For all the hype surrounding 3D printers and the potential for a new industrial revolution, their physical appearance is somewhat underwhelming. From the outside, the machines look more like large, American-style fridge freezers than props from a science fiction film.
However, it is the technology inside these bulky machines that has got industrial companies excited. At the press of a button, complex shapes are built up in layers from particles of plastics or metal. The result: a cheaper and faster way to produce complex products, some of which would be almost impossible to make with traditional manufacturing processes.
To date, companies have mainly used 3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, to make prototype parts and products for testing. But several of the world's biggest manufacturers, such as General Electric, EADS and Siemens, are now leading the way in moving the technology from the design shop to the factory floor.
Siemens will next month start printing spare parts for gas turbines, becoming one of the first global industrial manufacturers to routinely produce metal products using the innovative 3D technology.
The German electronics and engineering group will use 3D printing to speed up repairs and cut costs. In certain cases, the time taken to repair damage in turbine burners will be cut from 44 weeks to just four.
Siemens' move comes as a growing number of the world's biggest industrial groups, from General Electric to EADS are preparing to adopt the technology in the hope of bringing down costs.
From 2016, GE Aviation will start mass printing its first metal component - fuel nozzles for the new Leap engine for the Boeing 747 Max and Airbus A320neo aircraft. By 2020, it expects to have made 100,000 3D-printed fuel nozzles.