3D printing is going to change the world. That’s at least what some people will tell you. Those who are a bit more realistic will tell you that there are many challenges the technology must overcome before it becomes the revolutionary technology that some think it is.

Vladimir Bulatov, a 3D graphics research scientist at Shapeways, came to Google recently to be a bit more realistic about 3D printing. His talk – 3D Modeling for 3D Printing – focuses on what he’s doing at Shapeways to improve 3D modeling:

We discuss technical challenges of creation of 3D printable models and what Shapeways team is doing to help developers and regular users to create unique and customizable 3D pieces. In particular we will pay attention to use of AbBab3D – open source software for 3D voxel based modeling library developed by Shapeways.

Of course, Google is no stranger to 3D printers. The company even outfits its chefs with 3D printers so they can create custom pasta for employees.