We bumped into this intriguing 3D design on Flickr, produced by Phil Renato. According to the Flickr notes, the item was printed by Mike Gayk at 3D Systems University in "Projet thermophotopolymer", for which we can't locate any more data.

The fine details are interesting, and evidently some work was done to accomplish this:

I sanded and polished it using my standard series of auto paint finishing steps - and it got bluer and smoother and more translucent. As I progressed through, however, to wax etc the build texture started reappearing. Then I drilled out and set the studs with epoxy (as the material is not a thermoformable once photoset) - and I used a 250W halogen bulb about 12" away to kick the glue (60min glue, let sit 9 hours with lamp on). When I went to get it, it was this crazy pastel/white blue with all of the build texture coming through - even while the surface remained "polished." Crazy.

Via Flickr