There is an Australian company making something similar. http://www.gizmo3dprinters.com.au/
They expect to launch their kickstarter project by end of year.
I second this. http://i.materialise.com/ is decent too, but Sculpteo is the best I've used. Their standard service is very fast, and the prices for the small stuff I typically print is much cheaper than the others.
Looking at the Replicator2 specs vs Formlabs.
I see that Makerbot lists layer height and XY resolution as 100 microns, while Formlabs has layer height as 25 microns, but XY as 300 microns. Does the improvement in layer height matter much when the XY resolution isn't as accurate? What I'm basically wondering is are you only as good your least accurate spec?
I think you are comparing apples to oranges. The replicator is reporting the positioning accuracy of the gantry system, while Form labs is reporting something like the voxel size of the print laser.
Ask a question like, what is the smallest diameter vertical column that can be printed to 1 inch in height. The answer for form labs is probably like 1000 microns, and Makerbox it like 3000 microns.
Good question - It probably comes down to the limitation of the parts - that said, no current FFF 3-D printer could match the detail of the Neptune figuring. That trident would basically be impossible. At some point the models do a better job explaining than the stats.
