A Conversation On 3D Printer Piracy

We were reading an interesting article in The Guardian interviewing Steve Purdham, founder of successful internet jukebox service We7. Purdham spoke of how he believes the Jukebox idea is the ultimate destination of what we know today as "radio". Then suddenly the article says: 

 

In conversation, Purdham veers from the pragmatic to the preposterous. He concedes that making money from digital music is "like climbing Everest", before proposing that a whole new industry will soon be built around 3D printing. "People talk about piracy – they haven't even begun to scratch what piracy is going to be like in the future," he says, perched on the rust-coloured sofa in his north London office. "You design a glass jar or a sculpture, and anybody will be able to print that in their own home. You will be able to print guns. You can already print body parts on a 3D printer. All of these things that Star Trek had are starting to come true."

 

No kidding! When mobile 3D scanning and robust 3D printing become effective, cheap and widespread we're going to see a bad rash of that effect. We wonder how the world will be changed. Will design truly become the leading value over manufacturing? How will copyright holders react? Will the nature of the consumer paradigm fundamentally change? 

 

We don't know. Yet. Someday we will all know the answers to these and other questions, for good or bad. 

 

Via The Guardian

Will China Be Harmed By 3D Printing?

Last summer we contemplated the idea that China could be harmed by 3D printing, based on a post in Forbes. The idea was that legions of inexpensive Asian workers who've been displacing expensive North American workers would have the tables turned when 3D printing takes hold in North America, permitting consumers to simply print their own stuff. 

 

We predicted some level of that effect would eventually occur, but not anytime soon. Now we see another view from Innovation News Daily, who say: 

 

Undoubtedly, 3-D printing will profoundly affect how consumers obtain the objects they desire. But projections about 3-D printing replacing all manufacturing ignore how economies of scale help bring down the cost of the many complex raw materials used in the most highly coveted products. A 3-D printer may excrete a great plastic mug or metallic ring, but until they can spit out an iPad or a car, most traditional factories won't go anywhere.

 

This is absolutely correct; true consumer products, other than basic, mono-material items have yet to emerge from today's replicators. We're optimistic that developments will eventually make this possible, to some degree. Why? Because engineers are busily and continually working on improving the 3D print experience by developing the ability to print in color, print multiple materials with different properties and even print electronics. No, it can't be practically done yet. But it's all being deeply investigated. 

 

But what about economies of scale? That's true, individual 3D printers will always be more expensive to produce a given item than a mass production operation - with one assumption: all items are the same. When the world begins to prefer exact fits with extreme customization, we'll see a growing niche in personally printed products. 

 

However, if this vision comes to pass there will be decreased need for both Asian and North American factory workers. Time to train more designers? 

 

Via Innovation News Daily

The Case for Finer 3D Printer Resolution

CNET published an interesting article on Quirky, the New York based startup that crowdsources inventions. Reporter Rich Brown visited the company in hopes of seeing how they make use of 3D printing technology in a design firm. He describes his thoughts on the collision design firms such as Quirky vs. up and coming 3D model services like Cubify and Thingiverse. 

 

But one thing he said got us thinking more about our Ten Barriers to 3D Printing At Home post. He evidently purchased a "Printed Gear Heart" for his wife. What happened? 

 

When it arrived, the heart was rough. The gears rotate properly, it feels sturdy, and my wife loved it. But the printed layers are obvious. The seller might have sanded it down, but that would likely disrupt the gear mechanism. You could not sell this thing at Target.

 

We find this reaction very common among folks not familiar with the current state of affairs in 3D printing. Objects do indeed look rough and are simply not as smooth as finished or injection molded alternatives. "You can see the layers!" They brilliantly exclaim.

 

Yes, the layers are there. And they'll stay there until the 3D printer manufacturers figure out inexpensive ways to deliver smooth objects. Clearly this must be a goal, but we're not sure if this is achievable with the technology most commonly used in home 3D printers: Fused Deposition Modeling, in which an extruder is mechanically dragged through a path describing each individual layer of the object. Much higher resolutions will mean significantly more extruder movement that would massively slow down the entire printing process. 

