July 23, 2008: News From The 3-D Printer Front

I suppose I'm not surprised that it happened first in Japan - and not just anywhere in Japan, but in the Akihabara.

At a new storefront there, you'll be able to walk in with your own digital file, and walk out with a custom figure. The cost? 9,000 yen, or around $85 at today's exchange rate. Don't ask me about next week's exchange rate, grumble.

Now, it's a long way from there to home models. And with this kind of system the price isn't going to go down much for multiple copies. Still, it would now be feasible for a webstore to sell 3-D files which the user could then take to their friendly local output shop. Now, we just need a lot more of those more friendly local output shops, preferably including some in this hemisphere.
-- Steve Jackson