Can I punch the camera person in the face? Or could someone _please_ tell him how to use the iris setting on the camera. _please_ I mean I can understand not using a tripod, but you could at least set up your camera so it'll work.

I looked em up, and they're not too expensive for a one-off model making service.

which is excellent though at the moment a tad too expensive for anything other than experiencing the pleasure of holding your 3d work in your hand. But the prices are coming down and it shouldn't be long before it becomes a viable means of producing saleable products.

This looks pretty cool, I had a look at their pricing and it seems fairly reasonable. Could spawn lots of copy cats now!

See

http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Go on... someone upload one of those 3D Escher models.... the infinity loop type... :)

If they charge on delivery, they've got the problem. If the charge up-front... do you have $infinity in your bank balance?

Shapeways' site looks nice indeed, but the idea of online ordering is not new :

Materialise was already on the online market since 1997 has with their service called

OnSite, they have a big range of materials from which you can choose.

Shapeways offers a library of models, where OnSite expects you to have a model.

The site is a bit outdated and only supports Internet Explorer but works perfectly : a plugin installs so that you don't have to upload your model to see a price.

https://nextdayoqaos.materialise.com/?adsrc=res

Can anybody extrapolate PH photos to a 3D model? Now that´s a real challenge, something with smooth round 3D surfaces...

Upload a goatse of some sort.

What do you expect from el-reg? Competence?

Just check the drivel the hacktards produce and you'll see that this is on a par with that.

Another classic El-Reg wtf-has-this-to-do-with-IT waste of time. I guess the hacktards get paid by the article regardless of quality or relevance.

We don't come here to watch third rate TV programmes, we come here to READ the news.

Is there nobody on the Register staff that is not too thick to understand that Flash demonstrates everything that's WRONG with the web and is most certainly not a panacea for avoiding putting pen to paper.

this is going to bring a whole new dimension to printing porn! -the PFY will be happy ;)

mines the coat still in the printer

As soon as somebody finds a URL for a proper story (in text) about this item, please post it here.

Design consultancys have been getting rapid prototypes made like this for over a decade. You can even get multi-coloured parts made by some machines that add pigment to the plastic they lay down, and the bleeding edge is to lay down electric "wiring" and eventually components.

It is also hoped to be useful for making replacement spacestation parts on the Moon & Mars where it isnt convenient to wait for Spaceman Pat to deliver from Earth.

It will be exciting to see what happens as rapid prototyping techniques become available and affordable to hobbyists and amature users.

I Agree.

I, like many people, read The Register while I'm at work. What I want is a quick flick through the day's technology news at my own pace. I'm not going to be pissing about with headphones and then sitting through some idiot (usually) nattering repetetively and verbosely while some shaky, pixellated crap wobbles on the screen in front of me.

"Video news" = epic FAIL.

You can do rapid prototyping now? WOW! Whatever next? Soon you'll tell me that I can download music directly to a cassette player. WOW!