Functional Design for 3D Printing: Designing 3d printed things for everyday use - 3rd edition

Functional Design for 3D Printing 3rd Edition is your guide to the intersection of design, 3d printing, and utility.
This volume will demonstrate design practices that expand the possibilities for durable, functional objects. Your functional models will print quickly and reliably, delivering the full potential of the "desktop factory".
Functional Design for 3D Printing will help you to:

Turn your ideas into practical designs that print reliably and assemble into durable, functional objects

Maximize strength for utility and estimate working and failure load ratings

Minimize printing time, material use, and weight

Minimize the chance of print failure, ensuring reliable prints on a variety of machines and software

Design printable hinges, latches, interlocking parts, and other functional elements

Design printable electronic breadboards, prototypes, and simple components

Integrate flexibility and multiple materials into your functional designs

Solve bed adhesion and warping problems at the design level, improving print reliability

Select the correct structural paradigm(s) for each application

Know how and when to include dedicated support structures into your model for maximum printability





If you are an experienced designer, Functional Design for 3D Printing will present design principles and practices that will help you to quickly model functional, printable objects. This volume will help you to improve and accelerate your design and prototyping work-flow.

If you are a novice designer, Functional Design for 3D Printing will be a useful introduction, supplement, and reference for functional design. This volume will give you the technical framework for you to improve your expertise with a minimum of trial and error frustration, and will be your go-to guide for design solutions.

This third edition is extensively improved and expanded from the second edition:


More than twice as many illustrations and 35% more text

Extensively rewritten for easier reading and comprehension

Updated with modern materials and technologies





120 illustrations, 234 pages.