Proceedings for the 1995 International Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium. For more information about the symposium, please see the Solid Freeform Fabrication website.

This Proceedings of the Sixth Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) Symposium, held at The University of Texas in Austin on August 7-9, 1995, was attended by over 150 national and international researchers. Papers addressed SFF issues in computer software, machine design, materials synthesis and processing, and integrated manufacturing. The continued growth in the research, application and development of SFF approaches was readily apparent from the increased participation over previous years and the diverse domestic and foreign attendees from industrial users, SFF machine manufacturers, universities, and government. The excitement generated at the Symposium reflects the participants' total involvement in SFF and the future technical health of this growing technology. The Symposium organizers look forward to its being a continuing forum for technical exchange among the expanding body of researchers involved in SFF.

The Symposium was again organized in a manner to allow the multi-disciplinary nature of the SFF research to be presented coherently, with various sessions emphasizing computer issues, machine topics, and the variety of materials aspects of SFF. To avoid parallel sessions, a poster session was organized. We believe that documenting the constantly changing state of SFF art as represented by these Proceedings will serve both the people presently involved in this fruitful area as well as the large flux of new researchers and users entering the field.

Several important issues surfaced during a plenary discussion at the end of the meeting. Considerable interest was expressed in the availability of related topics on the worldwide web. In response, The University of Texas at Austin Laboratory for Freeform Fabrication homepage (http://shimano.me.utexas.edu/sffl) now includes links to all sites currently published by our home page, including all locations submitted at the meeting. This current list of web locations is also included at the end of this proceedings volume. We will be pleased to update the list by notification of one of the Symposium Proceedings editors.

Another issue which would benefit a majority of SFF researchers is formation of a research infrastructure manufacturing network. Interest was expressed in the formation of a library of "public domain" .STL files. Clemson University has created this, and Elaine Persall is the contact person. contact information is in the participant index.

The editors would like to extend a warm "Thank You" to Sue Ferentinos for her detailed handling of the logistics of the meeting and the Proceedings, as well as her excellent performance as registrar and problem solver during the meeting. We also acknowledge the support efforts of Vicki Lehmeier and Cindy Pflughoft throughout. We would like to thank the organizing committee, the session chairmen, the attendees for their enthusiastic contributions, and the speakers both for their significant contribution to the meeting and for the relatively prompt delivery of the manuscripts comprising this volume. We look forward to the continued close cooperation of the SFF community in organizing the Symposium. We also want to thank ONR through Grant No. N00014-95-1-0424, ARPA, and The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society for co-sponsoring the Symposium with the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Center for Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Organizing Committee: Dick Aubin, United Technologies Research Center; Joel W. Barlow, The University of Texas at Austin; Joseph J. Beaman, The University of Texas at Austin; David L. Bourell, The University of Texas at Austin; Robert L. Brown, The Gillette Company; Michael Cima, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; William Coblenz, ARPA; Richard Crawford, The University of Texas at Austin; Samuel Drake, University of Utah; Steven Fishman, Office of Naval Research; Harris L. Marcus, University of Connecticut at Storrs; Sean O'Reilly, Ford Motor Company; Fritz Prinz, Stanford University; Emanuel Sachs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Greg Sanders, Lost Foam International; Susan Smyth, General Motors Corporation; Ralph Wachter, Office of Naval Research; Michael Wozny, Nat'l Institute of Standards and TechnoIogy