That's funny, just two days ago I looked at options to have something 3D printed for a valentines gift.
I actually have found a free 3D model that I am sure my girl friend would like a lot, and I will I add some 3D text on the bottom.
However, as the video from the original post says, a 3D model that looks great on screen is often not suited for printing and so I am investigating how to fix it.
Regarding print services, these are the main ones in Europe, and I will probably use one of them:
http://www.shapeways.comhttp://www.sculpteo.comhttp://i.materialise.comhttp://www.fabberhouse.deA German magazine (CT) tested it and it is really fabulous what is possible nowadays.
Things are very accurate (they had a nut printed and could easily screw it unto a bolt), durable and you can even print stuff with
say a millimeter "air" between parts. For example they printed a chain and in testing 4 printing services, three delivered
a perfect result and only in the model from the fourth, did (some?) links stuck together but even then they could manually "unstuck" it.
You can even have stuff with an axle going through a hole and it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eojAdYMT0g&feature=endscreen&NR=1BTW, what's an "Up! model"?
