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Autodesk Unveils 3d Printer As It Aims To Become Industry's Android
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "BBC reports that Autodesk — the leading 3D modelling software-maker — is going into hardware with its own 3D printer and in addition to selling the machine, Autodesk will also allow other manufacturers to make their own versions of the printer or power their own models off its software at no cost. 'The printer is a bona fide attempt to prove the interoperability and open source nature of Autodesk's platform,' says Pete Basiliere. 'And by sharing its design we could see a second wave of small start-ups creating stereolithography machines just as the makers did when the early material extrusion patents expired.' Chief executive Carl Bass likened the new printer to Google's first Nexus smartphone, a product meant to inspire other manufacturers to install Android on their handsets rather than become a bestseller itself. In Autodesk's case the idea is to drive the adoption of its new Spark software, a product it likens to being an 'operating system for 3D-printing'. Although Autodesk is giving away both Spark and the printer's design, the company should still profit because the move would drive demand for the firm's other products. 'If 3D printing succeeds we succeed, because the only way you can print is if you have a 3D model, and our customers are the largest makers of 3D models in the world.'
Instead of the extrusion technique most commonly used by existing budget printers, Autodesk's printer uses a laser to harden liquid plastic to create the objects delivering smoother, more complex and more detailed objects. 'We're making a printer that, rather than just being able to load in proprietary materials, you can load in any material you want. You can formulate your own polymers and experiment with those. That's an important next step because we think material science is a breakthrough that has to happen to make [the industry] go from low-volume 3D-printed stuff to where it really starts changing manufacturing.' Bass said, its printer is targeted at more professional users–for creating small objects like medical devices or jewelry–and will likely end up closer to the $5,000 range, though exact pricing has not been set."
Instead of the extrusion technique most commonly used by existing budget printers, Autodesk's printer uses a laser to harden liquid plastic to create the objects delivering smoother, more complex and more detailed objects. 'We're making a printer that, rather than just being able to load in proprietary materials, you can load in any material you want. You can formulate your own polymers and experiment with those. That's an important next step because we think material science is a breakthrough that has to happen to make [the industry] go from low-volume 3D-printed stuff to where it really starts changing manufacturing.' Bass said, its printer is targeted at more professional users–for creating small objects like medical devices or jewelry–and will likely end up closer to the $5,000 range, though exact pricing has not been set."
coming to a theater near you.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Autodesk software is hella expensive. They'll throw in the hardware for free.
'We're making a printer that, rather than just being able to load in proprietary materials, you can load in any material you want.
How about bacon? I always wanted to print with bacon.
I thought Autodesk products like AutoCAD weren't open source.... ummmm.... can someone please enlighten me?
The summary misses an important point: The software platform is open-source and freely licensable. See the official Autodesk press release here
http://inthefold.autodesk.com/in_the_fold/2014/05/accelerating-the-future-of-3d-printing.html
I want the oven/crucible from Diamond Age -- anything else is just an incremental step along the way.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
monopoly? huh... how?
They are dozens of 3D printers models out-there, both by big brand (like Materialize) or very small maker groups (RepRap), based on several different technologies (glued powder, extruted melted material, laser polymerisation, etc.).
There's a clear open standard to transfer data (STL).
This format is documented (and is brain dead simple).
Anything that can spit this format can be used for 3D printing.
Any printer that can eat this format will print.
The only ploy for Autodesk is that they are a dominant actor in the market of software used to make the models (the "STL spitting" mentionned above).
The more the 3D Printing market expands, the more demand for models, and thus the more creator may buy Autodesk professionnal ).
But no monopoly is going to take over the STL ecosystem,
just like the post-script ecosystem didn't got taken over by HP.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
They make CNC Laser Cutter, they make CNC Wood cutter, they make CNC mills,...
somebody is bound to build a CNC bacon cutter !!!!
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Autodesk have a lot of products but Inventor, their MCAD offering (the type of 3d CAD tool used to design the items in the article) is probably the weakest in the market.
'We're making a printer that, rather than just being able to load in proprietary materials, you can load in any material you want. You can formulate your own polymers and experiment with those.
Is UV hardening resin really any less proprietary than ABS filament spool? I don't think there are any 3D printers that require truly proprietary (in that you must get them from the OEM) are there?
Anyone else notice the resemblance to the FormLab's SLA printer? The one that's been out for a year with a price tag of 3K instead of this guy's 5K?
> uses a laser to harden liquid plastic
ie http://www.3dsystems.com/quick... the tech that i was writing software for 20 years ago..
> you can load in any material you want.
well, sure, it just won't make anything. I mean you *could* load the machine with fucking coca cola if you wanted, but its not going to give you a part.
