3-D Printing Pens 2.0: Smaller, Lighter and More NimbleA trio of inventors in Europe have announced a Kickstarter campaign for a new device that allows you to doodle in the air.

ByCatherine Clifford•Apr 8, 2014

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3-D doodling may feel like one of those "back to the future' concepts. Well, the future is already becoming old-school because there's already a next-generation3-D printing钢笔。

A team of three inventors in Europe -- Delphine Eloise Wood, Anton Suvorov, and Ismail Baran -- have announcedthey will be taking their 3-D printing doodle pen, the Lix 3-D Pen,to the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.

3-D doodling means that you can draw in the air. It sounds pretty far out. We had to check out the video (embedded below) to understand completely.

Lix bills itself as "the smallest 3-D pen in the world," with a thickness comparable to a normal writing pen. Others on the market,such as the 3Doodler, have been larger and more bulky.

Still, Lix isn't as easy to use as an everyday pen; it has to be plugged into a USB port and the user needs to feed a plastic string into it. But the output may be worth it: the pen allows a user to doodle in three dimensions by quickly melting and then cooling the plastic to form freestanding shapes.

When it comes to market, the Lix 3-D is estimated to cost $139.95. A limited number will be available for $70 for pre-order when the Kickstarter campaign launches, according to a company press release.

Catherine Clifford

Senior Entrepreneurship Writer at CNBC

Catherine Clifford is senior entrepreneurship writer at CNBC. She was formerly a senior writer at Entrepreneur.com, the small business reporter at CNNMoney and an assistant in the New York bureau for CNN. Clifford attended Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. You can follow her on Twitter at @CatClifford.