If the recent Rapid 2009 event held in Schaumburg, IL, is any indication, rapid prototyping has grown up. The term has come to refer to several relatively new manufacturing techniques that build 3D plastic or metal parts, layer-by-layer, directly from CAD data. But rapid prototyping is being supplanted by the moniker "direct digital manufacturing" (DDM). A Swedish company, Arcam, makes machines that use an electron beam to melt metal powder layer by layer to make physical parts including lattices. EOS, based in Germany, also makes DDM machines, but in this case, the machines laser-sinter powdered metal or plastic to make parts.
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