I am always fascinated by the number of people who do not know what a 3D printer actually does and am equally delighted when I watch their reaction when the concept finally sinks in and they all say something to the effect of “Are you serious? That is amazing!!” and Im like, “I know right?!”

Next week something HUGE is coming to the market, it is really really huge, but for the same reasons, most people who hear about it go “meh….”. If you are “meh-ing” you don’t understand how huge and amazing this is.

MakerBot is releasing a commercial 3D scanner! What this means is you will be able to take an object, place it on the digitizer platform, scan it and then print a copy of that same object on your 3D pinter!

This is really going to simplify the whole re-design process in creating your own 3D printable parts, as I did a couple weeks ago for my Dad who needed a locking cam for his extendable poles. The device appears to be a turn table that is then scanned by 2 lasers and then converted into a printable file:You can also easily scale your prints, so changing the size is only limited by the size of your 3D printer:There are a series of articles on using the scanner and how to get the most of it. Well work checking out if you are interested in 3D printers:

Maker Bot Digitizer 3D Printing Scanner