If your an inventor or a company, you may need to physically see your part before finally producing it in mass. This is where prototyping comes in so that you can physically inspect your product or part and to see if you have missed anything that needs to be fixed. Building prototypes in the traditional way can be quite prohibitive and very expensive because building a custom mold just to manufacture an untested part can easily break your cash flow.

 

Fortunately, 3D printing has significantly brought that cost down, and you can now actually 3D print more than 1 iteration of a part you have been working on and see which one works for you without breaking your bank.