Rapid manufacturing is becoming more & more real.

Here are a few sites I like:

• http://www.bigbluesaw.com/: Waterjet & laser cutting,
• http://www.ponoko.com/: laser cutting for everyone,
• http://www.shapeways.com/: 3D-printing,
• http://www.emachineshop.com/: Plastic & metal everything.

Ponoko’s great, but they only do flat surfaces. Shapeways can do any shape, as long as it’s small enough and laser-printer plastic, but they’re expensive. E-machineshop can build everything you can imagine, but they only make sense money-wise if you need large quantities, and their software can’t import files if they’re complex enough to be interesting. I like them all a lot but I don’t know which ones I am going to use.