3D Hubs issued its latest monthly trends report today, and the biggest thing we noted in the report is the incredibly wide geographic coverage by their network.
The community 3D printing network permits anyone with an idle 3D printer to offer it to the public for printing, much like AirBNB permits people to rent their spare rooms. The service has grown like a weed ever since it was announced a few short years ago. Recently they hit the startling milestone of 20,000 participating 3D printers.
The activity over their network allows them to develop interesting analyses of printers and printing behavior, which they publish each month.
This month saw no significant changes in behavior or printing, although several new 3D printers jumped to the top of the trending list, as they usually do. This list seems to represent not whether a printer is āthe bestā, but rather that there are a sufficient number of people believing in the machine. To us itās a great way of identifying whether a new printer offering is able to succeed and join the growing list of capable 3D printers.
What was interesting was the now more than 20,000 participating printers, which 3D Hubs conveniently portrays geographically in a world map. Check out the excerpt above, which shows a piece of Europe. Youāll see a similar density of printers in most advanced countries. Here is a section of the United States, where the coverage of 3D printers is also quite dense.
We think this is quite important.
Itās important because it shows very clearly that 3D printing services are locally available in almost any area of the world. If you live in even a small city, itās now quite probable thereās someone nearby that can 3D print stuff for you.
Go find them.
Via 3D Hubs
