I've been reading about 3-D printing for years. In my thoughts it stayed in the "I'll never have a use for that" category until a sort-of friend handed me one of my sand sculptures. This was a very strange experience, and it's still weird to look at the little model of something I made years ago.
He used a set of digital camera images to make a 3-D model with a special program. He had to use another program to clean it up, and then he enlisted the help of a professional to turn the model into one that could be printed.
There are several different processes. This sculpture was printed with layers of very fine powder that fills the whole printing space. The "slices" of the sculpture have a binder added, so that when the process is done the model is kind of dug out of the powder. After careful cleaning the object must be coated with a hardening fluid, which is another fiddly process.
All in all, it cost him about $150 to make two models. The model is not the sculpture, but it's good enough that I recognize my work in an unfinished state, and I want to get a tiny tool and finish shaping it.
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