Nice to see what sounded like a big breakthrough at the prototype stage coming through to make it in the market – a year ago, we reported on a company called 3D Systems Inc and based in Sylmar, California, that was working on a system to produce models by a process of photopolymerisation, using an ultraviolet beam to trace out, layer by layer, the shape of a model in a liquid plastic that hardens on exposure to the beam, working on input from a three-dimensional design created on a workstation (CI No 742): the good news is that the first five trial customers among them Eastman Kodak Co and General Motors Corp – have decided to buy the Fotoform machines they have had on trial, and have ordered second ones, and orders are coming in at one a week, the better news is that according to the Wall Street Journal, the machines, which were to have cost $250,000, are now only $175,000.
