3D photo booth 'prints' models of faces Makerbot, a company based in the Brooklyn borough of the city, creates affordable 3D printing machines for use at home, and opened its first retail store as consumer interest in the technology grows. 3D printing involves making solid objects from a digital model, and has previously been used in industry to create everything from robots to jewellry. Each object is an exact likeness of the model, created by the printer building on successive layers of material. The Makerbot 3D computer model takes a few minutes to construct in store and costs $5 (£3.10), while the physical 3D objects are created in a factory and cost $20 (£12.60), $40 (£25), and $60 (£37.70) for small, medium, and large versions. The manfucturer also sells the $2,200 (£1,383) MakerBot Replicator 2 so customers can print 3D models of their own at home. Makerbot CEO Bre Pettis told the TechCrunch blog: "Ever since we started, people kept saying that this is science fiction - it's not real. So we had to make a MakerBot Store. He added: "This is beyond digital photography - it is the future - and to be able to create a 3D image of yourself is just amazing."