This could be big - 3D Printing

This will be big: - 3-D Printing for the Masses:

----------
A new online service aims to bring customized manufacturing to the masses by allowing consumers to submit digital designs of products that are then printed, using 3-D printers, and shipped back.
Currently, such 3-D printers--in which successive layers of different polymers are sprayed gradually, building up a 3-D object--are very expensive, says Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of Shapeways, a spinout from Philips Research, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
But the new service, launched last week, makes this technology accessible to anyone: budding artists, architects, product designers, and general hobbyists. A small design company might want to make samples to show a client, or an artist might want to make copies of the same sculpture created digitally, for example.
----------

Later in the article it says:

----------
Users submit their design in digital form, after which Shapeways's software checks it over to ensure that it can be made. Shapeways then passes the design to its production line of polymer printers, delivering the tangible object within 10 days of ordering, with prices typically between $50 and $150.
----------

My daughters have been playing with Sketch-up. They like to build houses. I wonder if there is a way to convert Sketch-up files to a format that Shapeway could use. It would be fun to have a small model house that my daughters had designed.


----------
Technorati tags: 3D, printing