Common Terminology in 3D Printing

Raft

Layer of plastic mesh which is well adhered to the printing surface upon which a model is built.

Platform

The surface a 3D model is built upon. For the UP 3D printer, the platform moves on all 3 axes for printing while the nozzle remains stationary.

Nozzle

The heated print head which liquefies the plastic filament and deposits it upon the model during the addditive layering process.

Filament

The thin plastic which is fed into the heated nozzle and which is the raw material out of which a 3D model is created.

Perfboard

The top most surface of the printing platform. This is perforated and heated to improve adhesion of the filament in order to improve accuracy of the reproduction.

Extrusion

The process of forcing a molten substance through a die or form, in this case, the nozzle.

ABS

One of the most common types of plastic used for 3D printing.

Scale

To resize proportionally.

Additive Manufacturing

Any manufacturing process which adds material to a product, building it up, rather than removing product to produce the final result. This is the opposite of milling.

Curling

Corners on the model curl up from the raft or printing platform.

Slicer

A slicer takes the 3D solid object file and deconstructs it into layers of horizontal planes to be printed one at a time. Slicers should also calculate what portoins of the print require additional support in order to be printed and build those additional structures into the final print. The slicer then communicates the layers to the hardware for printing.