The technology behind 3-D printing — in which objects are made by a printer that stacks layers of material like plastic or metal on top of each other — has been used for years by manufacturers and designers to build prototypes. But as my colleague Ashlee Vance recently recently wrote, 3-D printing is now being adopted by all sorts of businesses to make all sorts of things.
Over the past weekend at the first New York Maker Faire, a gathering of people who make stuff, 3-D printers were everywhere — churning out cups, intricate artistic designs and even parts that could be used to build more 3-D printers.
One of the fascinating aspects of this technology is that it is so diverse. There are open-source products, like 3-D printers that cost as little as $650 from MakerBot, based in the Brooklyn. And there are high-end 3-D printer options from companies like Dimension Printing, which begin at around $20,000.
And there is 3-D printing on demand, offered by companies like Shapeways, which just moved to New York from the Netherlands.
