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> Is there an alternative repository to Thingiverse yet? They're run by notorious bad actor MakerBot, so depending on them to archive our manufacturing knowledg

> Is there an alternative repository to Thingiverse yet? They're run by notorious bad actor MakerBot, so depending on them to archive our manufacturing knowledge hardly seems prudent. This is something very close to my heart that I’ve been wanting for a long while now. Thingiverse is not only run by someone I don’t wish to support, but is also a measurably crap site. It’s slow, search barely works, etc etc. Bring up the name to anyone and you’ll instantly hear endless complaints. But.. there’s nothing better. The new Prusa site is Gcode only, and very limited in features. Grabcad is a mess of annoying UI and endless low quality models, but kinda works. We seriously need a Github for 3D designs and electronics. Allow sharing of any filetypes, from STL and OBJ to raw CAD files, as well as wiring diagrams and PCB schematics, richtext assembly descriptions (like Githubs readme files), and a way to preview the model files visually like Thingiverse/Grabcad. There’s huge demand for a service like this and there’s income to be made by allowing people to get parts printed or PCBs manufactured via referral to appropriate services.

pabs3 7y ago
This project is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licensed (NC = non-commercial). I don't think you would be allowed to make income from building products based on the design.
- Sendotsh 7y ago
  It could be opt-in like on other sites of this nature. Just like you can choose the license of your project on GitHub.
  - pabs3 7y ago
    Thingiverse has that feature and it even displays a summary of what you are allowed to do: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3660755 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3660755 Open Source STM32 Multimeter case by embedblog is licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike license. What does this mean? Remixing or Changing this Thing is allowed. Commercial use is not allowed.
    - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      Yeah I'm not a fan of 'non-commercial'. I am a staunch fan of GPL. If you want to reproduce my physical stuffs I've released, be my guest. If you make changes, you had better make them available in accordance to the GPL. I'd like a PR on my repo, but that's a niceity- not a GPL requirement. Some of my GPL3'd hardware: RadioInstigator: https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-civilians-budget/ https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-c... Repo: https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/siginttablet https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/siginttablet Closed Loop Controller for 3d printers (steppers): https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/closed_loop_system https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/closed_loop_system
whatshisface 7y ago
What's the reason behind the dislike of MakerBot, and who is that someone you don't wish to support?
- genericone 7y ago
  Their 'betrayal' of the maker community occured in the not too distant past.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  They took some things private that had been open.
progman32 7y ago
https://prusaprinters.org https://prusaprinters.org is not gcode only. It supports all sorts of formats like STL. Personally, I will only run gcode I've generated myself on my machine, but it's a fair experiment to run. I haven't run across any postings on prusaprinters that don't provide a proper STL or OBJ.
sbr464 7y ago
I’ve been out of the loop, why the makerbot no-love? Curious.
- justinclift 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakerBot#Closed_source_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakerBot#Closed_source_hardwar... The 2nd item there was generally the main one. eg Going back on the Open Source nature of their work, patenting progressive ideas contributed by their Community members, etc.
sbr464 7y ago
I agree, but it seems the copyright/editorial use comes up a lot more for 3d model platforms. It seems to differ from typical github usage. I feel it puts it closer to a stock photography type site, except more often the popular works are actual copies of copyrighted/trademarked products. Any thoughts on this?
- Sendotsh 7y ago
  I see it as more a place for makers/hackers to post complete projects others can replicate. Be it a 3D printing project, or an electronics one with various components. Something like Thingiverse meets Instructables meets Github. We’ve talked about it plenty at Hackerspaces I’ve been part of, and there’s various attempts at it but none seem to hit the spot the creators are after. https://hackaday.io https://hackaday.io is probably the closest but the UI is a mess, there’s no previewing of the files, etc. I’m literally picturing something like Github with file previewing and some other features added. Love the idea of having issue/bug reports, file versioning for iterations, forking, etc etc. Of course you’d get content thieves posting stuff that’s not theirs, but you get that on all sites with UGC and it could be moderated/reported.
- kragen 7y ago
  An interesting legal issue here is that probably many 3-D designs are not copyrightable. Copying machine parts and similar functional designs is legal in the US, the UK, and most industrialized countries, except in the narrow cases covered by patents. Sculpture is copyrightable, but gears and bottlecaps are not. I'm not sure if there is explicit caselaw on this, but almost certainly parametric OpenSCAD designs are copyrightable, being textual works of creative expression in the same vein as Python programs or TrueType fonts; not sure about STEP/IGES parametric designs, although logically the same principles should apply. So most Thingiverse designs that are copies of existing products are probably entirely legal, or legal except in a very few countries where they infringe Saudi laws about nudity depictions or patents or something, but by the same token, in many cases the licenses of the Thingiverse Things will not be usefully enforceable, because the STL (or perhaps a resampled version thereof) is statutorily not subject to copyright.
justinclift 7y ago
Are you any good with Go? I've been developing a GitHub/GitLab/Gitea style website for a while now, for storing and displaying binary objects. The current code is set up to handle SQLite, but it's entirely feasible to add support for other binary formats (such as 3D objects) to it: https://dbhub.io https://dbhub.io eg storage of them, display of them visually instead of the SQLite table view When I was first thinking up the idea... it was actually for 3D objects. Was going to do it as a Collab platform for Blender, but well... I do more stuff with databases so the SQLite bit came first. :) The backend storage doesn't use git, as it's lousy with larger files over time, but it does use the same principles for the versioning, branching, forking, tagging, etc. https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/dbhub.io https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/dbhub.io Don't be faked out by what looks like no activity there since May. I'm working heavily on fixing some stuff in the Go WebAssembly ecosystem, so a decent data visualisation layer can be added to the current site. ;)
- kragen 7y ago
  Oh nice! This is a great idea! And licensed under the AGPL, awesome!
elcritch 7y ago
Why doesn’t grabcad work? It seemed ok for 3D cad at least, but I haven’t worked a lot with it.
MrGilbert 7y ago
> We seriously need a Github for 3D designs and electronics. For what's worth, GitHub actually renders STL as a 3D representation, if you click on the file, e.g. here [1]. (Just a random example, I'm in no way affialiated with the project). Of course, it's still lacking important features, e.g. search parameters, etc, but... it could work. [1] https://github.com/iliterobotics/3D/blob/master/Justin/Uncompressed%20ball.ipt.stl https://github.com/iliterobotics/3D/blob/master/Justin/Uncom...
- Sendotsh 7y ago
  Oh wow. Not sure how I missed that, thanks. Considering hardware projects are just software (CAD files, schematics, diagrams, documentation) I’d love to see Github or Gitlab or someone take this on.
- kragen 7y ago
  While I know GitHub does that (see, e.g., https://github.com/kragen/stl3dpy/blob/master/showerring.stl https://github.com/kragen/stl3dpy/blob/master/showerring.stl) I think it's lacking a lot of things to be a reasonable Thingiverse replacement. It can render STL files, but not OpenSCAD or STEP/IGES, for example, and it has no way of associating different files (even files it can't render) to a single "thing" the way Thingiverse does. From GitHub's point of view, your example is a random file that belongs to a project named "3D", and mine is a random file that belongs to a project named "stl3dpy". This poses obvious problems for implementing search.
- amelius 7y ago
  It's cool, and there are open-source projects that can convert from STL to WebGL, so this kind of conversion is quite accessible, and e.g. GitLab could easily incorporate it as well (if they haven't already). See e.g. https://threejs.org/examples/#webgl_loader_stl https://threejs.org/examples/#webgl_loader_stl
wiml 7y ago
GNU MediaGoblin started as a photo-sharing system (a flickr alternative, I suppose) but has support for 3D models and a plugin system for other file types. It seems like adding support for STL and so on would be within the project's goals.

