The biggest news on day three was, of course, the reactions to the band at the exhibitor’s party. The soiree was well attended, and the crowd rocked on until early morning across Bankfurt. While some loved the music, others were much more skeptical. It couldn´t sway the overall mood, however. And this is one of cautious triumph. We´ve had a good show with a lot of leads and serious inquiries. I´ve heard the same refrain from several people: visitors know what they want and what they´re looking for. We have AM experts seeking a specific solution for a specific issue. Production people are looking for software to optimize builds, people are looking for sieving stations, and people want a specific machine for a specific application and material. It was a good show for finding qualified leads and building brands. The atmosphere was good, too. People were generally downbeat about global uncertainties but optimistic about our immediate and long-term prospects. Generally, the feeling seems to be that we need to buckle down; there’s work ahead.

Zoll House Rock

I´m kidding, the biggest news on day three of Formnext was the Voxeldance Raid. Chinese firm Voxeldance wants to be a superapp for 3D printing. The company has build prep, design, simulation, toolpathing, implicit modeling, support generation and more in several different tools it sells. Chinese firms, of course, compete in 3D printing in nearly every segment of the market, but overall, the country is probably going to dominate powder bed fusion for metals in terms of materials, services, and machines. In material extrusion systems and materials and vat polymerization systems, the country is set to win overall. Broadly, people expect them to dominate in the low end with certain specific solutions by US and European firms to win out in some regulated and high-end instances. Meanwhile, US and European firms will choose their own vendors for defense, aerospace, new space, medical, and critical engineering applications. Chinese companies will only use Chinese products and thus bulk up.  And once again, we see the strategic fallacy present itself where incumbents don´t ¨race to the bottom, ¨ so lose. This is all but a foregone conclusion.

Where China is notably weak is in AM software. There is currently a mad scramble by large Chinese machine OEMs, services and end customers to obtain and engineer AM software, including CAD software, so that China has this capability independently of Western vendors. Some firms are resorting to less than ethical means to do so. This mad scramble is driven by tariff and boycott fears dividing the world into Chinese and non-China spheres of influence. The cloud, of course, will go down in case of an escalation, depriving Chinese vendors of FEA, CFD, build prep, CAD, and more. That fact is a belatedly unforeseen set of events not realized by many until very recently. It’s hard to build rockets if you don´t have software to design rockets.

Zoll Long and Thanks for the Memories

So Voxeldance should be in an absolutely perfect position to rise in prominence. They could be the default Chinese CAD, CAM, build prep everything app for 3D printing. They could potentially be in a position to have a near monopoly on AM software in China. And this makes the company´s alleged behavior not only silly but stupid. The company allegedly copied several vendors’ design, UI, and code elements. Several visualization elements were reportedly also copied. These allegations have come from several different software vendors. More seriously, it is alleged that the firm used an illegally obtained geometry kernel, hacked it somehow, and passed it off as its own software. We have been unable to confirm who those companies were with the German Customs Service (Bundeszollverwaltung) or the Zollkriminalamt. I must stress that several sources have confirmed this, but explicitly, everything stated here is alleged and has not been proven in a court of law. We have reached out to Voxeldance for comment and will update the article if they respond. We have also reached out to the customs service for their comments.

What we do know from many people who were present at the Voxeldance stand or near it is that there was a raid. Officers of the German Zoll came to the stand and had several conversations with Voxeldance employees. One reportedly left with them. Documents were presented, and evidence was obtained. We can be sure there was a raid or investigation because there is ample evidence of that floating around in the form of images and video. Who complained about what exactly, what is alleged to have happened, and what happened, we do not know for certain at this moment. Voxeldance has been raided before. Indeed, several previous complaints from different firms have occurred over the years. Indeed, there seems to be a pattern of alleged copying and infringement across many years.

For whom the Bell Zolls

If the idea is to get me to upload my super secret car designs to your service, I require a robust appreciation for my IP. If you want me to entrust your machine and your machine software with my IP before printing, how can I be sure you will be trusted? I would be personally not likely to trust any firm that uses stolen software with my intellectual property. If I know you rely on stolen software, how could I trust you to be a vessel for my inventions? If Chinese firms do not take responsibility for safeguarding IP and keep on pretending that this is not going on, trust in them generally will not be built up. And if you won´t build trust in IP, why do you keep bringing over all these 12 laser machines? Save yourself a lot of work and leave them at home next time. Because people will only buy them once they trust you.

3D printing is a technology that optimizes energy flow or lack of flow through and around objects at the correct moment. If that equation balances out well, the successful part will outperform any other part anywhere or there. If there, now or anywhere, is crucial, 3D printing will beat any other technology.

The implications of that are staggering, world-changing, and valuable. If I encapsulate IP in a design that is the paramount flow design for a particular application, this could be worth billions. The optimal texture for osseointegration is worth billions; the optimal battery design is worth billions, etc. We don´t sell or manufacture triangles, code, functionality, handshakes, layers, relationships, software, machines, or parts. We sell trust. We manufacture trust. Our enemy is not CNC, cost, or even inertia; it is uncertainty. Anyone helping reduce uncertainty is helping everyone else in 3D printing; anyone increasing uncertainty harms us all. We must improve if we collectively aspire to make aircraft parts and hearts.