Common Terminology in 3D Printing

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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 portions 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.