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We won't all be designing things. There will be a few people whose designs are widely used because they work the best. We'll all be trading and downloading and

We won't all be designing things. There will be a few people whose designs are widely used because they work the best. We'll all be trading and downloading and filesharing the CAD files. Think of future banner ads: "Need a new plate? Go browse the 10 million CAD files on 3d-CAD-plates.com to download the floral plates of your dreams!" Torrent networks and TOR will be used for the underground and black-market filesharing of CAD files for restricted objects, such as gun parts and other weapons.

Retric 14y ago
In the past 10 years the only thing I bought that any current 3D printer could have made was plates and silverware. IMO, that says a lot more about the the real state of 3D printing than anything I have read online.
- mercuryrising 14y ago
  I wouldn't use plates or silverware that I printed on my 3D printer unless I coated it. Do you have one? I couldn't think of that many things to print when I made one, but now that I have one (kind of like the hammer and the nail), I can see lots of things to print now.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    Relevant observation: "hammer and nail" effect seems to be the same thing as pg's Blub paradox[0] or the phenomenon that when you start carrying Duct Tape with you, you'll suddenly find some use for it every other day. Because of that I think we should learn not to dismiss things just because we can't imagine what we can do with them. The imagination will most likely come with use of the tool. [0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(computer_programmer)#Blub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(computer_programme...
    - stephengillie 14y ago
      Humans learn by playing
f- 14y ago
That's actually touched upon in the article (I'm the author). In short, it's possible - but not given: 1) The culture of knowledge- and-design sharing has been prevalent in the DIY community for decades, but hasn't produced anything comparably grand. This is despite the fact that we can already easily source or make custom parts of all sorts. Will this suddenly change? Who knows. 2) There is extremely little emphasis on materials science and mechanical engineering in the 3D printing community at this point - which makes it difficult to reach a "critical mass" of good, practical CAD models to reuse (there's plenty of Yoda figurines to choose from, though). The success of the open source community owes a lot to the broad availability of high-quality reference materials and the self-documenting nature of most of the existing code. 3) The dominant FDM approach produces inherently crappy parts, which makes it poorly suited for direct manufacturing. There is no clear path to fixing it. The alternative technologies work better, but aren't as simple to operate. Of course, better approaches will eventually arrive at some point - but would require major breakthroughs, not incremental tweaks. 4) There is very little "portability" of designs not only across printing technologies, but even between individual printers - which again, is an interesting handicap.
- stonewhite 14y ago
  Only on your point 4, Assuming there would be several mainstream 3D printing technologies (like HP mainstream), someone would find way to design a middleware for them. Portability is not an issue when there are standarts and communities.
nickpinkston 14y ago
People should realize that the flip side of mass customization is actually just better search tech. Do you really need to design a different collared shirt when there are 10K already out there to buy?

Retric 14y ago

In the past 10 years the only thing I bought that any current 3D printer could have made was plates and silverware. IMO, that says a lot more about the the real state of 3D printing than anything I have read online.

mercuryrising 14y ago
I wouldn't use plates or silverware that I printed on my 3D printer unless I coated it. Do you have one? I couldn't think of that many things to print when I made one, but now that I have one (kind of like the hammer and the nail), I can see lots of things to print now.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  Relevant observation: "hammer and nail" effect seems to be the same thing as pg's Blub paradox[0] or the phenomenon that when you start carrying Duct Tape with you, you'll suddenly find some use for it every other day. Because of that I think we should learn not to dismiss things just because we can't imagine what we can do with them. The imagination will most likely come with use of the tool. [0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(computer_programmer)#Blub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(computer_programme...
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    Humans learn by playing

f- 14y ago

That's actually touched upon in the article (I'm the author). In short, it's possible - but not given: 1) The culture of knowledge- and-design sharing has been prevalent in the DIY community for decades, but hasn't produced anything comparably grand. This is despite the fact that we can already easily source or make custom parts of all sorts. Will this suddenly change? Who knows. 2) There is extremely little emphasis on materials science and mechanical engineering in the 3D printing community at this point - which makes it difficult to reach a "critical mass" of good, practical CAD models to reuse (there's plenty of Yoda figurines to choose from, though). The success of the open source community owes a lot to the broad availability of high-quality reference materials and the self-documenting nature of most of the existing code. 3) The dominant FDM approach produces inherently crappy parts, which makes it poorly suited for direct manufacturing. There is no clear path to fixing it. The alternative technologies work better, but aren't as simple to operate. Of course, better approaches will eventually arrive at some point - but would require major breakthroughs, not incremental tweaks. 4) There is very little "portability" of designs not only across printing technologies, but even between individual printers - which again, is an interesting handicap.

stonewhite 14y ago
Only on your point 4, Assuming there would be several mainstream 3D printing technologies (like HP mainstream), someone would find way to design a middleware for them. Portability is not an issue when there are standarts and communities.

nickpinkston 14y ago

People should realize that the flip side of mass customization is actually just better search tech. Do you really need to design a different collared shirt when there are 10K already out there to buy?