This issue is a collection of the best papers from the 2014 SFF Symposium. This 3-day meeting was held in Austin, Texas August 4-6, 2014. It drew 334 researchers from universities, companies and national laboratories from all over the world, representing 17 countries. There were 199 talks and posters presented at this annual meeting. Based on evaluations of each presentation at the conference, 12 papers were identified as best papers from the conference. These are included in this special issue. The content represents the breadth of AM research