In recent times, 3D printing has emerged as a popular manufacturing technology as it quickens up the process, allows for the creation of complex parts, enables mass customization, saves material, and checks wastage. Every industry imaginable, including aerospace & defense, jewelry, healthcare, automotive, architecture & construction, industrial manufacturing, energy, education, consumer products, food & culinary and printed electronics, is using 3D printing in some capacity. Hence, with the burgeoning industrial production, the usage of the 3D printing technology is growing.

This is why P&S Intelligence predicts the slicing software market value to increase from $422.2 million in 2019 to $2,202.5 million by 2030, at a 16.7% CAGR between 2020 and 2030 (forecast period). This is because any structure or object to be made by 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, needs to be first conceptualized and designed in the computer-aided design (CAD) software. The slicing software acts as an intermediate between the 3D CAD model of the object and the 3D printer, converting the design into the G-code format, for the printer to follow.

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Presently, the demand for cloud-based slicing software is rising around the world because it easily connects with the printer, allows the printer to be controlled from multiple locations, and remotely prints objects. Moreover, any cloud-deployed software allows for employee mobility and saves IT expenses. Hence, an increasing number of software companies are offering slicing software that can be accessed via the cloud. For instance, Dremel, a part of Robert Bosch GmbH, introduced Dremel Digilab, 3D slicing software, in January 2018.

Among all the industries that use such a computer program, whether deployed on the cloud or on premises, the aerospace & defense sector held the largest share in the slicing software market during the historical period (2014–2019). Aircraft and weapon systems need to be precise in their design and arrangement of parts, and with such objects becoming more complex with time, companies are finding it hard to manufacture them with conventional techniques, which is why they are increasingly using 3D printers and slicing software.

For instance, The Boeing Company is using this technology to manufacture satellite antenna, while General Electric is 3D-printing the GE9X engines for the Boeing 777X. Similarly, the Airbus A350 XWB consists of more than 1,000 parts created by 3D printers. Moreover, NASA is using this technology to produce parts from polymers for the International Space Station. Apart from aerospace & defense, healthcare is another significant industry from the point of the usage of slicing software. Increasingly, medical equipment, surgical implements, dental tools, and even transplantable organs are now being 3D-printed.

Because of these reasons, North America was the largest slicing software market till 2019, and it will probably continue being so over the forecast period. Most of the research studies on innovating manufacturing technologies for various industries, especially healthcare and aerospace & defense, are being carried out in the region. This is because though the private sector carries out most of these studies, they are often funded by the government. For instance, the Department of Defense has been funding 3D printing research in the U.S. since the 1970s, which has led to the creation of numerous patents.