ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews 3Dimension (3D) printing in the context of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education at the college/university level and consists of five sections. A rather comprehensive bibliography on this topic that goes back to the year 2005 follows this brief introduction. Open-access resources for the creation of 3D print files for bioscientific and biomedical applications as well as representations for anisotropic physical properties of crystals are mentioned as well. Besides visually appealing atomic-level molecule and crystal-structure visualizations, the teaching in the fields of crystallography, condensed matter physics, materials science and engineering, and mineralogy/geology requires a range of other visualized objects to help with the understanding of complex concepts in 3D. Currently under development is the ‘packing of a molecule’ into a crystal structure so that 3D print files of the latter type of models can in the future be prepared with this program as well.