Volumetric 3D Printing Breaks Out of Labs With Six Projects to Watch

What Volumetric 3D Printing Actually Does

Normal 3D printing builds an object layer by layer. Volumetric printing does not. It cures an entire object at once inside a vat of photosensitive resin, more like a hologram materializing in three dimensions. The concept only took shape in 2019, when UC Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore published research on computed axial lithography. Most systems still sit in research labs, but the gap is closing fast.

Tsinghua University: Sub-Second Printing With DISH

A team at Tsinghua University in Beijing published DISH in Nature after five years of work. The technique spins the light instead of the print. A high-speed rotating periscope projects holographically shaped patterns from a 405 nm laser at up to 10 rotations per second, curing millimeter-scale objects in 0.6 seconds at 19-micrometer resolution. The team demonstrated engineering components, photonic devices, and GelMA bioprinting scaffolds, which hints at both industrial and biomedical use cases.

EPFL: A Life-Sized Printed Ear With Living Cells

EPFL's Laboratory of Applied Photonic Devices published a breakthrough in May 2026. Instead of increasing light brightness, the team modulated the phase of the laser light, using 70 times less optical power than earlier techniques. Working with a 150 mW laser diode, they solidified millimeter-scale objects in seconds and centimeter-scale ones in minutes. The centerpiece was a 64 mm³ human ear made of gelatin-based resin with embedded living human cells. Six days later, the cells had begun forming organized networks, a meaningful step toward bioprinted implants.

OpenCAL: An Open-Source Volumetric Printer

Volumetric printing has been locked behind custom machines and specialist chemistry. OpenCAL, launched in 2025, is changing that. The project soft-launched OpenCAL V2.0 in June 2026 with full build instructions, source code on GitHub, and a partnership with Formlabs for a ready-to-use photopolymer resin distributed through MatterHackers. The team admits the build experience is closer to early desktop 3D printing than to plug-and-play machines, but with active documentation and a Discord community steering development, it is a credible attempt to democratize the technology.

TU Eindhoven: Making Volumetric Prints Predictable

Speed is no longer the main problem. Predictability is. The MTV project at TU Eindhoven, funded by the Dutch PPS-I Strategic Programmes, is building computational models that predict resolution, mechanical properties, and precision before a print runs. The goal is to replace trial-and-error with a repeatable workflow. Industrial use cases are part of the roadmap.

ETH Zurich: Engineering Muscle Tissue With Light

A Sinergia project led by ETH Zurich's Soft Robotics Lab is using bioxolography, a high-resolution light-based volumetric technique, to control cell orientation during printing. The consortium targets skeletal muscle tissue that replicates the architecture and performance of native muscle. Machine learning guides the biofabrication pipeline. Potential applications go beyond regenerative therapies into bio-hybrid robotics and cultured meat production.

SONOCRAFT: Beating Heart Tissue in Barcelona

The SONOCRAFT Horizon Europe project, coordinated by Universitat de Barcelona, combines volumetric printing with ultrasonic particle manipulation. Sound waves position and align cardiac cells while the volumetric process builds the surrounding structure. The aim is centimeter-scale cardiac constructs with integrated artificial vasculature for drug testing and regenerative medicine. Seven partners across Spain, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland are involved, with nearly 3 million euros in funding.