On: Iron Man 2's Secret Sauce: 3-D Printing

[sliverstorm]

I figure 3D printing is still in it's infancy. Sure, it can't do all you can imagine it doing, but that's just because nobody's figured out how to make it do those things. Yet.

Definitely easy to over-hype it, but it deserves attention.

Plus... one of the things that has always sucked about modeling in my opinion is the difficulty of entering a model. Maybe with a good way to get a structure out, we will soon work out a good way to get a structure in?

[steveklabnik → sliverstorm]

The best current way to "get a structure in" is through laser scanning the part, and converting the resulting point cloud to an STL file.

This isn't yet to the point of being automatic, though, as laser scanners aren't yet perfect. There's still a bit of artistry involved.