It has already been eight months, and 3D printing seems to have grown as fast as Jack's magical beanstalk. The applications of 3D printing could make books, but the printing process at the same time can be costly.

3D printing has many advantages, but its one major disadvantage -- its cost -- could limit its long-term goals as well as its usage. This super sophisticated printing process has found its way into education: making 3D printed books. The expensive materials that are used to create these 3D marvels could see its costs reduced by using a new form of filament.

What has 3D printing done so far lately? Companies like Staples have teamed with up 3D printing businesses to offer those kinds of advanced copying services. Intel has offered technology aficionados to build a 3D robot prototype. And, a special kind of 3D printer will be sent off into outer space to the International Space Station (ISS). Even Amazon, like Staples, is offering 3D printing now as a service.

These are so far mainly advanced printing applications. But at the simpler level 3D printing could do something as practical as make a book. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have come up with 3D printed books designed for the visually impaired. The project is the University's "Tactile Picture Books Project."

According the University Boulder, they have been using 3D printing technology to transform classic children's books into three dimensional tactile experiences. The books that the University Boulder project are transforming include Margaret Wise Brown's "Goodnight Moon" and Crockett Johnson's "Harold and the Purple Crayon." The computer science assistant Professor Tom Yeh -- and his team -- were responsible for trying this new technique to help parents and their visually impaired children.

Brown's "Goodnight Moon" was the first choice because it is widely known and it has 40 million copies in print. This idea is perhaps personal for Yeh as well.

"When my son was born three years ago we got five copies of 'Goodnight Moon' as gifts, an indication of how popular it is among small children and adults," Yeh said. "It seemed to me to be the ideal book that would lend itself to our new research effort," the University Boulder press reported.

The idea behind making these types of tactile picture books is not anything new, but 3D printing gives an edge. The concept behind this advanced printing process is that the books become more accessible and interactive to visually impaired children.

For example, some pages printed by Yeh's students contain only one object that dominates a particular page. With 3D printing Yeh and his team can print the objects in large or small sizes so that the blind children can feel the shapes better, the University Boulder press reported.

Printing in 3D is costly, hopefully with new materials people like Yeh can carry on their research. Most 3D printers use a plastic filament on a spool, but this filament is by no means cheap. The Sculptify David printer that was launched on Kickstarter could change the spools to pellets. Sculptify has already started testing a variety of materials to work on their 3D printer, CNET reported. The company has used stuff from ABS plastic, EVA (a soft silicone-like material), to even wood composites.

Sculptify eventually wants to offer bags of pellets. They do not want to limit the use of the pellets to their company alone: They want to offer it to all. The pellets work by pouring them into a "hopper" rather than using a cartridge, CNET reported. As of now, Sculptify is selling a 2.2 pound bag of pellets for $18.00. This is less than half the price of filament spools, which cost between $30 and $48.

In order to make it compatible with regular 3D printers, one will have to purge the previously used materials and then change the material selection. The David 3D printer should adjust it, and then you would just add the pellets, CNET reported. With this new filament the texture of 3D printed objects could be transformed from something rigid to something more flexible.

While Sculptify's David is only a prototype at this point, they want to bring this type of printing process into the future.