3D Printing On Demand

Iddo Genuth writes "The Netherlands based company Shapeways is beta testing a new service allowing people to print three-dimensional models. Customers can upload designs or use a creation tool hosted at the Shapeways website, then order a printed model of their designs for less than $3 per square centimeter. The printed items are shipped to the customer in ten days or less, bringing 3D printing to consumers and not just companies large enough to afford their own printers."

Comments

Eh?

[Colin Smith]

Shouldn't that be cubic centimetres? Y'know... The third dimension.

 

Re:Eh?

[TheEmptySet]

You can happily use a 2D (Hausdorf) measure on a 3D set. No problem. But the result would be infinite. I imagine they plan to be quite expensive.

Re:Eh?

[ljw1004]

"Shapeways -- 2d pricing for 3d products"!!!

As always, the summary website is wrong. If you go to shapeways.com they explain:

How is your pricing calculated?

Our pricing is based upon the actual amount of material used in your model. So the actual volume of your finished object not the volume of the bounding box. If you click on the order tab next to any model the system will calculate the price for you. All prices includes shipping and handling.

Waaaaaah?

[wisty]

So will they mind if some of the 'prototypes' have an eerie resemblance to 40k minitures?

Re:Waaaaaah?

[Gerafix]

Probably not, but I'm sure they will get tired of receiving over nine thousand penis designs though.

Dupe.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/01/1344232

A new copyright battle?

[91degrees]

Right now this process is quite expensive, so this isn't going to be a problem, but I can imagine this getting cheaper.

Some people are going to be using this to make 3D copies of cheap plastic items they own. Another poster mentioned Warhammer miniatures, and I could imagine lots of other small but expensive items being copied.

Once someone with money takes notice of this, I guarantee a legal battle tying to make it illegal.

Re:A new copyright battle?

[jamesh]

So... what? Now we are going to have 'Miniature cloning is stealing' blurbs on packaging for small-but-expensive items? 'When you cloning this miniature, you are cloning COMMUNISM'.

Interesting times ahead...

Re:A new copyright battle?

[91degrees]

No! If I'm vague and general I can claim my rightful credit as a seer if this happens. If I'm too specific people will nitpick on the points where I'm wrong.

Re:A new copyright battle?

[inviolet]

Some people are going to be using this to make 3D copies of cheap plastic items they own.

I'd like to see the following system put in place:

• Every manufacturer of anything that has plastic components, is required to upload the components' specs to an escrow agency. Things like plastic cases, battery door covers, hinges, knobs, you name it, all will be escrowed.
• While the manufacturer is in existence and offering spares for sale, you buy your replacement parts from them in the u$ual way.
• After n years, or if the manufacturer goes under, the escrow agency releases the specs to the public.
• You can then download the specs and print out your own replacement parts.

This wouldn't affect anyone's bottom line, and it wouldn't let you rip off their electronic components (which is where the real investment is at)... it would simply let you get replacement parts during those times when, traditionally, you couldn't.

Some companies might even choose to release their plans early, on their website or whatever, in order to get goodwill.

Reprap

[gringer]

The article says that "the cheapest three dimensional printers cost $20,000", so I might as well mention the hacker's alternative:

http://blog.reprap.org/
http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

Re:Reprap

[iamdrscience]

I've looked at a number of the "cheap" and homebrew 3D printers and honestly, I've been roundly unimpressed by all of them. The engineering effort is always great and their goals are surely worth persuing, but thus far the results of these printers leave much to be desired: at best looking like an *okay* hand-made model and more often looking more like an artistically shaped pile of poop. I don't mean to knock these projects, but the technology isn't really there yet. I mean, even some of the expensive commercial 3D printers don't produce spectacular results.

Re:Reprap

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't mean to knock these projects, but the technology isn't really there yet.

I think you will find that is exactly why these projects exist. They are developing the technology.

Not just a dupe, not even news...

[argent]

This isn't even vaguely news. There's been 3d printing services like this for years. Just google for them...

not only is this not news

[Libertarian001]

But it's a duplicate add from a few months back for the same company pimping their crappy service. Why do I say crappy? I've done a few prints (30+, actually) on the Objet Eden, the same manufacturer this SERVICE BUREAU is using. My bureau uses a high end machine set to high resolution. These guys use the low end machine set to high speed. And they've decided to write some proprietary translator to take my perfectly functional files and mangle them so they can't be used (and these guys have major self-induced scaling issues). In short, they're a bureau, nothing more.

Nothing new about this...

[swatje]

There is really nothing new about this kind of service... Materialise is offering this service for already 10 years... http://www.materialise.com/materialise/view/en/91955-Online+service.html

Cheap!?

[Aladrin]

http://www.shapeways.com/model/6280/limbtaker_trophy.html

This bookend (21x22x23cm) is $7800. How is that anything close to cheap?

Wireframe objects without much mass are considerably cheaper, but any statues with heft are insanely expensive.

http://www.shapeways.com/model/6277/queen.html

A chess queen... $319. Seriously!