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Great point. It would be interesting to see a Hacker News Poll on how much people have and use 2D printers now even, let alone 3D. It would be great to have a

by sien 13y ago

Great point. It would be interesting to see a Hacker News Poll on how much people have and use 2D printers now even, let alone 3D. It would be great to have access to a good 3D printer at a low price that was convenient at, say a Kinkos or something. 3D printers could well be more like good quality photo printers - something that is better used by lots of people at a shared facility.

SupremumLimit 13y ago
I don't think there's any correlation between the use of 2D and 3D printers - they don't have much in common other than the name. I expect the use of 2D printers to be declining as more and more things are done online, but custom fabrication of objects is another matter altogether.
- nickpinkston 13y ago
  Well they both are things you might just order instead or buying the machine. I don't own a 2D or 3D printer, but I use services for both.
  - iamwil 13y ago
    SupremumLimit is right. 2D and 3D printers are fundamentally different things. The analogies you can draw are pretty shallow. As someone that has a 3D printer, I feel this way, but at this moment, I can't quite put my finger on why, other than the things you print out with a 3D printers can be used to solve your problems, whereas pages printed on a 2D printer is used to transfer or hold information.
    - nickpinkston 13y ago
      I think you just love your 3D printer - which is totally cool, but I actually think the comparison is quite apt. There's a lot of people who love printing photos, flyers, etc. at the click of the mouse. We shouldn't demean that - there's a lot of real uses for 2D printing. The own/rent/outsource question is a big part of the future of digital fabrication. See my article in MAKE: http://makezine.com/2013/06/24/what-is-the-new-industrial-revolution/ http://makezine.com/2013/06/24/what-is-the-new-industrial-re...
jliechti1 13y ago
PG posted a 3D printer poll about 3 months ago. Poll: Do you have a 3d printer? Yes, I already have one. 245 points I don't have one now but I may buy one. 1767 points I'll probably never buy one. 891 points Thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640988
- sien 13y ago
  Thanks for that. It's hard to say whether that augers well for 3D printers or not. In what must be a big early adoption community only 8% of people have one but that 'maybe' group of 60% is huge. Who knows, perhaps it will be like having a good workbench and tools. Not very rare, but far from ubiquitous.
mhb 13y ago
You already have access to Shapeway's convenient 3D printers. There are thousands of objects already designed and you can design your own without that much difficulty. Why aren't you using them to make things? Why would it be different if the printer was at Kinko's instead of Shapeways?
- sien 13y ago
  The feedback loop at Kinko's would be quicker. If you had a broken widget you could take the widget to Kinko's, print a test part and then get the size just right. But Shapeways, like online photo printing services might take a lot of the market when you know exactly what you want or want multiple copies or something.
  - mhb 13y ago
    The (missing) step between taking the widget to Kinko's and printing the test part is the time-consuming design phase which will be the challenging part for most users. Also that phase is usually lengthy enough that the fab and ship time is not such a significant fraction of the entire process time. I'm skeptical that 3D printer ownership or ubiquity is the impediment to their widespread use.

by sien 13y ago

SupremumLimit 13y ago

I don't think there's any correlation between the use of 2D and 3D printers - they don't have much in common other than the name. I expect the use of 2D printers to be declining as more and more things are done online, but custom fabrication of objects is another matter altogether.

nickpinkston 13y ago
Well they both are things you might just order instead or buying the machine. I don't own a 2D or 3D printer, but I use services for both.
- iamwil 13y ago
  SupremumLimit is right. 2D and 3D printers are fundamentally different things. The analogies you can draw are pretty shallow. As someone that has a 3D printer, I feel this way, but at this moment, I can't quite put my finger on why, other than the things you print out with a 3D printers can be used to solve your problems, whereas pages printed on a 2D printer is used to transfer or hold information.
  - nickpinkston 13y ago
    I think you just love your 3D printer - which is totally cool, but I actually think the comparison is quite apt. There's a lot of people who love printing photos, flyers, etc. at the click of the mouse. We shouldn't demean that - there's a lot of real uses for 2D printing. The own/rent/outsource question is a big part of the future of digital fabrication. See my article in MAKE: http://makezine.com/2013/06/24/what-is-the-new-industrial-revolution/ http://makezine.com/2013/06/24/what-is-the-new-industrial-re...

jliechti1 13y ago

PG posted a 3D printer poll about 3 months ago. Poll: Do you have a 3d printer? Yes, I already have one. 245 points I don't have one now but I may buy one. 1767 points I'll probably never buy one. 891 points Thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640988

sien 13y ago
Thanks for that. It's hard to say whether that augers well for 3D printers or not. In what must be a big early adoption community only 8% of people have one but that 'maybe' group of 60% is huge. Who knows, perhaps it will be like having a good workbench and tools. Not very rare, but far from ubiquitous.

mhb 13y ago

You already have access to Shapeway's convenient 3D printers. There are thousands of objects already designed and you can design your own without that much difficulty. Why aren't you using them to make things? Why would it be different if the printer was at Kinko's instead of Shapeways?

sien 13y ago
The feedback loop at Kinko's would be quicker. If you had a broken widget you could take the widget to Kinko's, print a test part and then get the size just right. But Shapeways, like online photo printing services might take a lot of the market when you know exactly what you want or want multiple copies or something.
- mhb 13y ago
  The (missing) step between taking the widget to Kinko's and printing the test part is the time-consuming design phase which will be the challenging part for most users. Also that phase is usually lengthy enough that the fab and ship time is not such a significant fraction of the entire process time. I'm skeptical that 3D printer ownership or ubiquity is the impediment to their widespread use.