Commenting on this while my 3D printer is making parts for my new 3D printer, with parts I designed from the comfort of my own home. 3D printing and the RepRap movement have managed to get me truly excited about something for the first time since I took up programming 20 something years ago.
We're not quite at the fully consumer-ready stage yet, there is a lot of tinkering and know-how that would be too much for the average consumer. I'd say the current state of 3D printing is at the same level 2D printing was ~40 years ago (comparatively), but I'm confident we'll reach a similar stage within the next few years.
For those interested, the RepRap community is extremely active and there are lots of open-source projects (including hardware) to get involved with.
We're not quite at the fully consumer-ready stage yet, there is a lot of tinkering and know-how that would be too much for the average consumer. I'd say the current state of 3D printing is at the same level 2D printing was ~40 years ago (comparatively), but I'm confident we'll reach a similar stage within the next few years.
For those interested, the RepRap community is extremely active and there are lots of open-source projects (including hardware) to get involved with.