Who said Iron Man was a work of fiction?

Elon Musk is determined to become a real life Tony Stark, the PayPal and SpaceX entrepreneur has uploaded a video to YouTube showing how one could use the latest gestural technology to manipulate a 3D object and then print it out.

Musk shows us in his video a wireframe of a Merlin Rocket Engine, which he then spins round and manipulates using a Leap Motion controller. The Leap Motion controller is a USB device, which uses state-of-the-art tech to track your movements and translate them to gestures on the screen.

Elon then goes a few steps further and shows us that coupling the Leap Motion controller with either 3D screens, a Virtual Reality headset or free standing glass projection ("just like in Iron Man") plus a CAD design software, could allow a designer to create an object from scratch with his/her hands.

He then goes on to demonstrate how this gesture built rocket engine part could be turned into a physical working object through 3D printing. Using an EOS Metal Laser Sintering device the working part is manufactured in a fraction of the time it would take to traditionally tool.

This is not how Elon Musk currently works but a glimpse into the future of how design and manufacture may look in the years to come.

What with his Hyperloop concept, which is said to cut down the five and half hour car journey from Los Angeles to San Francisco to just half an hour, and his Space X program now in full flight we do expect, in the not too distant future, Elon Musk in a full suit of all flying all shooting body armour. What would be his Superhero name though? Elon Musketeer perhaps?