Additive technologies gained high popularity for customized fabrication without tooling as often required in conventional manufacturing. Several variants are reaching a mature state and industrial integration continuously advances. Clearly, the optimization of processes promises to pay off. Numerical simulation is an attractive candidate for this endeavour, avoiding excessive occupation of the manufacturing machines by experimental procedures. Unfortunately, mathematical models representing the process physics are often complex and their solution is computationally costly. Academic research tackles the situation by the design of numerical techniques tailored to the specific model equations at hand. Floating Isogeometric Analysis (FLIGA) [1,2] is a numerical simulation technique that emerged in the context of extrusion-based additive manufacturing (3D printing). Based on a solid mechanics viewpoint, it combines advantages of mesh-based and meshless analysis to efficiently handle severe extensional and shear deformations in the print nozzle. The choice of basis functions follows the isogeometric paradigm as proposed by Hughes et al. [3]. Extrusion-based printing is an inherently three-dimensional problem. It is however common practice for high fidelity simulation to reduce the studied effects to two dimensions, mostly due to limited computational resources. Initial developments of FLIGA focussed as well on the discretization of 2D equations of motion. In this talk we present an extension to 3D, leading to more reliable predictions of strain and stress compared to the actual process. In addition, we investigate the computational efficiency of FLIGA in 3D. Special focus is laid on algorithmic optimizations exploiting the underlying so-called floating tensor-product structure of basis functions. Finally, some numerical examples conclude the overview. REFERENCES [1] H.C. Hille, S. Kumar, L. De Lorenzis. Floating Isogeometric Analysis. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 392, 2022. [2] H.C. Hille, S. Kumar, L. De Lorenzis. Enhanced Floating Isogeometric Analysis. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 417 B, 2023. [3] T.J.R. Hughes, Isogeometric analysis: CAD, finite elements, NURBS, exact geometry and mesh refinement. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 194:4135–4195, 2005.