Rapid prototyping - Wikipedia
Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute was the first to publish an account of a solid model fabricated using a photopolymer rapid prototyping system (1981). The very first 3D rapid prototyping system relying on Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) was made in April 1992 by Stratasys but the patent did not issue until June 9 ...