Fabbers transform the Internet from a network of information into a network for physical delivery of real products. Today's fabbers work in simple plastics or low-strength metals and are limited in their building precision. Tomorrow's fabbers will make fully functional products with moving parts and integrated microcircuitry. For example, Automotive engineers fab concept models of new car designs. Months can be taken out of the development schedule by using fabbers to quickly validate design concepts.
Surgeons use fabbers to model patients' bone structure before taking scalpel to skin.
The ability to practice a complex procedure in advance on a plastic model has saved lives while making surgery go faster and cost less. Digital artists fab sculptures that cannot be made in any other way. They typically use toxic chemicals or powders as feed materials. They are like the old mainframe computers of the 1960s that needed a temperature-controlled environment and specially trained operators. Despite their high cost and complexity, today's fabbers have been widely accepted among the leading manufacturing companies of the world as an indispensable tool for new product development.