Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2026 Poal.co

1.0K

Is 3D printer the correct definition? As far as I know, real life solid objects are 4D, therefore 3D applies only to CGI objects. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Is 3D printer the correct definition? As far as I know, real life solid objects are 4D, therefore 3D applies only to CGI objects. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

(post is archived)

[–] • 3 pts

Count with me x, y, z.

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

There's actually 4D in software, x, y, z, e You're missing the extruder dimension, nigger

[–] • 0 pt

e is a volume/time... x, y, z are Directions.

[–] • 0 pt

In linear time, or instantaneously?

I'm team 3D, but I think he might unintentionally be partially correct.

I know I'd prefer a printer that didn't take 4 hours to make rc car parts.

[–] • 0 pt

but that's like saying a flat image is 4d because of the pixel switch delay.

[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

Thinking of spacetime as a 4-dimensional manifold might be comforting , but if the object is a stationary object then it has no inherent time axis worth describing. With regards to describing objects within Spacetime, time is only useful as a descriptor when the object is in motion relative to a specific Frame, to describe that motion. We could develop an analysis of the effects of time upon the materials perhaps, but a 3D-printed cube only experiences motion over time if something else moves it.

[–] • 0 pt

If a printer can print objects that have have width, height and thickness you have 3 right there. Add the color dimensions of red, gree, blue and opacity into the mix and you have 4 more.

They should therefore be called 7D printers!

While 8D printers do exist that can print time itself, they are pretty rare but are occasionally sold on the black market before they are confiscated by the government.

[–] • 0 pt

The "4th" dimension is generally time, but your plastic extruder makes still lifes, so it's 3d. A paper printer applies ink in a plane, hence 2d. You can think of it as the dimensions of the grid it prints on. Yes there are additonal variables to the print like color, but the position vector is the only one important for this naming scheme. If we are qualifying printers in some other way we might talk about CYMK

[–] • 0 pt

The key is that a 3D printer doesn't modulate the object in 4D. It is pretty much stable over time. And a printer doesn't change the printing over time. It prints one thing and that stays until the inks degrade.

[–] • 1 pt

Right. If you were designing a holographic projection, ya know that moved, you'd have a series of 3D frames on a timeline, and I guess you could call it 4D. Though it is worth noting that we do not call a moving picture 3D.

[–] • 0 pt

This name is as much historical as it is technical. In the "real world" historical naming often takes precedent, irregardless of any technical nuance.

The original 2D printer was a plotter for CAD drawings / maps / etc. (Yes, I'm an old fart ... I've used them.) It was literally a pen held perpendicular to a sheet of paper. There were 2 motors (via a gantry and cable system) that would control the X and Y coordinates of the pin. (There as generally a small servo to lift the pen off the paper when you didn't want to draw, but that's about it. Very simple machines.)

So ... for the engineers in the room, calling it a 3D printer just makes perfect sense... Now you are controlling the X, Y, AND Z coordinates.

[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

The universe is multi-dimensional printer.

[–] • 0 pt

3D applies only to CGI objects

CGI is represented as 2D