching over 10^8 voxels/s, roughly 1000× faster than conventional TPL. An SLM switches individual spots for grayscale linewidth control and aperiodic 3D geometry. The authors print more than 50 million microparticles per day and centimetre-scale structures with 113 nm features. It has 50 citations so far.
Why it matters. It is the clearest current answer to two-photon printing's throughput limit, and it does it with computational optics.
SHVAM: differentiable wave-optics plus photochemistry for single-axis holographic VAM
ACM Transactions on Graphics, July 2026. SHVAM is a mechanically static volumetric printer that shapes dose with time-multiplexed phase-only holograms sent along one optical axis. Hologram synthesis is posed as a coupled inverse problem: a differentiable wave-optical model is combined with a photochemical model of inhibitor diffusion and nonlinear dose response, which pre-compensates for chemical blur. It prints features of about 10 µm in a 0.8 × 0.8 × 3 mm volume in seconds.
Why it matters. It is a direct example of differentiable optimization applied to light-based printing, and it models the resin chemistry as well as the optics.
Also today
25 more stories worth checking
- Raw dataset for two-photon polymerized IP-Visio micropillars and magnetic nanocomposites. Figshare
- Topology optimization with trimmed neural fields to produce developable surfaces suited to flank milling. arXiv: additive manufacturing
- Describes rendering realistic previews of printed parts directly from G-code files. Hackaday 3D printing
- Localized Joule heating carbonizes 3D printed polymer nanostructures on CMOS chips without damaging circuits at 950 °C. arXiv: additive manufacturing
- OrcaSlicer nightly builds add belt printer support to the main branch and drop separate belt builds. OrcaSlicer releases
- Low-temperature curable sodium silicate binder improves jetting and bonding strength for binder jetting. Rapid Prototyping Journal
- Meshy Edit changes selected parts of AI-generated 3D models from text, keeping the rest intact. VoxelMatters
- Formlabs introduces an affordable, colourful 3D printer aimed at beginners; opinion piece. TCT Magazine
- Horizon gets funding to scale metallised polymer micro 3D printing for satellite parts. TCT Magazine
- ESA-funded DIQAM project aims to automate qualification of AM space parts with software. 3D Printing Industry
- Review of additive manufacturing for high-performance polymers in aerospace and extreme environments. Advanced Science
- ICON raises $200M Series D to start producing its Titan multi-story robotic construction system in Austin. TCT Magazine
- CADlingo 2.0 adds multi-part AI CAD generation and per-part export from text prompts. VoxelMatters
- Solukon launches SFM-AT850 depowdering system for LPBF parts up to 1,000 kg. VoxelMatters
- Creality K3 multi-color flagship FDM printer opens pre-orders at $849 in the US. 3DPrint.com
- ICON raises $200M Series D to scale production of its Titan construction printing systems. VoxelMatters
- Freemelt receives a defense prototype order to test AM for heat-resistant refractory metal parts. 3D Printing Industry
- Bambu Lab teases the S1, its first 3D scanner, as it expands beyond desktop printers. 3DPrint.com
- Austrian drone startup DropForce sells distributed 3D printed drone production as a business model. 3DPrint.com
- Free online AMA Software 2026 event on October 22 covering AI CAM and digital thread. 3D Printing Industry
- Flexible luminescent solar concentrators using tellurium-doped quantum rods for reduced reabsorption losses. Advanced Functional Materials
- In-build dimensional accuracy of LCD-printed zirconia orthodontic brackets versus CAD targets. International Orthodontics
- Glass-fiber reinforced FDM corrugated sandwich panels tested for flexure; checks Gibson-Ashby predictions. Rapid Prototyping Journal
- CONTEXT reports global 3D printer revenue up 31% YoY, with most price classes shipping more units in Q2 2026. TCT Magazine
- Three AMTG G2 gantry printers synchronously built walls for a Mella shopping center. 3D Printing Industry
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