I recently found out that my old school and my dad's office have 3D laser cutters. I know they use the same principle of 3D-printing but in reverse. I'm just wondering if anybody has used a 3d laser cutter for puzzle building. if so what materials do you use?

Calling Dlitwin! I think TomZ might have also.

are you sure it is a 3d laser cutter?
I would imagine those would be quite rare...

the standard laser cutter is 2d (you can't change the angle the beam hits the material).

That sounds a little like Laminated Object Manufacturing, which is described here. It builds a 3D object by stacking layers of thin material and cutting each layer to the desired shape. The old Helisys machines used a laser to cut each layer.

But it's a pretty out-of-date system. It doesn't seem likely your dad's office and your old school would both be using such an obscure system.

this machine takes a block of an object, suspends it in the air, and then carves with the laser into the desired shape

I think that the more common name is a 5-axis laser cutter. It can be used to cut or etch patterns on 3 dimensional surfaces, but is not used for carving complex shapes out of a solid body.

Waterjet cutting can use a similar 5-axis process, but is more capable due to the larger cutting depth, and can cut more complex shapes out of solid stock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jm4_HikMqk


5-axis machining would be more appropriately named "3D printing in reverse"

A plain old mill can make quite a broad range of shapes as well, as Jason did with the Pentultimate. With current prices 3d printing is getting competitive even for shapes which milling can do though, especially if you want something which is high precision and low hassle.