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Shapeways planes in full color?
Shapeways has released a new technology "High Definition Full Color Plastic". The technology is (at last) approaching where we can get full-color 3D prints!
The bad side is that it is currently pretty expensive: US$40-ish for a full-color 1:144 Albatros D.III (the only plane for which I've done a full-color texture map). But I have to think that the price will only decrease over time, when the technology becomes commonplace instead of bleeding-edge. I'm going to order one and see how it comes out -- I'll post photos when it arrives. The other bad news (for me) is that it requires somewhat thicker parts, so all the models have to be tweaked (not to mention the task of generating texture maps for each plane and camouflage).
Here's the model I'm going to order as a test, a full-color Jasta 2 Albatros D.III: (this isn't the actual print... that will come later)
I don't have my hopes up very high at this point, but it shows that the technology is coming along. It will be interesting to see how precise are the color boundaries. For instance, can you read the serial number? Can you see the white border around the fuselage cross? And whether the printed colors are anything close to the ones in the texture map.
Update: you can see photos of the full-color print in response #24 below!