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Resin 3D printers have been around since the late 1980's. It's not good for mass production because you have to use a photopolymer, which tends to be expensive.

I did not know that; so---why did the deposition 3Ds come into being? Was that about cost of materials, even though they are apparently 100X slower?
This is quite educational for me.

The filament style of 3d Printers are cheap to operate and can be made to nearly any size.

A resin printer needs a photopolymer, something that solidifies when exposed to UV light. They also need a fairly strong projector and lens, which limits their build area.

A filament printer can use a lot of various materials, the most common being PLA (a bioplastic made from renewable plant materials) and ABS. There are many other materials, some are specialty that have an almost rubber like flexibility to them, to a filament that is made from wood and a binder, which results in an printed object that can be sanded and stained. And, since you are moving a print head, the only limitation to the build size is how big you have made your printer.

I think what they're calling "new" is the idea to draw/pull the object out of the liquid (instead of the old way where you 'print' from above and sink the object into the bath of liquid.) This "new" way of doing it does mean you can make things as long/large as you like instead of being limited by the depth of your liquid basin, but I don't see anything else new or particularly exciting about it.

Drawing it out of the liquid is how it's been done, I looked a bit more into what this company is doing... basically it's a continuous draw, instead of the normal method with incremental raises.

Here's a homemade Resin Printer from 2011 pulling it from the top. https://youtu.be/snOErpOP5Xk

Interesting.
The few I had seen on that front were really not 'drawing' pieces out of liquid, but rather lowering the bath slowly (incrementally, not smoothly) rather than actually lifting the pieces (not that there's that much difference in the end).
The smooth, continuous printing is a big step forward IMO. Now there's no 'finishing' step where someone smooths out hundreds of tiny 'steps' from one level to the next.
I'm not sure if those others printed from below or from the sides.

EDIT: I see from your link that others had the 'print from below' and 'smooth continuous printing' down in 2011...so now I don't know what if anything is new with this one....maybe just stronger lasers for faster printing?

There's actually a neat trick to smoothing the surface if you are using ABS. But it requires boiling some Acetone.

https://youtu.be/Jv-CbnB8Uz4

So, is the highest best use of this prototyping?

Prototyping or even making a master from which to make a mold from. With both types of printer, there is a level of finishing needed.

The resin types will have an area of unwanted structure at the top to adhere the model to the raising arm. That needs to be cut off and cleaned. One of the biggest advantages to the resin printers is that your layers can be incredibly thin, leaving you with an almost flawless model surface.

The filament and powder types can get a decent surface, but due to the thicker layers, you will still have to spend some time smoothing the entire model before making a mold.

Wake me up when we're compositing on the atomic scale.

Then I'll take a cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot.

Man, if Replicators and Holo-Rooms become a reality, no one would ever leave the house. But I'm OK with that