Editorial

Citation

Campbell, I. (2009), "Editorial", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 15 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/rpj.2009.15615daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Rapid Prototyping Journal, Volume 15, Issue 4

I was recently asked to make a keynote presentation at the 10th National Conference on Rapid Design, Prototyping and Manufacture at Bucks New University. The conference is mainly aimed at up-and-coming researchers within the UK and many of the presentations are given by research students. The conference organisers asked me to give insight into some aspect of the changes in the field of rapid prototyping (RP) since 1995, the first time the conference was run. This coincided with the first year of publication of the Rapid Prototyping Journal (RPJ) and so I decided to look through all the past issues of the RPJ to see how research in the area has evolved over time. From a personal point of view, this was an extremely rewarding exercise as it reminded me just how much progress there had been in the qualitative and quantitative development of the journal. From a more objective perspective, the main value came from identifying trends in RP research since 1995 that could indicate what might be the useful research directions for the future. Therefore, I did some analysis on the contents of past issues according to a number of factors, i.e. the scope of RP research, geographic location of researchers, the increasing areas of application and once popular research topics that seem to have declined. The full results of the analysis can be found in the proceedings of the conference, available at: www.rpnationalconference.com/, but I have included an overview in this editorial.

Initially, nearly all of the research published within the RPJ related to technical aspects of RP processes and materials. Included within this was software simulation of the process conditions and outcomes. Over time, the scope of research has widened to include firstly, applications-based research and later on, RP support software development, RP educational issues, RP trends, RP standards, RP’s impact upon design and the integration of RP with other technologies. Today, the journal has a rich blend of basic research, applications-based research and wider issues research in an approximate ratio of 40, 40 and 20 per cent, respectively. The initial few volumes of the RPJ were dominated by articles written by researchers in Europe and North America. This was despite the fact that the Editorial Advisory Board had included several representatives from Asia and Australasia. However, the number of articles from Asia and Australasia has risen steadily through the years and in several recent issues, the majority of articles have originated from within that region. In addition, the continents of South America and Africa are regularly represented within the contents of the journal. This has mirrored the global uptake of RP research and reflects the journal’s international readership. Of the application areas in which research has been performed, manufacturing industry was the first and has remained the most common. However, there has been a steady growth in the list of areas to which RP and additive techniques have been applied. These include works of art, palaeontology, medical models, tissue engineering, architecture and personal fabrication. Year-by-year, new applications are being added. Finally, there have been some RP research topics that have generated significant interest, perhaps for several years, and then have disappeared from view. Most notable of these was the research conducted into direct slicing of RP models during the late 1990s and early 2000s. This had the aim of reducing processing time, optimising orientation and improving the accuracy of data transfer. However, there seems to be very little work in this area today, perhaps indicating that researchers have accepted the de facto standard of the standard tessellation language file. The main conclusions to take away from the review are: research into RP can be both basic and applied, there are potential researchers partners in every part of the world, there is a widening list of application areas and new areas are worth investigation and do not concentrate on a single area of RP research in case it ultimately turns out to be a “dead end”.

Ian Campbell