Does anyone know anything about this new 3d printer? Looks like it could be more promising than before, the rabbit looks to be of decent quality.

http://store.makerbot.com/makerbot-thing-o-matic.html

Is this some sort of meme I'm unaware of, using rabbits as 3d printed samples?

The rabbit does look more higher quality in resolution, maybe we'll have to wait until someone makes a hands-on review on it. It looks very promising.

The Stanford Bunny is the standard dataset for 3D renders of scanned data, much like the Utah Teapot is the standard model for geometric 3D rendering, the Mandril is the standard image for texture mapping, and Lenna is the standard image for 2D image processing.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~turk/bunny/bunny.html

Don't forget about Blender's Suzanne

I really hope this turns out well. For the last few days I've been really interested in a 3D printer, and this one does seem quite cheap. Let's just hope the price doesn't reflect it's quality.

Judging by the quality of the previous makerbot, I seriously doubt that the Thing-O-Matic will be good enough for most puzzles. If you are willing to tinker with the makerbot for a while, you may be able to get some decent prints, but most agree getting a makerbot to work well is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The new Makerbot Thing-o-Matic undoubtedly represents a step toward being able to build puzzles...

• It uses their new, Mk5 extruder which heats more accurately and places plastic more precisely than the previous models.
• It resolves the wobbly Z-axis.

For those of you not following closely, this is just one of a flurry of 3D printer developments in the past few months...

• 3D Systems announced they are acquiring Bits From Bytes, the maker of the BFB3000 home 3D printer. This could be a huge leap, since the BFB3000 is quite highly regarded.
• Bits From Bytes announced they are being acquired by 3D Systems. Basically that's just the other half of the previous announcement.
• PP3DP is selling its fully-assembled UP! printer for $2990. It requires the user to manually cut supports away from the finished parts, but early reviews suggest the machine's precision and finish compares favorably to commercial FDM machines.
• Junior Veloso, a hobbyist who's been working on a homebrew DLP printer, surprised everyone (including himself) with high-resolution, high-precision test print.

3d printing isn't ready for the masses yet, but some observers are wondering if we're watching the next big change. Example: http://fabbaloo.com/blog/2010/9/29/has- ... curve.html