3-D printing is getting cheaper. This week I saw a story about producing a hacked together 3-D printer that could print in unusual cheap materials like play-doh and chocolate frosting for $2,000. Soon, another 3-D technology will get cheap -- the 3-D body scan.

I predict soon we'll see 3-D scanning and reproduction become a consumer medium. It might be common to be able to pop into a shop and get a quick scan and lifelike statue of yourself, a pet or any object. Professional photographers will get them -- it will become common, perhaps, to have a 3-D scan done of the happy couple at the wedding, with resultant statue. Indeed, soon we'll see this before the wedding, where the couple on the wedding cake are detailed statues of the bridge and groom.

And let's not forget baby "portraits" (though many of today's scanning processes require the subject to be still.) At least small children can be immortalized. Strictly this requires the scanners to get cheap first, because you can send the statue back later in the main from a central 3-D printer if it's not made of food.

The scanners may never become easily portable, since they need to scan from all sides or rotate the subject, but they will also eventually become used by serious amateur photographers, and posing for a portrait may commonly also include a statue, or at least a 3-d model in a computer (with textures and colours added) that you can spin around.

This will create a market for software that can take 3-D scans and easily make you look better. Thinner, of course, but perhaps even more muscular or with better posture. Many of us would be a bit shocked to see ourselves in 3-D, since few of us are models. As we'll quickly have more statues than we know what to do with, we may get more interested in the computer models, or in ephemeral materials (like frosting) for these photostatuary.

This was all possible long ago if you could hire an artist, and many a noble had a bust of himself in the drawing room. But what will happen when it gets democratized?