pabs3 7y ago

This project is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licensed (NC = non-commercial). I don't think you would be allowed to make income from building products based on the design.

Sendotsh 7y ago
It could be opt-in like on other sites of this nature. Just like you can choose the license of your project on GitHub.
- pabs3 7y ago
  Thingiverse has that feature and it even displays a summary of what you are allowed to do: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3660755 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3660755 Open Source STM32 Multimeter case by embedblog is licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike license. What does this mean? Remixing or Changing this Thing is allowed. Commercial use is not allowed.
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Yeah I'm not a fan of 'non-commercial'. I am a staunch fan of GPL. If you want to reproduce my physical stuffs I've released, be my guest. If you make changes, you had better make them available in accordance to the GPL. I'd like a PR on my repo, but that's a niceity- not a GPL requirement. Some of my GPL3'd hardware: RadioInstigator: https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-civilians-budget/ https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-c... Repo: https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/siginttablet https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/siginttablet Closed Loop Controller for 3d printers (steppers): https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/closed_loop_system https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/closed_loop_system

whatshisface 7y ago

What's the reason behind the dislike of MakerBot, and who is that someone you don't wish to support?

genericone 7y ago
Their 'betrayal' of the maker community occured in the not too distant past.
ncmncm 7y ago
They took some things private that had been open.

progman32 7y ago

https://prusaprinters.org https://prusaprinters.org is not gcode only. It supports all sorts of formats like STL. Personally, I will only run gcode I've generated myself on my machine, but it's a fair experiment to run. I haven't run across any postings on prusaprinters that don't provide a proper STL or OBJ.

sbr464 7y ago

I’ve been out of the loop, why the makerbot no-love? Curious.

justinclift 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakerBot#Closed_source_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakerBot#Closed_source_hardwar... The 2nd item there was generally the main one. eg Going back on the Open Source nature of their work, patenting progressive ideas contributed by their Community members, etc.

sbr464 7y ago

I agree, but it seems the copyright/editorial use comes up a lot more for 3d model platforms. It seems to differ from typical github usage. I feel it puts it closer to a stock photography type site, except more often the popular works are actual copies of copyrighted/trademarked products. Any thoughts on this?

