What is "stereolithography"

n. a means of rapid prototype in which a laser hardens successive layers of a photopolymer to create a part with a shape defined by a computer model.

Stereolithography (SLA or SL; also known as Stereolithography Apparatus, Optical Fabrication, Photo-Solidification, Solid Free-Form Fabrication, Solid Imaging, Rapid Prototyping, Resin Printing, and 3D printing) is a form of additive manufacturing technology used for creating models, prototypes, patterns, and production parts in a layer by layer fashion using photopolymerization, a process by which light causes chains of molecules to link together, forming polymers. Those polymers then make up the body of a three-dimensional solid. Research in the area had been conducted during the 1970s, but the term was coined by Charles (Chuck) W. Hull in 1986 when he patented the process. He then set up 3D Systems Inc to commercialize his patent.

Stereolithographic models have been used in medicine since the 1990s, for creating 3D corporeal models of various anatomical regions of a patient, based on datasets from CT-scans.