I have several 3D characters which I would like to have made into PVC or resin figurines using 3D printing process...but I can't seem to locate any reasonable printing services.   Does anyone know of any 3D printing/prototyping companies online who offer single figure creation using collada or other 3D formats? 

Please note I'm talking about three dimensional sculpting here...not 2D printing.

Thanks,
J

Shapeways have some sort of service, but so far, the items and materials seem pretty basic.

Check out the i.materialise website for more information as well.

my friend uses stereoprinting when we prototype parts for our stuff and I have to tell you it isnt cheap. the plastic stuff  etc is ungodly and I was never able to figure out why as its just plastic. i was doing an engine for a WWI plane in 8th scale and it cost abt 900 bucks just to print that little thing out. and thats his own stero printer not farming it out to someone else. not to mention the time it takes. so having a 3rd party do the prototype for you expect it to cost a pantload.

joe

Yeah, I knew it wasn't gonna be cheap...but I was having problems even finding someone that did it.  Thanks for all the ideas and input.  Much appreciated!

reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

a project to keep an eye on. a full RepRap kit is about 700 euros. then you can print your own...

(I'm thinking about this for my own projects)

neat i bookmarked the reprap

Shapeways is quite supportive of amatuers and geared to one-off stuff.  They get down to under two bucks per cc.  (That's actual object volume, not bounding box).

Basically, though, something the size of an old "lead" miniature is quite affordable, but getting up to figurine scale -- 1/10 through 1/6 -- expect to be paying in the hundreds.

(Rough estimate; approximate a human body as a cylinder 177 cm in height 40 cm in diameter.  At 1/20 scale that's 9 x 2; 28 cc's or about forty bucks US.  At 1/8 scale; 432 cc's or over six hundred bucks for the cheapest material at Shapeways.  At 1/72d "figure" scale it drops down to 3-8 bucks depending on material.)

You do have to build for printing, though.  The mesh has to be manifold, and watertight.  Most Poser clothing items are not designed this way; they tend to be open surfaces.  Almost certainly you'll need to tinker in a modeling application to clean up the mesh.

(I just sent in my first Shapeways order...that's why this stuff is at the tip of my tongue right now.)

Some of the guys at Project Dalek use Shapeways for building custom scale models.

I guess that's another vote for them, even though I don't use them myself.