Materialise NV, headquartered in Leuven

Leuven

Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...

, Belgium, is active in the field of additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing is defined by ASTM as the "process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing methodologies, such as traditional machining...

.

History

Materialise was founded in June 1990 by Wilfried Vancraen as a spin-off of the KULeuven, becoming the first Rapid Prototyping

Rapid prototyping

Rapid prototyping is the automatic construction of physical objects using additive manufacturing technology. The first techniques for rapid prototyping became available in the late 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used for a much wider range of applications...

 Service Bureau in the Benelux region . What was then known as Rapid Prototyping is now known as Additive Manufacturing or 3D Printing

3D printing

3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable, and easier to use than other additive manufacturing technologies. However, the term 3D printing is...

, a three-dimensional printing technique that starts from a 3D CAD drawing and results in a three-dimensional object manufactured in a wide range of plastics, stainless steel

Stainless steel

In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....

, titanium

Titanium

Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....

, and a growing range of other materials .

Software

Following its conception, Materialise concentrated on the research and development of solutions for the transfer of data to Additive Manufacturing machines. In 1991, the company released Mimics

Mimics

Mimics is an image processing software for 3D design and modeling, developed by Materialise NV, a Belgian company specialized in additive manufacturing software and technology. Mimics is used to create 3D surface models from stacks of 2D image data. These 3D models can then be used for a variety of...

 and in 1992, Magics. Mimics calculates surface 3D models from stacked image data such as Computed Tomography

Computed tomography

X-ray computed tomography or Computer tomography , is a medical imaging method employing tomography created by computer processing...

 (CT), Confocal Microscopy

Confocal microscopy

Confocal microscopy is an optical imaging technique used to increase optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by using point illumination and a spatial pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus light in specimens that are thicker than the focal plane. It enables the reconstruction of...

, Micro CT, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear magnetic resonance imaging , or magnetic resonance tomography is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structures...

 (MRI) through image segmentation. Magics imports data from CAD formats and exports printable files in the STL

STL

STL may refer to:In International law:*Special Tribunal for LebanonIn communications:*Standard telegraph level*Studio/transmitter link*Small transmitting loop antenna STL may refer to:In International law:*Special Tribunal for LebanonIn communications:*Standard telegraph level*Studio/transmitter...

format.

Applications

The technology here is being used by professionals in the automotive , aerospace, consumer electronics, consumables, orthopaedic, cardiovascular , cranio-maxillofacial , and dental industries, as well as in architecture, fashion, jewelry, art , and more.