Additive manufacturing (AM) has unique capabilities when compared to traditional
manufacturing, such as shape, hierarchical, functional, and material complexity, a fact that
has fascinated those in research, industry, and the media for the last decade. Consequently,
designers would like to know how they can incorporate AM's special capabilities into their
designs but are often at a loss as how to do so. Design for additive manufacturing (DfAM)
methods are currently in development, but the vast majority of existing methods are not …

The potential benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) have been expounded upon by many
in academic, industry, media, and policy circles. These potential benefits include functional
integration, reduced complexity, increased robustness and increased performance. Many
designers would like to take advantage of these benefits to improve their designs, but are at
a loss as to how they can best incorporate AM. Existing DfAM methods are not tailored to
generating the high-level concepts desired in the early stages of the design process and …