Volume xx (200y), Number z, pp. 1–17 Digital Fabrication Techniques for Cultural Heritage: A Survey R. Scopigno, P. Cignoni, N. Pietroni, M. Callieri and M. Dellepiane Visual Computing Lab, CNR-ISTI, Pisa, Italy Abstract Digital fabrication devices exploit basic technologies in order to create tangible reproductions of 3D digital mod- els. Although current 3D printing pipelines still suffer from several restrictions, accuracy in reproduction has reached an excellent level. The manufacturing industry has been the main domain of 3D printing applications over the last decade. Digital fabrication techniques have also been demonstrated to be effective in many other contexts, including the consumer domain. The Cultural Heritage is one of the new application contexts and is an ideal domain to test the flexibility and quality of this new technology. This survey overviews the various fabrica- tion technologies, discussing their strengths, limitations, and costs. Various successful uses of 3D printing in the Cultural Heritage are analysed, which should also be useful for other application contexts. We review works that have attempted to extend fabrication technologies in order to deal with the specific issues in the use of digital fabrication in the Cultural Heritage. Finally, we also propose areas for future research. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.8 [Computer Graphics]: Applications—I.3.5 [Computer Graphics]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling— 1. Introduction Industrial prototyping aims to create a tangible representa- tion of the abstract concept of an arbitrarily complex object. The starting point is usually the design of a digital 3D model, often using CAD tools. Most traditional industrial fabrica- tion techniques (like casting, injection moulding or milling) are affordable for medium or large scale productions. This process is usually specifically tuned for a given object and is expensive to set up. The more complex the shape of the object, the more complex the manufacturing process will be. Clearly, implementing such a process to create a single (or a few) prototype(s) is an inefficient approach. To deal with these specific industrial needs, fabrication devices have been created for the small scale production of arbitrary shapes. This class of technologies is usually referred to as digital fabrication or 3D printing. These terms refer to any processes for producing/printing a three- dimensional object, which is usually robotized in some way. The main advantage of 3D printing techniques is that the manufacturing process is independent of the geometric com- plexity of the digital shape. This characteristic is, in general, not true for large scale industrial production pipelines. Indeed, 3D printing tech- niques are not used for large scale industrial production. However, 3D printing is able to produce prototypes in a re- duced amount of time (thus the origin of the term rapid pro- totyping). Originally, 3D printing devices were too expensive for the mass market, however cheap 3D printers are now avail- able thus widening the potential applications. Each digital fabrication technology is mainly characterised by the basic physical process used to produce the tangible representation. Because of the physical constraints involved in the process, each technology can only employ a subset of possible ma- terials (plastic, glued gypsum, steel, ceramic, stone, wood, etc.). Thanks to the increase in accuracy of current technolo- gies and the reduction in reproduction costs, digital fabrica- tion has been applied in many new contexts, for example in the reproduction of artworks for museum exhibitions or to support Cultural Heritage (CH) scholars or restoration. The traditional reproduction approach for CH required the production of rubber molds over the original artworks, which were then used for the subsequent production of gyp- submitted to COMPUTER GRAPHICS Forum (11/2015).