Dyndrite's Harshil Goel Pushes for Printing from Native CAD

When we connected on Zoom to record this podcast episode, Dyndrite's enigmatic CEO and Founder Harshil Goel seemed unsure about what time zone he was in. He is in the middle of a city-hopping tour called "You Control the Laser," stretched across Tokyo and Frankfurt to Long Beach and Vegas. This gives Goel a chance to sample some international regional cuisine, as he is a self-confessed foodie. He also admitted to being a tech geek, who likes to read technical papers for fun.

In a previous interview for the article "Skip and Mesh, Print from CAD" (January 2025), he said, "It’s fundamentally hurtful to me to hear people say you cannot print directly from CAD and you need a mesh file. That is so false it hurts my soul as a mathematician.” During the podcast, he repeated the same sentiment. 

"There are reasons to use mesh formats sometimes: for example, specifically in medical applications or reverse-engineering applications. But if you are printing something that was designed in the mechanical CAD system, and you have the original CAD surface data, why would you not want to generate the tool path data and the build from that original data?," he asked rhetorically. 

Harshil Goel, CEO and Founder, Dyndrite Corp.

The current way of printing from mesh models was the outcome of computational practicalities of the past, and "sheer laziness," he argued. But this less-than-ideal approach has now become cemented due to legal issues and long-standing licensing agreements, in his view. 

Dyndrite offers an Accelerated Computation Engine (ACE), described as "a tool that gives hardware and software companies the power, freedom. and control necessary to deliver the future of digital manufacturing." AM hardware and software makers can integrate it through the Dyndrite application development kit. The company has recently released a desktop CAM software called Dyndrite LPBF (Laser Powderbed Fusion) Pro, aimed at AM hardware users themselves.

"It allows you to do what has traditionally been called build preparation, and we have been supporting native CAD from the start. In addition, when you buy a 3D printing machine, the first thing you want to do is to make something with that machine, with a specific material. That's process development. Our software gives you the tools you need to iterate to make sure you can make that thing over and over," he explained.

Goel believes Additive Manufacturing or 3D printing hardware has surpassed the software's capability. "I'm often surprised when I meet users who are unaware of what their machines are capable of," he said. "And I got a bit tired of going to trade shows, because people who are actually doing the work, rarely go to these shows. So I thought we'd bring that knowledge to these people," he said, explaining the thinking behind the "You Control the Laser" tour. 

For my conversation with Goel in its entirety, listen to the podcast here.