Do you believe it?
And there is more, pretty soon you’ll be able to print your 3-D projects at the local Staples shop using the Mcor Iris True Color 3D Printer. Innovative because the result is in true color and also because these eco-friendly 3-D printers use ordinary business-letter paper as the build material to print the models.
The file formats accepted for printing are STL, OBJ, VRML and the output seems impressive.
More details at this article: http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/staples-goes-3-d
and more videos at: http://www.youtube.com/user/McorTechnologies?feature=watch
Other info about the printer and some technical details at:
http://www.mcortechnologies.com/mcor-technologies-announces-availability-of-the-iris-the-worlds-first-true-colour-3d-printer/
This technology looks now pretty mature, practical and appealing. With true color, using ordinary business-letter paper and making it available (and hopefully affordable) from chain retailer shops near you will be, I suspect, a turning point for 3-D printing technology.
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3D printing is clearly on the cusp of becoming a consumer grade technology. Hackers and makers tinkered with it and now we're starting to have online services, affordable printers like the Makerbot, lots of ideas and even 3D printing shops as comercial endeavours, like this 3D printing photobooth in Tokyo. And if a company like Staples, with a global network of stores, starts to offer 3D printing services... it will be interesting. Chris Anderson optimistically makes the case for 3d printing as a revolution, when everyone uses a printer and 3D modelling to create custom objects: http://www.amazon.com/Makers-The-New-Industrial-Revolution/dp/0307720950
In Portugal Bitbox a small company is at work in creating the first portuguese 3D printer: http://www.bitbox.pt/ and Instituto Politécnico de Santarém recently got funding for a fablab.
And of course the cool thing is that VRML is one of the standards for 3D printers. The shapeways printing service uses wrl and x3d files... http://www.shapeways.com/support/design_upload_and_3dprint
When i showed my pupils videos of 3D printing they asked if the models they created could be printed... so, personally i think it's steam engine time on 3D printing. Could even be a cool novelty business, with a small shop in a trendy part of lisbon specialized in printing customer's models or printing objects from a catolog (if i had the money, i'd go for it...) http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/11/steam-engine-ti.php
Another cool thing of this revolution is that 3D will stop being a restricted technology for creation, accessible only to developers and tinkerers, and will become a common technology with a great degree of usability and accesible to all.
Advanced developers incorporated 3D printers in their workflow, and now anyone with 3D modeling skills can have a go at it.