Terminology
The term additive manufacturing describes technologies which can be used anywhere throughout the product life cycle from pre-production (i.e. rapid prototyping) to full scale production (also known as rapid manufacturing) and even for tooling applications or post production customisation.
In manufacturing, and most especially of machining, subtractive methods have often come first. In fact, the term subtractive manufacturing is a retronym developed in recent years to distinguish traditional methods from the newer additive manufacturing techniques. Although fabrication has included methods that are essentially "additive" for centuries (such as joining plates, sheets, forgings, and rolled work via riveting, screwing, forge welding, or newer kinds of welding), it did not include the information technology component of model-based definition; and the province of machining (generating exact shapes with high precision) was generally subtractive, from filing and turning through milling and grinding.
Personal manufacturing machines are known as "fabbers or 3D fabbers".
Read more about this topic: 3D Printing