 

Is it time for another approach? 

  

Via CNET

3D Printing Produces Abundance?

Peter H. Diamandis is well known as the originator of the recent series of X-Prizes that have launched a couple of new 21st century industries. He also founded the Singularity University, too, which led to a unique extra-terrestrial 3D printing initiative, Made In Space. 

 

Diamandis and partner Steven Kotler have just come out with a new book, "Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think", in which they propose that advanced technology will make our world a far better place rather than the all-too-frequent Science Fiction doomsday scenarios predict. 

 

We strongly agree with their position; the future is getting better, so long as we keep making it. 

 

3D printing plays a prominent role in the new book. In an excerpt published on Slate, a manufacturer encountering 3D printing relates his thoughts on what might happen. 

 

Lots, we think. 

 

Via Slate

3D Printer in the Home of the Future

The UK's Channel 4's new show "Home of the Future" takes the idea of a futuristic home beyond just and idea; they're building it for real! 

 

The imaginative home includes numerous 21st century features, some you'd expect to see, like an internet-equipped refrigerator in the kitchen and others you might not expect like the thumbprint-operated door entry system. 

 

We were tickled by the appearance of a household 3D printer in the mix, and we weren't the only one. Show presenter Chris Sanderson said: 

 

The highlight, for me, was the moment the 3D printer arrived at the house. It was like the moment a TV came to a village for the very first time. It was hugely exciting to be able to design an object and see it being made in front of your eyes.

 

We've been thinking about the idea of commonplace 3D printers laying about homes across the land. But these guys are actually doing it - and doing it in a way that reflects how things might be in the future: Everyday people using replication tech in their homes.  

 

Via The Telegraph and Channel 4

The 10 Barriers to 3D Printing In Your Home

Slashgear predicts 3D printing will "explode at a rate incomparable to its 2D predecessor". We all hope so, but will this actually come true? Things happen when they're easy - and that might not be the case just yet in the world of personal 3D printing. We considered some of the major barriers to mass adoption of personal 3D printing. 

 

Price: While prices of current personal 3D printers are massively lower than their commercial counterparts, the price of the easy-to-use, more reliable pre-assembled models still ranges well over USD$1000 and in some cases over USD$2000. The price levels must be far less than USD$500 if they are to be affordable by most homes.

 

Ease of Use: The required workflow to use a personal 3D printer these days is just too complex for most people. Using multiple software environments involving a variety of mysterious file formats, strange devices, unusual materials is enough to make most people give up and move on to something easier. Machines must take more care of themselves, software must be integrated into existing workflows and be vastly simplified. 

 

Reliability: While personal 3D printers are available, they don't always work. Every owner has plenty of tales describing prints "that failed", perhaps due to material issues, insufficient bed sticking or other common phenomena. We would not like a 2D printer that had similar failure characteristics, so why would we stand for the same in a 3D printer? 

 

Choice of Materials: ABS or maybe PLA. That's typically what you get today - and while these materials are quite usable in a variety of situations, they don't work all the time. People will need the ability to create objects in other materials, including food, ceramics, metal and perhaps other substances for different applications. Not an easy barrier to overcome, but that's the truth. 

 

Availability of Materials: Where did you find that 1.75mm Tartan filament again? That's right - you can't find 3D printing suppliers at the corner electronics shop, or sometimes even at your local industrial plastics supply outlet. When personal 3D printers become more ubiquitous we'll begin to see brand-named print material showing up at the big box stores. But that hasn't happened yet. We're still looking for that elusive Tartan filament, though. 

