Formnext, the additive manufacturing trade show in Frankfurt, runs November 17-20, 2026, and its awards program has named finalists in all six categories: AMbassador, Design, (R)Evolution, Rookie, Start-up and Sustainability. According to the official Formnext Awards page, the public can vote, and that vote counts as one additional jury voice. Voting stays open until Thursday, November 19, at 12:00 CET. The winners will be announced that afternoon at 4:10 PM on the Industry & Application Stage in Hall 11.0 (D72). Visitors who want to see the finalists in person can find them at the showcase in Hall 11.0, Booth F60.
Most of the shortlist is industrial, as you would expect from Formnext. But the (R)Evolution category, which recognizes groundbreaking products, technologies and services, includes an entry that anyone who has fought wet nylon on a desktop printer will understand right away: a filament dryer that works inline instead of in a box.
The (R)Evolution Shortlist
VoxelMatters' rundown of the finalists lists three (R)Evolution contenders. They come from very different corners of the industry.
Thought3D Drywise. Drywise is an inline filament dryer from Thought3D, a Malta-based company better known for Magigoo adhesives. It dries filament as it is fed to the printer, rather than baking a spool ahead of time. The usual workflow for hygroscopic materials is to dry the whole spool in an oven or a heated box, then try to keep it dry for the rest of the print. An inline design changes the job: you condition only the short length of filament about to be extruded. According to the finalist's entry on the Formnext page, Drywise uses a sealed active drying path of 1.2-1.3 m and a self-regenerating desiccant circuit, and it cuts pre-drying from up to 48 hours to 40-90 minutes. Those are the company's own figures, and the entry doesn't say which materials were tested, so we can't yet say how well the approach holds up against a well-sealed dry box. Still, the idea is clear, and it is notable that a show mostly about metal powder beds and production cells put a filament-handling accessory on its innovation shortlist.
Boston Micro Fabrication microArch S150. BMF's system uses the company's Projection Micro Stereolithography (PuSL) process and can achieve an optical resolution of 25 um. That puts it firmly in micro-scale resin printing, a different class from the consumer resin machines most makers own. VoxelMatters says the resolution makes it viable for microfluidic structures, fiber-optic components and electronic parts.
Fyous GHOST. The third finalist is a dental aligner machine built on what Fyous calls PolyMorphic Moulding. Instead of printing a model for each patient, it forms the appliance directly over thousands of actuated pins, and the tool then reshapes for the next patient. It is a reconfigurable-tooling alternative to printing a model for every case.
Design: From TPU Lingerie to a Monolithic Rocket Engine
The Design Award finalists cover a wide range. Maya Kaplan's Computational Bra is made from TPU on desktop printers, a reminder that consumer hardware with flexible filament can turn out finished, wearable products when the geometry is designed for the process.
The other two Design finalists are about as far from a hobby workbench as additive manufacturing gets. The Levin Center at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center is shortlisted for a monolithic Ti-6Al-4V implant shaped to the patient's anatomy, and that implant has been used in surgery. Agnikul Cosmos is shortlisted for a monolithic semi-cryogenic rocket engine printed in Inconel, the engine used on the company's Agnibaan SOrTeD mission in 2024. Printing an engine as one piece instead of assembling it from many parts is one of the clearest examples of what metal AM makes possible, and here it is backed by an actual flight.
Rookies and Start-ups
The Rookie category leans toward materials and recycling. 3Dnatives' earlier finalist overview names three entrants:
- cAIclone: AI-optimized, 3D-printed hydrocyclones that separate particles in the 1-50 um range, aimed at battery recycling.
- FlexCycle Solutions: a process that turns electronic waste into copper powder.
- Spaceform: a process called Vacuum Atomised Suspension Printing.
The Start-up shortlist reads like a sample of where AM hardware and software are headed. It includes the Aumatis AX-150; sallea, which makes soluble cores; Hydra Manufacturing, which combines paste extrusion with machining to handle materials such as silicon carbide; additiveStream4D; and QH Build, which works on simulation for directed energy deposition (DED). Hydra's hybrid approach stands out. Pairing an additive step with a subtractive one to get precise parts from hard-to-process ceramics is something serious makers will recognize from desktop mill-and-print experiments, done here at industrial scale.
The Sustainability Award, supported by Renishaw, has three finalists, including FlexCycle Solutions, which also appears in the Rookie category. In the AMbassador category, which recognizes organizations and individuals who promote additive manufacturing through education and advocacy, the finalists include Aditiva Brasil's Luan Saldanha.
What It Means for Makers
Trade-show awards don't change what is sitting on your bench next week, but this shortlist says a few useful things.
First, the industry has started treating material handling as part of print quality, not an afterthought. Moisture is one of the most common reasons nylon, TPU, PETG and similar filaments print badly, and the fixes so far have mostly been boxes, ovens and desiccant. If inline drying like Thought3D's proves practical, it changes the question from "is my spool dry?" to "is the filament dry when it reaches the nozzle?" That is the question that actually matters. Watch for independent performance data before you rethink your filament storage.
Second, desktop-class work is on the same stage as aerospace and surgical implants. Kaplan's TPU garment sits next to an Inconel engine that has flown, in the same Design category. Good design for a process can compete regardless of how expensive the machine is.
Third, the Rookie and Start-up lists keep pointing toward recycling and odd materials: e-waste copper, battery-recycling separators, silicon carbide pastes. The materials end of AM is where much of the new energy is.
Bottom Line
If you have an opinion, you can vote: the public vote counts as one jury voice and closes at noon CET on November 19. Results come at 4:10 PM that day in Hall 11.0. The winners will take home a 3D-printed trophy made by the artist duo Sutosuto with FKM Sintertechnik, and the program is sponsored by Renishaw and FOMAS Group. We'll be watching to see whether a filament dryer can beat a micro-SLA platform and a dental tooling machine.
