Additive manufacturing : 3D printing for prototyping and manufacturing The use of additive manufacturing for the direct production of finished products is becoming increasingly important. The method not only reduces the demands on industrial infrastructure but also opens up new perspectives in terms of decentralized production and customer inclusive individualized production (customization cyberproduction). Oriented towards the practitioner in this book the basics of additive manufacturing are presented and the properties and special aspects of industrially available machines are discussed. From the generation of data to the forming method the complete process chain is shown in a practical light. In particular the following additive manufacturing technologies are discussed: Polymerization (e.g. stereolithography) Sintering and melting (e.g. laser sintering) Layer laminate method (e.g. laminated object manufacturing LOM) Extrusion (e.g. fused deposition modeling FDM) 3D printing Applications for the production of models and prototypes (rapid prototyping) tools tool inserts and forms (rapid tooling) as well as end products (rapid manufacturing) are covered in detailed chapters with examples. Questions of efficiency are discussed from a strategic point of view and also from an operational perspective. Dr. Andreas Gebhardt born 1953 graduated in mechanical engineering from the RWTH Aachen Germany and received his doctorate in 1986. He is managing director of CP (Centrum für Prototypenbau GmbH) Erkelenz Germany. Since 2000 he has been professor of high performance processing in manufacturing engineering and rapid prototyping at the FH (University of Applied Sciences) Aachen. He is also guest professor at the City University New York