HAVE you heard about 3D printing?

This doesn’t print out pictures for you to look at in funny glasses. It actually produces objects.

How on earth can it do that?

The machine interprets three dimensional data to create, layer by layer, an end product. And no, I don’t understand it, either.

It intrigued me when I first read about it last year. You download the item you want copying, press a button and out it comes. Eventually. All that layering takes time. There is talk of having them in public libraries in America for model makers.

I thought it was a bit of a gimmick but then discovered it had been used to produce the futuristic Audi RSQ motor car that had been specially designed for the film I Robot.

From the design board, to the printer, to components for a super vehicle.

Their potential is being taken very seriously and their development is being monitored by police, fearful they could be used in the mass production of guns.

Groups opposed to the plans of President Obama to introduce tighter gun laws in the US, have already produced gun parts, including a 30-round magazine.

Give this technology a few more years and anything could be possible. Gun nuts in America could order the latest design of whatever they want.

And then there would be those more interested in love rather than war, who would check in to use the 3D printer at their local library: “I wonder. Could I get a copy of Angelina Jolie?”

At least it would be a better alternative to a Kalashnikov.