3D Printing For Everyone

mmacx writes "Technology Review has up an article about Shapeways, a new online rapid-prototyping service that allows users to upload digital designs which are then printed on 3-D printers and shipped back. A spinoff from Philips Research, the service gives small businesses, designers, artists, and hobbyists access to prototyping tools that were once available only to the largest corporations. The fee for a typical printed object is $50-$150. Their video shows the steps behind the process." We've been talking about 3D printing for years.

Comments

Speculating on the Hobby Implications

[Tetsujin]

Every time 3-D printing comes up I like to consider what this will do to my favorite hobby, model-building...

Styrene injection kits have been around for ages, and they're generally the cheapest way to get a kit made in large quantity - but because it costs so much to set up the molds, usually they're pretty hesitant to make a kit of anything that's not a pretty sure-fire seller... Additionally the hobby has been dying by inches for a long time.

To fill all the niches of interesting subjects that nobody's bothered to make injection kits of (this would be, for instance, things like the Serenity cargo ship) there's resin kits - but because of the high degree of manual labor involved in casting the parts, as well as the material expenses and the initial sculpting work divided over a run of maybe a couple hundred kits, they're pretty expensive for the person buying the kit...

But then you think about stuff going on these days, like papercraft - people making model designs, putting them online in a form that other people can print out and build dirt-cheap. The results aren't generally as good as injection or resin models but it's quite impressive, and inspiring what they've accomplished...

So it's fun to think about what fabrication could mean for the hobby. On the one hand it may actually mean less people buying and building models, or scratch-building parts themselves. Rather, once the technology is cheap enough, more things will be simply fabricated. But on the other hand - to think of something that would today be a garage kit, only done up as a downloadable design for fabrication... that would be pretty damn cool.

Re:Speculating on the Hobby Implications

[Ngarrang]

I would love to be able to print my own replacement model parts. Next time I break a rotor blade on my heli, just print one out. Need a new control horn, print it out. Servo arms, wing assemblies...such a home capability might bring back a renaissance of RC building that is becoming a lost art due to RTF products.

Re:Speculating on the Hobby Implications

[Tabernaque86]

Additionally the hobby has been dying by inches for a long time.

At what scale though?

Only 3 dimensions?

[techess]

Great there goes my plans of printing tesseracts.

You can't patent something....

[snspdaarf]

...in the pubic domain!

direct link

[Speare]

I would have complained about a direct link (http://www.shapeways.com/ in the summary, but the site is a bit rude to looky-loos like us who just want to see what's going on. Almost all their front page links are blocked until you log in, even the "getting started" page! The "about" page is about all you can see, and it's got no real details. What is the printing resolution? What material choices? Can you print two-material designs? Come on, Shapeways, if you want to generate buzz, put out a bit more welcome mat.

Re:direct link

[Mithrandir]

FWIW, I'm the lead dev on all the 3D portions of the site. I had no idea these guys were going to get it posted to /. today! I wake up late to find my inbox filled with emails about it....

Anyway, on to answer your questions. Two ways:

1. there's some simple editors built in for specific object types (and more on the way)

2. Upload from your favourite modelling tool. Right now support is for X3D, Collada and STL files. More formats are on the way, but are not, as yet, fully tested.

There is also some restrictions on the basic structure of the models. The system tries to correct a lot of problems, but it is by no means perfect as it is all automated.

Costs are like the article summary states - $50-$150 per piece. However, that is dropping very, very rapidly as volume increases. Only this time last year, costs were an order of magnitude higher for exactly the same pieces. We're expecting a similar sort of drop in prices over the next 12-18 months as bulk manufacturing really starts to drive prices down.

Turn around time is usually a couple of weeks. The actual printing process is still relatively slow and manually managed. We'd love t automate it, but the printer hardware companies are not giving us that capability yet.

Re:direct link

[Mithrandir]

Hmmm... don't know much about SE and what formats it can export. If you can get STL, then you should be fine. There's very few CAD apps that can't do at least STL. Many have Collada support already. Between those two you should be OK. If not, have a dig for software called PolyTrans (Okino Graphics). That's a huge file format conversion tool that supports almost every known 3D file format. I believe they have a free demo download.

Bounds constraints vary wildly and also vary by material type. A material may only be available on a specific printer (manufacturer and model), that will then limit what size model can be printed. For example, selecting an ABS material can be printed on all the machines, but 720 Fullcure is only available on one. Each machine has a limited production size. However, as an absolute max, no machine is capable of printing something greater than 1m cube - at least right now.

I like the sound of this

[jollyreaper]

Hello, gentlemen. I am interested in your offering. I am linking to my specification here: http://babes.com/monica_bellucci. How long should I expect to wait for delivery?

Re:I like the sound of this

[jollyreaper]

Typical Slashdotter, going for a cheap knockoff rather than enjoy the real thing. But then again, I shouldn't expect any different. ;-)

If I went and got the real thing, that would be kidnapping. This does not deprive her husband of use of the original Monica Bellucci, I'm just committing a copyright violation. That's far more socially acceptable.

The Techshop

[btarval]

While this is a really cool service, nothing can beat hands on. My preference is The Techshop.

The site seems slashdotted already. Google's cache should have a copy of their 3D printer, laser etcher, and other services for building (nearly) anything that you can imagine.

This is the most innovative thing to hit Silicon Valley in years. It really should've been covered by Slashdot long ago.

The advantage the Techshop has over mail-in is that you can get advice on how to create your prototype. The costs for a 3D print job can vary greatly depending on how you do it. Just the orientation alone can either save you or cost you quite a bit. So that's why I prefer "hands on". Now, if I really knew what I was doing, or I didn't have a TechShop nearby, then I'd probably do a mail-order service.

As far as apps goes, you can pull down one of the Google apps (whose name I've forgotten at the moment) and use that.

Oh - and the guy who founded the TechShop used to work with Mythbusters in creating their gadgets. I hear they even showed up on opening day.

I have no connecting with the Techshop other than has a happy and frequent customer.

Interesting issue

[jez9999]

When everyone can accurately 3d-print objects, does getting the design for, say, a type of chair then 3d-printing it without paying, count as theft? After all, you're not depriving anyone else of the model chair the 3d specifications were based on.