SAN FRANCISCO, US - In a step toward the type of future pictured in the hit film "Iron Man," a firm in the Netherlands is letting people fabricate items designed in three-dimensions on the Internet.

Shapeways chief executive Peter Weijmarshausen depicts the "rapid manufacture" service launched online this week as a natural extension of a trend in which people make videos, music, and written works on the Internet.

"People are creative in their leisure time; uploading films to YouTube, making profiles at social networking websites and posting on blogs," Shapeways executive Jochem de Boer told AFP in an interview this week.

"They like to turn ideas into reality."

With the Shapeways service, instead of digital content people design items that are manufactured and shipped to their doors.

Software lets online designers flip, turn and tinker with virtual designs onscreen in a variation on how film character Tony Stark manipulated computer imagery while inventing his Iron Man suit.

Creations have included clocks and tools. A man making an anime film made a model of his lead character and a model train hobbyist in the Netherlands re-created his home town in miniature using the service.

"There is no limit if you can use 3-D software," de Boer said. "We want to go farther and enable people that cannot use 3-D software."

Shapeways this week added the first of what it hopes to build into a library of easy-to-use templates. One template lets people make candle holders embodying poetry and another is for making fruit bowls.

Each item is priced at 150 dollars (US).

"People will help us come up with cool ideas for templates and we will build them," Weijmarshausen said.

Shapeways is part of electronics giant Philips' "lifestyle incubator" that nurtures start-ups. Shapeways has a production site in the Netherlands and plans to be independent by year's end. --AFP