 

Access to 3D Models: We all can imagine the difficulties the general public would have trying to learn one of the professional 3D modeling software tools, so that's just not gonna happen. There have been some tremendous steps forward here, namely Tinkercad and similar web-based tools, but they don't yet offer the modeling sophistication we think necessary for broad adoption. A simple, effective and cheap 3D scanning solution may help here. There are a few places one can obtain quality 3D models, but it's just not big enough to satisfy the needs of the general public yet. The good news is that every 3D printable model created going forward will add to the growing mountain. 

 

Print Resolution: Smoother is better. Much smoother.  

 

Color: We suspect people will get tired of monocolored objects very quickly and the next frontier will be color 3D printing. At the moment only ZCorp (recently purchased by 3D Systems) has great color output. We hope this technology will eventually emerge in all personal 3D printers. 

 

Speed: 3D printing is achingly slow, particularly for high-resolution or larger objects. And don't even think of printing large objects at a high resolution! The speed issue must be solved otherwise the general public will be hugely disappointed.

 

Safety: What's that smell when you're printing that object? It's airborne ABS fumes diffusing into your home. Are they safe? Probably. Maybe. Um, we'd better check. There are a number of safety concerns regarding personal 3D printing that must be sorted out over the next few years. You can be certain that once 3DP reaches mass popularity the space will be intensely inspected by many interested parties. Safety first! 

 

Some of these barriers are overcome by using a 3D print service, but not all. However, we suspect there will always be a psychological tend towards owning your own device, if it actually works for you. In other words, a lot of people will work to resolve all these barriers. Will they remove them all in the next few years? Probably some of them. The rest, later. 

 

Via SlashGear

Image Credit: Dennis Mojado

3D Printing To Disappear?

Christopher Mims writes his opinion of 3D printing futures on the MIT Technology Review blog, where he suggests that 3D printing will never become a "mature technology that can reproduce all the goods on which we rely". He goes on to suggest that to believe so is a "complete denial of the complexities of modern manufacturing". 

 

We think Mims is right and wrong. He's right that today's 3D printers and even those envisioned for the next few years are (and will be) limited in capability. They print in a limited selection of materials with constrained physical properties and indeed that is problematic if you intend on using printed objects for general use. 

 

He's wrong that 3D printing will "go the way of virtual reality". To us, the signs are present: we have a technology gradually improving in capability, price and effectiveness with a great many people working on it. We have massive numbers of 3D capable people appearing, acquainted with 3D via design, gaming or entertainment. 

 

And there's something else.

 

Personalization. The 20th century was the period of mass production. Many identical cheap items were made for all purposes. Today people have become more demanding of objects that more precisely match their needs. And we call that personalization. 3D printing can achieve that, at least for an increasing subset of items. 

 

As people grow more accustomed to personalization, the percentage of 3D printed items will rise. If the percentage of 3D printed items rises, then it becomes more important, and does not "go the way of virtual reality". 

 

What say you? Will we become less interested in personalized objects in the future, or more so? I think you know what we think.

 

Via MIT's Technology Review

The Two Titans of Personal 3D Printing

After CES it now seems we have a two-horse race for the lead in personal 3D printing: MakerBot and 3D Systems. Both announced new printers (the MakerBot Replicator and the Cube), while 3D Systems added a comprehensive 3D community/store/service to compete with MakerBot's Thingiverse. 

 

But that's about where the similarities end. MakerBot's philosophy revolves around the idea of personal making and open source, whereas 3D Systems is more focused on consumers less capable of making - and their approach is less open source and has more capitalism involved. Thingiverse's repository is full of items free for the taking, while 3D Systems' Cubify store requires varying levels of payment for the 3D models. Different approaches for different audiences. 

 

Which approach will win? In the short term we think both, simply because the 3D printing market is basically wide open. The number of personal 3D printers sold to date is only in the low tens of thousands, while literally billions of people have never even heard about it, let alone use one. In the long term it may be that 3D Systems' approach may overtake MakerBot's simply because there are far more "non-makers" in the world. 

 

Regardless of who's winning, it will be an interesting race to watch in 2012.