3 ms·

Can someone help me? 3D pringing does not seem interesting to me so I know very little about. I also assume, that it is not interesting to Joe Average. So my qu

Can someone help me? 3D pringing does not seem interesting to me so I know very little about. I also assume, that it is not interesting to Joe Average. So my question is: what am I missing and how wrong I am that application of it is pretty limited? I guess I should notice, that recently I developed kind of aversion to cheap plastics and tend to think that this is what 3D printing gives you. How wrong am I?

islon 14y ago
A 3D printer itself is not interesting for most people. What is interesting is the marketing you can do with its sub-products. - lego machine that lets you create your own legos? check. - style-it-yourself house furniture? check. - toys/dolls creator for kids? check. I could go on forever.
- MrMember 14y ago
  It could be huge in tabletop board game market too. Why buy hundreds of dollars worth of miniatures when you print your own for much less?
wwwtyro 14y ago
I'm very excited about 3D printing, but perhaps irrationally so. I'd also like an answer to this question.
ajanuary 14y ago
In the short term, it means designers can prototype a lot quicker, which should mean even if you never use a 3D printer or anything printed from one, you get better designed products.
ef4 14y ago
The excitement comes from the combination of a few factors: 1. It's improving very quickly, both in terms of the materials you can print and affordability of the hardware. It's possible to 3d print powdered metal composites, for example, not just cheap plastic. 2. It makes possible entirely new manufacturing business models. Traditional factories will probably always be cheaper for mass-market goods, but there are likely to be lots of opportunities for niche-market goods that simply aren't economic under a big-scale factory model. Maybe even more importantly, the existence of 3d printing makes it easier to bootstrap a manufactured product -- you can start out 3d printed, and only go to big-factory-mode much later when demand dictates. 3. By bridging the worlds of software and physical goods, it holds the promise of unleashing open-source methods for the design of things, not just software and information.

islon 14y ago

A 3D printer itself is not interesting for most people. What is interesting is the marketing you can do with its sub-products. - lego machine that lets you create your own legos? check. - style-it-yourself house furniture? check. - toys/dolls creator for kids? check. I could go on forever.

MrMember 14y ago
It could be huge in tabletop board game market too. Why buy hundreds of dollars worth of miniatures when you print your own for much less?

wwwtyro 14y ago

I'm very excited about 3D printing, but perhaps irrationally so. I'd also like an answer to this question.

ajanuary 14y ago

In the short term, it means designers can prototype a lot quicker, which should mean even if you never use a 3D printer or anything printed from one, you get better designed products.

ef4 14y ago

The excitement comes from the combination of a few factors: 1. It's improving very quickly, both in terms of the materials you can print and affordability of the hardware. It's possible to 3d print powdered metal composites, for example, not just cheap plastic. 2. It makes possible entirely new manufacturing business models. Traditional factories will probably always be cheaper for mass-market goods, but there are likely to be lots of opportunities for niche-market goods that simply aren't economic under a big-scale factory model. Maybe even more importantly, the existence of 3d printing makes it easier to bootstrap a manufactured product -- you can start out 3d printed, and only go to big-factory-mode much later when demand dictates. 3. By bridging the worlds of software and physical goods, it holds the promise of unleashing open-source methods for the design of things, not just software and information.