Prices of the early 3-D printers were astronomical. In the past 3 years prices have come down to "stromical". They are still expensive, but in the thousands of dollars versus hundreds and tens of thousands of dollars. What also has improved is 3-D scanning. There are holographic scanners now available that will plot out any object so that it can be sent to the 3-D Printer almost instantly after being scanned. Hand held laser scanners can quickly get all the coordinates for an object. Problems do happen if the object has shiny or reflective surfaces. There are also contact scanners and volume scanners that can handle those objects.
I've seen on two early morning talk shows (not that I watch them regularly) table top 3-D printers making models for the hosts. On my favorite geek show - The Big Bang Theory - two of the geeks bought a 3-D scanner and make life like dolls of themselves. Of course they didn't show the process, because if they did it would have taken way more then the 1/2 hour the show runs.
The applications for 3-D printing are limited only by human imagination. Parts for industry (shown above) are one application that is in use today. Producing models for prototype products is another use. I don't know of anyone making food at this time. AutoCad corporation (the leading CAD software company) now makes a program called 123D Creatures, that lets you design a monster and then print it out on your 3-D printer. Of course the monsters are less then 6 inches in height, but hey isn't that cool?
The future of 3-D printing appears very bright (the leader of the 3-Dprinter makers is MAKERBOT) so it may not be too far in the future when you too have a 3-D printer and scanner on your desktop.
