Glossary
Glossary
ABS
- Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene
A thermoplastic material which is used in plastic printers from which objects are made from.
Often ABS is used as a short form, actually referring to filament made of ABS: do you use ABS in your Mendel?
FDM
- Fused Deposition Method
Where a droplet of one material (plastic, wax, metal, etc.) is deposited on top or alongside the same material making a joint (by heat or adhesion).
Filament
Plastic material made into (often 3mm) string to be used in 3D printers.
PLA
- Polylactic acid
A biodegradable polymer which is used as a 3D printer material.
Often PLA is used as a short form, actually referring to filament made of PLA: I use PLA in my Mendel.
RP
- Rapid Prototyping
Creating an object in a matter of hours on a "3D printer" as opposed to sending out a job to a modelling shop that can take days or weeks.
STL
- Stereo Lithographic
A file format used to describe 3D objects. A design program (e.g. AoI) can produce an STL file which can then be fed to a 3D printer or 3D rendering graphics package.