Picture a vat filled with liquid photopolymer resin. A UV laser is steered across the surface of this liquid following the shape of each cross section of the part, and wherever the beam touches, the resin hardens into a solid layer. The platform then drops slightly and the laser draws the next layer on top, building the part up layer by layer straight from a liquid bath. Fused deposition modelling instead melts and extrudes a solid filament, selective laser sintering fuses a bed of powder, and binder jetting glues powder particles together with a liquid binder, none of these start from a liquid resin cured by a laser. The technique that matches a laser curing liquid resin in a vat is stereolithography.