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
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.
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.
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