Print guns not books ?

[Stan]

I was thinking about how ebooks are pushing out the print book market when I ran across this link on how you can print a Working Assault Rifle Made With a 3-D Printer.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/arti...

Ok - now that is just weird (and more than faintly disturbing)

[April]

Actually, the 3D printing isn't new technology. I used a 3D printing machine back in 2003 at my first design job. The output there was no where close to what's available now, but the process was similar. We used a Z-Corp machine. It's pretty awesome to watch it build using layers.

[Rob]

Or... your Wow Character
http://www.figureprints.com/wow/Defau...

[terpkristin]

I know someone in the medical engineering field who says that they're using 3-D printing (what I'd call rapid prototyping) to build custom replacement bone pieces for people who need to remove portions of their bones due to disease...

[terpkristin]

April wrote: "Actually, the 3D printing isn't new technology. I used a 3D printing machine back in 2003 at my first design job. The output there was no where close to what's available now, but the process was similar. We used a Z-Corp machine. It's pretty awesome to watch it build using layers."

Yeah, the lab I worked in for my last year of undergrad and in grad school (2000-2004 or so), we also used 3D printing to "rapid prototype" some of the things we were designing, to see how they'd come together and work prior to doing all the insane machining.