Beam Me Up: 3D Scanning is Getting Affordable
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 04. 5.07
Scanning or faxing paper is so 1970. Now you can get an affordable Nextengine 3D scanner ($2,495, just a little more than I paid for my first fax machine). It is another step on the road to dematerialized production, where designs are transported over the internet and printed out where needed. 3D Kinko's are opening where you can go to get your object printed out; 3D printers are still industrial strength at about $ 40,000. According to the New York Times:
"The world is just beginning to grapple with the implications of this relatively low-cost duplicating method, often called rapid prototyping. Hearing aid companies, for instance, are producing some custom-fitted ear pieces from scanned molds of patients. Custom car companies produce new parts for classic cars or modified parts for hot rods. Consumer product makers create fully functional designs before committing themselves to big production runs.
Tom Clay, chief executive of the Z Corporation, says he is constantly amazed by the uses people find for his products. Doctors use them to build practice models, and museums build replicas so people can feel the object without damaging the real artifact. He thinks one big potential market will be three-dimensional portraiture, so people can create busts for immortality." ::New York Times
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Commercial 3D printers are expensive, and only Arcam's EBM machine makes working metal parts straight from the machine.
But there are open source developments like RepRap and FabLab that while simple now, could become very big players sooner than one might think.
Ordering 3D product over the web and printing it at home sounds like a fantastic distribution model, but I think it is similar to typical predictions made 50 years ago (ie fantastical).
I have seen a cutlery system making plates as you need them, although this looks promising it is not an efficient use of energy and materials.
On the 3D printing side Key3D offer an environmentally inert rapid prototyping system or (3D Fax) they also provide online quoting if you want to get an idea of the costs involved.
Simply amazing. I want a bust of myself. That would be such an interesting thing to have.