Nice. I had no idea these actually existed yet. I just expected someone to do it. I can forsee legal problems with actually doing an Aquilla in this example (well, if you're going to profit from it anyway), but gun mounts and buildings and base decorations...? Awesome
Terrible, terrible examples. Each of these are merely implementations of an idea which has become successful. That HD-DVD was beaten out by Blu-ray says nothing about the popularity of high capacity discs, only that one implementation of it has lost to another. Ditto Betamax tapes. Had VHS not existed, Betamax would have been the default, but there would still have been video tape. Your analogy would only be correct if I were arguing type of 3D Printer X will beat out type of 3D Printer Y. I'm not - obviously. I'm just saying 3D Printers in general will take off.
There you go.
I don't know why everyone is reacting as if 3D printing is this highly expensive technology. It is right now, but it's coming down fast and there's little reason it can't approach 2D printing - it just takes up more space. After all, which is more complex - squirting lots of ink through multiple tiny colour nozzles (ink-jet printers) or squirting unset plastic through a nozzle? They're pretty similar. The latter just moves has two more motors so that the nozzle moves in Y as well as X, and slowly rises upwards as it works. There's nothing especially complex in that which isn't as complex as an ink-jet. Two more motors, three less nozzles.