Plastic Printing

In the not so distant future we will be able to 'print' plastic items from three-dimensional drawings. These printers have existed in industrial design shops for approximately ten years where they are used to test parts etc prior to manufacturing.

"In the future, everyone will have a printer like this at home,” said Hod Lipson, a professor at Cornell University, who has led a project that published a design for a 3-D printer that can be made with about $2,000 in parts. “You can imagine printing a toothbrush, a fork, a shoe. Who knows where it will go from here?”

Three-dimensional printers, often called rapid prototypers, assemble objects out of an array of specks of material, just as traditional printers create images out of dots of ink or toner. They build models in a stack of very thin layers, each created by a liquid or powdered plastic that can be hardened in small spots by precisely applied heat, light or chemicals.

The article acknowledges that they are unsure of what the demand would be for these printers and offer examples like lost cell phone cases and childrens' toys.

I will admit that my dirty mind immediately thought of something else that people might decide to make at home out of plastic, then I grossed myself out.