off topic: makerbot...

Apparently this thing can use Blender STL exports.. All you sculpty fiends can now print your work...

http://www.makerbot.com/

Cool. $750 for a 3D printer is dirt cheap. From the videos, the end results look a little sloppy compared to what you'd get with more expensive machines, but for the price, you really can't complain. A little hand sanding and/or buffing after printout should clean it right up.

I notice they're out of stock on nearly all the plastic material for it. I'd hope that doesn't mean it's hard to come by. ABS and such can be bought just about anywhere, of course, but I've never seen it in ready-made extrudable coils like that before.

In any case, thanks for the link.

They're pretty much sold out of everything, I think. They got good press at the recent CES and Wired just wrote up them up, both online and in print.

I also noticed that they didn't look *that* clean but based on the specs, it looks like they should be. Each new batch of bots seems to have some improvements - maybe the pix are just from an older version and zoomed in a lot. Dunno.



If they can get it up to building 200mm cubes near the same price point, I think I will get one.

Related, I heard HP is going to release an "affordable" 3D printer before long. Only word on the price is that it will be under US$15k.

Sound right in line with their "affordable" $7,000 banner printers.

Still, it's exciting news. I'd be willing to bet that 10 years from today, desktop 3D printers will be as commonplace as 2D ones are today.

I'm really excited for how this sort of thing will change the way we shop. Nowadays, we buy media online, which few had ever imagined would be possible just a decade ago. How cool will it be when we transition to doing the same for physical objects. Instead of going out to the store to buy that new set of dishes, just buy the CAD file online, hit Print, and fabricate the dishes right at home. And what about your old dishes? Well, just throw them in your handy dandy home recycler, melt them down, and use the material to make whatever you're buying next.

It'll do until we've got matter replicators.

But I don't like plastic dishes.

The scratch to easy..........and if I don't want to reuse them from my recycler I'll have to pay someone to throw them away like I do my old oil now!!!

But, you might be right Chosen.

I guess eventually it'll be possible to do this by fusing fine ceramic or metal particles using... umm... microwave lasers?

But... but... I've only just weaned myself off using printed hard copy...

No, no, no..

When you tire of them or they get scratched up, you just (eventually) throw them into the dishwasher with all the other stuff and, when the cycle completes, they've techomagically vanished and the little box inside the dishwasher is full of what looks like sand. You just have to dump the sand into the similar-looking box on the printer once a week or so.