I think that they are very good for printing chess pieces..............in green. No doubt as the technology develops, different coloured chess pieces will become a real possibility.
I think you're right. I've already seen creamy coloured chess pieces. It's only a matter of time before the technology progresses to black and white.
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fishingpaul: You probably haven’t tried 3D printing. Well, it’s way different from factory-manufactured-plastics-materials. 3D printing uses high quality filament which has strong and versatile characteristics that can be printed into different shapes. Nylon Filament, for example, is an extremely strong material that’s why it can be used for creating bicycle parts, etc. According to switched.com, it can be as strong as steel. Read more about Nylon Filament here:
http://www.3d2print.net/shop/product/taulman-645-nylon/
We had quite an expensive 3-D printer at our school. We used mainly ABS. The printing is done in layers, so you get quite good strength in one direction, but very low sheer strength. With good design, you can optimise the strength to an extent.
The printers that you can buy for home have very low resolution, so don't think that if you get one, you'll be able to build a bike from first principles, neither will you be able to make a gun, but creamy coloured chess pieces are a real possibility if you can find the right files to download. You can always paint them afterwards.
Another problem to think about. All plastic is attacked by UV light in daylight, which makes it degrade and go brittle. You can get materials that include UV stabilisers, which are more expensive. I'm not sure if you can get them for 3-D printers yet.