To actually make something you need a photosensitive resin with very precise material properties. Back in the day that stuff cost $300/litre .. i'm sure its come down a bit, but the i'll bet ya good stuff still aint cheap
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
So, they saw www.peachyprinter.com and made one for themselves...
"Autodesk — the leading 3D modelling software-maker" [citation needed]
The summary misses an important point: The software platform is open-source and freely licensable. See the official Autodesk press release ...
That press release does not use the term "open source" even once. "Freely licensable" does not necessarily mean "licensed for free". This press release contains a lot of gibberish that appears to have been carefully crafted to mean one thing while appearing to mean something else.
As a corporation, AutoDesk has always been on the dark side of the force. Not to the same degree as Microsoft or Oracle, but still pretty bad. You should be automatically skeptical of anything they say.
I've been using my own Replicator printer for 2 years now, and agree that it won't ever get to consumer level. It's a dumb machine, lots of moving parts. Prints fail all the time and require lots of experience and patience to diagnose and fix. What worked yesterday, fails today..all the time. Maybe it's possible to add enough sensors (heat, vision, position..), software to do real time adjustment of every possible problem, but that would just complicate things even more.
I've always thought stereolithography will the the solution for consumers. Dramatically fewer parts and simpler software, only a few things that can go wrong. And like said in the article, it's simply a materials science problem to innovate from this point on. Yes there will be proprietary materials available, that's good for innovation for advanced/specialized needs. And of course we are all still fighting the printer ink battle. But there most likely be non-proprietary materials if a consumer market does appear. The software needed already is open source, nothing new is needed there.
I'm excited to see some major players get in the game. All for giving them a chance. I paid $2,000 for a printer that really only should cost $200 based on the simple, large parts it's made of.
The other consideration for consumer 3D printing is 'the cloud'. Why spend $1000 for your own printer when you can select a model online, customize it, have it printed (with someone else confirming quality), and mailed to you in a day.
"The Leading 3d Modeling Software" is actually Solidworks by Dassault Systems, I suspect by wide margin over Autodesk Inventor. Of the equipment vendors I deal with, only 2 out of 8 use Inventor, the rest are on Solidworks. It's not unusual however, for most vendors to have Autocad (from autodesk) in addtion to either package, which is primarily for 2d line drawings (it does have some 3d capability, but the modeling is usually done in Inventor) Some other supporting stats. http://blog.cnccookbook.com/wp...
My guess is this unit shall be aimed much more towards education, and low cost prototyping than the existing hobby market Makerbot, etc service.
To control your 3d printer, or CNC machine, you use G-Code. Its been around for about 70 years since the original MIT variant. At this point in time it is the de-facto standard for CNC (which includes mills, lathes, AND printers)
All printers and CNC mills I've seen use G-code, there is absolutely no reason Autodesk needs to be involved in this other than to make their software output proper g-code.
For $30 you can create a G-Code capable stepper motor controller using an Arduino and GRBL. For $60 you can combine an Arduino and the GRBL Shield and power low end steppers like those used in pretty much all home/small 3d printers and an extruder, bed warmer and a few other things with only a few additional relays.
GRBL is more than capable of doing all of the important bits of g-code and several that aren't so important when it comes to 3D Printing, so we already have a fully functional OSS g-code implementation, not to mention all the other ones such as the reprap controller software and so forth.
Dear Autodesk,
FUCK OFF, we don't want your shitty ass proprietary bullshit which will use some randomly new standard like printing auto cad files directly rather than producing a proper intermediate format. Its a 100% certainty that you will NOT create anything optimized for efficiency or space, only vendor lock in to your software.
Your software also, well, fucking sucks in almost every conceivable way. The only reason you still have customers is legacy, nothing else.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
... and 'licensed for free' does not necessarily mean 'open source'. In fact, the term 'freely licensable' suggests to me that it is NOT open source.
you need a bit more for projector based resin printers than gcode.
not much more though.
and there's already open software for doing it. so boohoo. and 5k is kinda lot, since I can't imagine what you would use for such machine that would make it better from the 1k range. except maybe using a 4k projector. if using laser, then maybe they use some expensive servos and really, really fucking expensive linear rails for moving the laser around, but that design makes absolutely no sense unless you want it to cost more just for sake of costing more(cheap linear rails would do just as well). you could build a corexy cartesian movement mechanism that used miniature slides(good quality) for laser movement for far, far far less and still have plenty of money left for buying resin and a riser plate mechanism..
Monoprice also announced their printer, it's similar to a dual-head MakerBot but for roughly half the price.
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'Please ignore the fact that we still require you to run Microsoft Excel to fully use Autodesk Inventor.'