The open nature of the consumer 3D printing industry has made for a much more consumer-friendly world.

What's the practical risk with 3D-printed firearms today? In this opinion piece, Kyle explores the current state of the art. If you follow 3D printing at all, and even if you don't, you've likely seen some of the recent controversy surrounding Defense Distributed and its 3D-printed firearm designs.

This is the last article in a four-part series on the current state of 3D printing. In the first part, I gave an overall introduction to differences in 3D printing since I wrote my original articles on 3D printing three years ago. The second piece focused on advances in 3D printing hardware, and the third column covered 3D printing software.

This article is the third part of a four-part series that examines some of the changes in 3D printing that have occurred in the past three years since my first articles on the subject. Because this is Linux Journal, instead of discussing the entire 3D printing world, I'm focusing on the sections of the topic most relevant to open source and open hardware.

This is the second article in what will be a four-part series on the current state of 3D printing compared to how things were three years ago when I wrote my first series on 3D printing. Of course, this is Linux Journal, so the focus will be on Linux and open-source-specific aspects in 3D printing. I won't dwell much on proprietary products.

Three years ago, I wrote a series of articles titled "Getting Started with 3D Printing" that discussed the current state of the hobbyist 3D printing market from both the hardware and software angles. This is an incredibly fast-moving industry, and a lot has changed since I wrote those columns.

3-D printers are becoming popular tools, dropping in price and becoming available to almost everyone. They can be used to build parts that you can use around the house, but more and more, they also are being used to create instruments for scientific work.