A new approach to 3D printing promises to deliver commercial quality manufactured parts at a much faster rate.

Silicon Valley-based Carbon3D’s ‘Continuous Liquid Interface Production’ (CLIP) technology harnesses light and oxygen to continuously grow objects from a pool of resin instead of printing them layer-by-layer.

It says the technique is 25-100 times faster than conventional 3D printing, and can deliver commercial quality objects with consistent mechanical properties. A broad range of polymeric materials can be used to manufacture complex parts.

CLIP was unveiled simultaneously on the main stage of the TED conference and as the cover story in the journal Science. The technique works by carefully balancing the interaction of UV light, which triggers photo polymerisation, and oxygen, which inhibits the reaction, to continuously grow objects from a pool of resin.

Carbon3D has partnered with Sequoia Capital and Silver Lake Kraftwerk to raise $41m (€37.7m, £27.5m) to commercialise the technology.

“If 3D printing hopes to break out of the prototyping niche it has been trapped in for decades, we need to find a disruptive technology that attacks the problem from a fresh perspective and addresses 3D printing’s fundamental weaknesses,” said Jim Goetz, Carbon3D board member and Sequoia partner. “When we saw what [Carbon3D] had invented, it was immediately clear to us that 3D printing would never be the same.”