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From the holodeck in "Star Trek" to the slice-by-slice reconstruction of the alien Leeloo played by actress Milla Jovovich in the movie The Fifth Element, science fiction has long predicted the possibility of automated one-off construction of the most complex objects from a stream of digital information. While we are still a long way from being able to build living beings in this manner, digitally controlled layered manufacturing (LM) technologies are transforming prototyping and mass customization of mechanical and biomedical parts of extraordinary geometric complexity.