Sendotsh 7y ago
I see it as more a place for makers/hackers to post complete projects others can replicate. Be it a 3D printing project, or an electronics one with various components. Something like Thingiverse meets Instructables meets Github. We’ve talked about it plenty at Hackerspaces I’ve been part of, and there’s various attempts at it but none seem to hit the spot the creators are after. https://hackaday.io https://hackaday.io is probably the closest but the UI is a mess, there’s no previewing of the files, etc. I’m literally picturing something like Github with file previewing and some other features added. Love the idea of having issue/bug reports, file versioning for iterations, forking, etc etc. Of course you’d get content thieves posting stuff that’s not theirs, but you get that on all sites with UGC and it could be moderated/reported.
kragen 7y ago
An interesting legal issue here is that probably many 3-D designs are not copyrightable. Copying machine parts and similar functional designs is legal in the US, the UK, and most industrialized countries, except in the narrow cases covered by patents. Sculpture is copyrightable, but gears and bottlecaps are not. I'm not sure if there is explicit caselaw on this, but almost certainly parametric OpenSCAD designs are copyrightable, being textual works of creative expression in the same vein as Python programs or TrueType fonts; not sure about STEP/IGES parametric designs, although logically the same principles should apply. So most Thingiverse designs that are copies of existing products are probably entirely legal, or legal except in a very few countries where they infringe Saudi laws about nudity depictions or patents or something, but by the same token, in many cases the licenses of the Thingiverse Things will not be usefully enforceable, because the STL (or perhaps a resampled version thereof) is statutorily not subject to copyright.

justinclift 7y ago

Are you any good with Go? I've been developing a GitHub/GitLab/Gitea style website for a while now, for storing and displaying binary objects. The current code is set up to handle SQLite, but it's entirely feasible to add support for other binary formats (such as 3D objects) to it: https://dbhub.io https://dbhub.io eg storage of them, display of them visually instead of the SQLite table view When I was first thinking up the idea... it was actually for 3D objects. Was going to do it as a Collab platform for Blender, but well... I do more stuff with databases so the SQLite bit came first. :) The backend storage doesn't use git, as it's lousy with larger files over time, but it does use the same principles for the versioning, branching, forking, tagging, etc. https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/dbhub.io https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/dbhub.io Don't be faked out by what looks like no activity there since May. I'm working heavily on fixing some stuff in the Go WebAssembly ecosystem, so a decent data visualisation layer can be added to the current site. ;)

kragen 7y ago
Oh nice! This is a great idea! And licensed under the AGPL, awesome!

elcritch 7y ago

Why doesn’t grabcad work? It seemed ok for 3D cad at least, but I haven’t worked a lot with it.

MrGilbert 7y ago

> We seriously need a Github for 3D designs and electronics. For what's worth, GitHub actually renders STL as a 3D representation, if you click on the file, e.g. here [1]. (Just a random example, I'm in no way affialiated with the project). Of course, it's still lacking important features, e.g. search parameters, etc, but... it could work. [1] https://github.com/iliterobotics/3D/blob/master/Justin/Uncompressed%20ball.ipt.stl https://github.com/iliterobotics/3D/blob/master/Justin/Uncom...

Sendotsh 7y ago
Oh wow. Not sure how I missed that, thanks. Considering hardware projects are just software (CAD files, schematics, diagrams, documentation) I’d love to see Github or Gitlab or someone take this on.
kragen 7y ago
While I know GitHub does that (see, e.g., https://github.com/kragen/stl3dpy/blob/master/showerring.stl https://github.com/kragen/stl3dpy/blob/master/showerring.stl) I think it's lacking a lot of things to be a reasonable Thingiverse replacement. It can render STL files, but not OpenSCAD or STEP/IGES, for example, and it has no way of associating different files (even files it can't render) to a single "thing" the way Thingiverse does. From GitHub's point of view, your example is a random file that belongs to a project named "3D", and mine is a random file that belongs to a project named "stl3dpy". This poses obvious problems for implementing search.
amelius 7y ago
It's cool, and there are open-source projects that can convert from STL to WebGL, so this kind of conversion is quite accessible, and e.g. GitLab could easily incorporate it as well (if they haven't already). See e.g. https://threejs.org/examples/#webgl_loader_stl https://threejs.org/examples/#webgl_loader_stl

wiml 7y ago

GNU MediaGoblin started as a photo-sharing system (a flickr alternative, I suppose) but has support for 3D models and a plugin system for other file types. It seems like adding support for STL and so on would be within the project's goals.