Pink Poogle Toy Forum

According to this article that's been making the rounds, in 10 years we're all going to have 3D printers that will make custom plastic items.

Will this technology really make the leap to the home market? Will this destroy the market for little plastic trinkets? Will we be able to make 3D printers with our 3D printers?

I can't wait to find out.

Will we get 3D scanners? Then we can scan objects and send them over the internets and print them out. Like gifts.

We'll have scanners that can scan you into the computer - places like this will have real people actually talking!

You'd need a 3D monitor though.

...No. You'd just have a 3D model on the screen. Sort of like, you can display a 4D object in 3D space, to an extent.

Anyway, I saw an ad for one of these... $$0,000 right now, but soon it'll be cheap enough that slightly-above-average income can buy one.

For now, it's really only practical to architects.

Oh yeah, I've heard about these. I believe there's an article about it in the most recent Popular Science magazine.

On a show on the Discovery Channel a few months ago, they were talking about how 3D printers could one day allow us to print out organs, so if we needed a new heart or something there wouldn't have to be a waiting list for donors; you'd just get a new heart printed out.

Call me once it can resin cast (sexy anime figurines all round...)

If someone looses a bit of bone, or has a bone that needs to be set, the missing area where the bones should knit together can be scanned. Then, like making a missing jigsaw puzzle peice, the printer can print out a peice that will fit perfectly in the area. These peice can be used and bone will grow around the piece, and the bone will set better than if a person had used screws or metal plates.

I remember reading about this, and it sounded very nice.

I saw that show! Anyway, this would be awesome, but I hope it is cheap enough to buy for the normal family.

These have been around for a while now. I read about them in one of Science News, Discover, or Popular Science over a year ago, and shortly afterwards saw them mentioned in "Discoveries This Week" on the Science Channel.

I've seen shows on the discovery channel about companies that already use 3D printers. They use them to make models of things they are designing, like aircraft or cars, or whatever have you.

Zero thousand dollars isn't exactly what I call expensive.

I'm pretty sure he meant $4,000.