3D Systems Corporation (NYSE: DDD) has done something you do not see all that often these days. The 3D printing player announced on Tuesday that its shareholders approved an increase in the authorized number of shares at its annual meeting. Now that the company has raised capital, this will help the company issue shares and pay cash for a buyout with lots of flexibility to work with.

The company’s stockholders approved an amendment to 3D’s Certificate of Incorporation in the act. This action increased the authorized number of shares of 3D common stock up to 220,000,000 shares from 120,000,000 shares. We would usually think this was to accommodate a coming stock split, but 3D systems has already split its stock once this year.

Avi Reichental, President and CEO of 3D Systems said, “We are grateful to our stockholders for their support. This increase in our authorized shares restores our flexibility to use newly issued shares of our common stock for appropriate corporate purposes.”

Be advised that 3D has already split its stock recently on a 3-2 basis for a 50% dividend. After looking into a recent SEC Filing, the company disclosed that on February 22, 2013, it had 91,302,577 shares of common stock outstanding. As of April 30, 2013, 3D still had convertible notes outstanding in the amount of $44.7 million and those notes were convertible into a maximum of 3,127,469 shares of common stock. When you tally those up, you still likely have to add in the 8,625,000 shares issued after the recent secondary offering after the overallotment option was exercised in full.

3D Systems sure seems as though it is getting ready to make a major move of some sort that would be a potential game-changer for it. The question is whether or not it will be good for shareholders. This stock closed down only 0.1% at $48.43 on Tuesday and the after-hours is down only another 7-cents. Its shares have traded in a range of $18.33 to $51.94 in the last 52-weeks on a split-adjusted basis.

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