????每天，總部位于長島市皇后區Shapeways工廠那些年輕的、留著胡子、刺著紋身的工程師們都會聚在一起吃飯，就好像他們生活在19世紀的企業生活區一樣。在他們工作的工業區里沒有太多美食可以選擇，所以他們要么叫披薩外賣，要么叫生鮮直達。Shapeways是一家3D打印公司，它以這種方式一邊向舊工業致敬，一邊試圖徹底改造傳統的工業制造模式。

????在Shapeways公司開放式大辦公室里的幾乎每個平面上，你都能看到各種異想天開的作品，比如五顏六色的人型雕像、某種虛構生物的骨架、某種看起來是受大自然的啟發而成的抽象雕塑等。甚至還有一座分形鹿頭雕塑，讓人一見就不由得想象，這頭鹿真實的樣子是什么。

????這些都體現了3D技術的強大潛力——它能制造出的物體幾乎是無限的。3D打印背后的技術基礎已經存在幾十年了，只是通常只用于航空航天等高精尖行業里，作為一種制造原型機的工具來使用。但是近年來，DIY愛好者和所謂“自造者運動”的擁躉們開始使用3D打印技術制造新奇的玩意兒?，F在這項技術已經不再神秘了，Shapeways公司相信，3D打印技術將在每個家庭都擁有一席之地。

????Shapeways公司于2007年創立于荷蘭，是由飛利浦等電子行業巨頭孵化的。它擁有一家像Etsy.com那樣的網絡市場，上面有13500多家線上商店。設計師們把數不清的產品拿到上面銷售，從小雕塑到信用卡套、廚房用具等等，應有盡有。去年，這家公司從安德里森霍洛維茲基金（Andreessen Horowitz）等大牌風投那里拉來了3000萬美元的風險投資。這家公司的總部現在位于曼哈頓，與它的工廠隔河相望。

????Shapeways網絡市場的原理是這樣的：顧客首先在Shapeways的網絡市場里搜索一樣物品，找到一個感興趣的設計方案，選擇他們喜歡的材料，然后，顧客的需求就被發送到Shapeways工廠的員工那里，員工會確定它是否具有可行性。然后3D打印機就開工了。Shapeways公司并不研發自己的3D打印技術，而是把它轉化成一門面向消費者的生意。它先把產品打印出來，然后檢查瑕疵、上色、拋光，最后把貨物發給客戶。

????“3D打印”指的并不是一道特定的工序，而是一整套工藝流程，每道程序都能制造出一種特定的物品。臺式3D打印機一般依賴的是一種“噴印”工序，也就是把一種材料噴成一個形狀，然后讓它凝固成型。它有點像一種噴膠槍，可以把膠和打印材料一起噴出來。

????Shapeways工廠使用的是一套叫做“激光燒結”的工序，每個物品都是一層一層地熔凝在一起。打印材料最初是粉末狀的，經激光掃描后，它會凝固成一個材料層，最后一層一層地堆疊成最終產品。

????主流的注塑成型法等工藝流程非常適合生產大量一模一樣的產品，但是在可制造的物品種類上卻存在物理上的限制。3D打印技術至少在兩個方面改變了這個生產流程。首先它可以制造出一些極為復雜的設計（比如一串預先鏈接在一起的鏈子），另外它可以更容易、而且更便宜地生產出一些一次性的、或者不需要長期使用的物品。3D打印設計軟件就像連接設計師的大腦與3D打印機之間的渠道，他們的唯一限制就是設計師的想象力和物理原理。

????Every day, the young, bearded, and tattooed team at the Shapeways factory in Long Island City, Queens gather to eat together, as if they lived in a 19th century company town. There aren't many dining options in the industrial area in which they work, so they order takeout pizza or food from FreshDirect and convene. Their routine is fitting: Shapeways, a three-dimensional printing company, tips its hat to the industrial past even as it seeks to reinvent manufacturing.

????On almost every flat surface in Shapeways' open plan office are whimsical creations -- multicolored figurines of humanoid creatures, skeletons of imaginary animals, abstract sculptures that appear inspired by nature's curving forms. There is even a fractal design of a deer's head that looks like the frame on which you'd hang the real thing.

????All of this illustrates the powerful potential that 3-D printing has to create an infinity of objects. The technology that makes 3-D printing possible has existed for decades, often employed as a prototyping tool in sophisticated industries such as aerospace. More recently, the do-it-yourself community and other hobbyists in the so-called Maker movement have adopted it as a way to create novel items. Now that the technology is no longer in doubt, Shapeways is betting that 3-D printed objects have a place in every home.

????Shapeways was founded in the Netherlands in 2007 and incubated by the electronics giant Philips. It hosts an Etsy-like online marketplace of more than 13,500 online storefronts where designers showcase countless products, from figurines and credit card holders to jewelry and kitchenware. Last year, it raised $30 million in venture capital from heavyweight firms including Andreessen Horowitz. It's now headquartered in Manhattan, across the river from the factory.

????The Shapeways marketplace works like this: Customers search for items at the Shapeways site. After finding a design of interest and selecting a preferred material, the request is sent to staffers at the Shapeways factory, who determine if it is feasible. Then the printers whirr into action. Shapeways didn't develop its 3-D printing technology, but it turns it into a consumer-facing business by manufacturing creations, reviewing them for defects, and dyeing or polishing them into finished products before shipping them.

????The term "3-D printing" doesn't refer to a specific process so much as a category of processes that are each capable of creating one-of-a-kind items. Desktop 3-D printers often rely on an "extruding" process in which a material is fired into a shape and then solidified. It's sort of like a glue gun shooting both the glue and whatever it's holding together.

????Here at the Shapeways factory, the company uses a process called laser sintering in which each item gets fused together layer by layer. The material starts in a powdered form, and when a laser scans across it, it hardens into a layer that will, in aggregate, comprise the final product.

????Mainstream manufacturing processes like injection molding are very good at producing an infinite number of identical products, but there are physical limitations to what can be created. 3-D printing changes the manufacturing process in at least two interesting ways: It allows for the creation of incredibly intricate designs (such as a pre-assembled chain of links) and makes it easier and less expensive to create one-off or limited-run creations. The design software acts as a conduit between the designer's brain and the printer, limited only by her imagination and the laws of physics.