Science
Related: About this forumWhat can be made from 3-D printers? (a gallery)
This really is beginning to resemble a rudimentary incarnation of various SF novels I've read where the design file is the only commodity. Once you have the rendering file, "manufacturing" is just an operation of feeding files to some automated device. In this case, that's a 3D printer, maybe in the future it will be nano-assemblers.
Also, note the photo of home-version.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/what-can-be-made-from-3-d-printers/2013/01/07/1780dcce-591b-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_gallery.html
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)drm604
(16,230 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)There's a few fairly good ones in the under-$1K range, and a few extremely good ones for about twice that. I've been thinking of getting one sometime in the next year for a few projects..
phantom power
(25,966 posts)Not exactly pocket change, but about what my parents paid for our first home computer, back in the day. You're right, that's in a price range where individuals will start buying them.
daleo
(21,317 posts)Just think about it.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)daleo
(21,317 posts)It comes to billions, if you were to fill a swimming pool. I expect the same sort of pricing would apply.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)daleo
(21,317 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)It's not going to be all freeware.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)Blender can export .obj
Buying the .obj? That's already done by modelers for stock clutter models worldwide.
What I predict will happen is that cheap home printers will come with proprietary software that either has .obj import disable, redefined, or buried as an undocumented feature. There's no way successful 3D printers will do away with the .obj file format, because too many people use that format in their pipeline already.
Note that Shapeways already allows people to upload and print models made in Blender.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)I really want to get one.
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)There are supposed to be some coming out for around $600 but they aren't available yet.
http://deezmaker.com/
Bosonic
(3,746 posts)Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)I appreciate the advice very much!
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)They print from your file and then you can sell your objects on their site.
Here are some examples:
Bosonic
(3,746 posts)NickB79
(19,253 posts)Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)...dress looks good though.
guardian
(2,282 posts)of plastic and silicon
NickB79
(19,253 posts)Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)Isn't it more of a CAD-CAM?