DEFCAD Morphs into a Search Engine

By on September 16th, 2013 in Service

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You might remember DEFCAD? It was a site dedicated to hosting “controversial” 3D models that underwent some difficulties when the US Government seized their inventory of 3D printable weapon models. We thought that might be the end for DEFCAD. 
 
Apparently not. A visit to DEFCAD shows they’ve changed the site into a meta-search engine for printable 3D models. Currently it’s in an “alpha” state, meaning it’s not quite ready for production use. While there are a couple of 3D model search engines already in existence, we wondered what would differentiate DEFCAD. They say: 
 
DEFCAD is a search engine for 3d printable models.
DEFCAD hosts zero object files
DEFCAD does not track what you search, download, or view
DEFCAD allows for truly anonymous contributions
 
The search engine is useful; while they currently appear to be indexing only Thingiverse, the results are displayed in concise form with the ability to sort on a number of properties. 
 
If DEFCAD were able to index a few other repositories, particularly the big 3D sites where identification of 3D printable items were made possible, it could become a pretty decent meta-search site for 3D prints. 
 
Via DEFCAD

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!