The process turns digital models on computer screens into three-dimensional solid objects using plastics and other materials.

WSJ: Public-private partnership pushes '3-D printing'

The technology works by building up layer upon layer of material - typically plastic - to build complex solid objects.

BBC: Working gun made with 3D printer

Moreover, Dr Abrahamson's theory fails to explain how ball-lightning can pass through windows and other solid objects, as some claim.

ECONOMIST: Ball lightning

Honestly, thinking of this like frozen yogurt isn't all that far off -- the Replicator creates solid objects by layering levels of thin plastic extrusions on top of themselves.

ENGADGET: MakerBot Replicator impressions: the dawning of 3D printers in every home?

Before the probe was launched, astronomers did not know whether asteroids were solid objects or collections of smaller pieces of rock, referred to in the trade as rubble piles.

ECONOMIST: Eros

Called RAPHaEL (Robotic Air Powered Hand with Elastic Ligaments), the robot can hold heavier, solid objects, as well as light or delicate ones such as a light bulb or an egg.

ENGADGET: Robotic hand controlled by compressed air grasps the concept of delicacy

In 2010 a team of researchers from Washington State University found that artificial regolith containing silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron and magnesium oxide could be used by 3D printers to create solid objects.

BBC: 3D printed moon building designs revealed

VRML, for describing solid objects.

ECONOMIST: Manufacturing technology

Some of the bruises indicated "heavy impacts" with "solid surfaces or objects", the court heard.

BBC: Rio Smedley 'murdered by mother's boyfriend'

Objects which hitherto had to be cast in solid metal can be manufactured as hollow shapes, reducing their weight and the amount of precious metal used.

BBC: How tech is transforming jewellery