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Abstract Health monitoring of structures and people requires the integration of sensors and devices on various 3D curvilinear, hierarchically structured, and even dynamically changing surfaces. Therefore, it is highly desirable to explore conformal manufacturing techniques to fabricate and integrate soft deformable devices on complex 3D curvilinear surfaces. Although planar fabrication methods are not directly suitable to manufacture conformal devices on 3D curvilinear surfaces, they can be combined with stretchable structures and the use of transfer printing or assembly methods to enable the device integration on 3D surfaces. Combined with functional nanomaterials, various direct printing and writing methods have also been developed to fabricate conformal electronics on curved surfaces with intimate contact even over a large area. After a brief summary of the recent advancement of the recent conformal manufacturing techniques, we also discuss the challenges and potential opportunities for future development in this burgeoning field of conformal electronics on complex 3D surfaces.