> Most of the makers in the 3d printing scene are not exactly printing from cad files stolen from manufacturers, they're building the models themselves with Autodesk software and Solidworks and Blender and so on. So there isn't going to be any day in which a manufacturer sues little folks to get money like companies were and still are able to do, because the manufacturer didn't create it, or have any part in creating it.
New sensors coming down the pipeline will allow your smartphone camera to image objects down to micron resolutions from ~1 meter away.
Consider everyday things around you: smartphones, laptops, etc. None of these can be 3dprinted. Things you can 3d print are... smartphone cover, smartphone stand... things you can afford to be plastic in its entirety. I think you guys are overestimating what 3dprinters are capable of. There's a lot of tinkering required to create anything of even moderate complication. And it's almost always cheaper to just buy it if it's available at the store, because the printer costs and the consumables (pla, abs or whatever filament) costs, and time costs.
You can't even 3D print a good smartphone cover. The one I use was injection molded to very tight tolerances and involves multiple different kinds of plastic joined together. Let's see a 3D printer do that.
New sensors coming down the pipeline will allow your smartphone camera to image objects down to micron resolutions from ~1 meter away.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2906232/camera-chip-could-tur...