Specific application areas include:
1. Industrial manufacturing: product concept design, prototyping, product review, functional verification; production of mold prototypes or direct printing of molds, direct printing of products. 3D printed small unmanned aircraft, small cars, and other conceptual products have been introduced. 3D printed models of household appliances are also used in the promotional and marketing activities of enterprises.
2. Cultural creativity and digital entertainment: the shape and structure of complex, special materials, artistic expression carrier. The sci-fi movie Avatar uses 3D printing to shape some of the characters and props; 3D printed violins are close to the level of handicrafts.
3. Aerospace and defense industry: complex shapes, fine size, special performance of parts and components, the direct manufacture of institutions.
4. Biomedical: artificial bones, teeth, hearing aids, prosthetics and so on.
5. Consumer goods: jewelry, clothing, footwear, toys, creative DIY works of design and manufacturing.
6. Construction: building model wind test and effect display, building engineering and construction (AEC) simulation.
7. Education: models to verify scientific assumptions, for different disciplines of experimentation, teaching. In the United States, some high schools, colleges and military academies, 3D printers have been used for teaching and scientific research.
8. Scientific research: Drexel University researchers in the United States through the 3D scanning of fossils, the use of 3D printing technology to make a 3D model suitable for research, not only retained the original fossil all the external characteristics, but also made the proportion of the scaled down, more suitable for research.
9. Cultural relics protection: Museums often use many complex alternatives to protect the original works from the environment or accidents, while replicas can also be the impact of the art or cultural relics more and more far away from the people.
10. Food industry: researchers are already experimenting with printing chocolate. Perhaps in the near future, a lot of food that looks exactly the same will be "printed" using food 3D printers. Of course, by that time, it is likely that manually produced food will be many times more expensive.
11. Personalization: Web-based data download, e-commerce, personalized printing and customization services.