https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190920095146.htm

However, it can be a difficult process to fully realize the potential of AM's unique capabilities for product development as it requires product designers to change their design mindsets.

In conventional manufacturing processes, the main task for designers is tailoring their designs to eliminate manufacturing difficulties and minimize costs. On the contrary, AM has fewer manufacturing constraints while offering designers with much more design freedom to explore. Therefore, designers must search for optimal design solutions out of millions of design alternatives that are different in geometry, topology, structure, and material. This can be a tedious task with current design methods and computer-aided design (CAD) tools due to the lack of ability to rapidly explore and exploit such a high dimensional design space.