Review: Hod Lipson’s New 3D Printing Peer Review Journal

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For anyone who wants to cut through news hype, a peer review scientific journal is the answer.  Until now, there really hasn’t been a 3D Printing publication from the scientific and engineering community.  But that has all changed with the publication of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing from Mary Ann Liebert Publishers.

Edited by Dr. Hod Lipson from Cornell University, the new journal follows the traditional model, with submissions reviewed by peers in the additive manufacturing community for accuracy and quality.  Dr. Lipson, of course, is a visionary in the Digital Fabrication field.  His research projects “focus on what I consider to be two ‘grand challenges’ of engineering: (a) Can we design machines that can design other machines, and (b) Can we make machines that can make other machines. Both of these questions lie at the crux of understanding the engineering process itself, and progress on these fronts can offer huge leverage in our ability to design, make and maintain increasingly complex systems in the future.”  He has worked extensively in the area of Voxels, looking at how to design more complex systems, and is the author with Melba Kurman of Fabricateda book on the “Promise and Peril” of 3D Printing.

The Editorial Board comprises a wide range of reviewers in the Additive Manufacturing field from research luminaries Jennifer Lewis at Harvard to Industry leaders Avi Reichental, CEO of 3D Systems to industry analyst Terry Wohlers.  The first issue reminds me a bit of Science or Nature in that while, yes, there are solid technical papers, there are also news stories and corporate profiles from industry.   But the non-technical stories are written with balance since the editors come from the trenches of 3D Printing and understand the complexities of the field.

It is refreshing to see a media publication that will hopefully bring a rational voice to 3D printing and additive manufacturing, and hopefully the economics can work to keep it afloat.