3D printing

The Pirate Bay Is Getting Into 3D Printing

January 25, 2012

It is a strange coincidence when particular things just fall together in the matter of hours. I was tweeting yesterday with @jonemo and @rpes12 about the killer application for 3D printing. We arrived at the topic of DRM-ing of 3D models as a protection mechanism. At some point, I wrote:

An hour later somebody sends me a link to a blog post on The Pirate Bay about sharing physical objects. They call them Physibles, and the category is already available on their site.

They write:

We’re always trying to foresee the future a bit here at TPB. One of the things that we really know is that we as a society will always share. Digital communication has made that a lot easier and will continue to do so. And after the internets evolutionized data to go from analog to digital, it’s time for the next step.

A few months ago I already wrote that pirated 3D models where available on The Pirate Bay. It is not surprising that the media attention around CES on 3D Printing did not pass by the people of The Pirate Bay. I just hope it is not seen as an incentive for the industry to come up with another SOPA / PIPA to increase the protection around physical objects. We are nowhere near understanding on what the impact of personal fabrication is on society. Let’s not kill it before it even got started.

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3D printing

Killer Application for 3D Printing

January 24, 2012

In my post Reality Check for 3D Printing I wrote about a few critical blog posts and news items on 3D printing. The question on the table is: what is the killer application of 3D printing? It is an interesting question and I think there is none. Or at least no specific killer application. What is the killer application for an inkjet printer? What is the killer application for a computer? What is the killer application of the web?

In each of these cases, there is no killer application. When I first showed the web – using mosaic – to my mom and dad, they looked at me and had no clue what I was talking about. None. You could argue that the web is the killer application of the Internet. Or is it email? Or is it my Twitter mobile app? Or maybe Skype? Or all of the above?

Same applies for regular printers. Who can remember The Print Shop (version 23.1 – amazing!) from Broderbund? You could make endless banners with it or front pages for your own photo albums. All neatly printed on your dot matrix printer. Nobody is doing that anymore. The quality was low, to say the least, but still everybody made them. So why do you have a printer? I cannot think of a specific killer application for 2D printers. Though it is useful to have a printer.

When I think about the killer application of 3D printing, I think about personal fabrication. That in itself will mean different things for different people. It could be that an architect or designer want to print their professional designs. Or it can be the unique production of a cool dice for a Warhammer player. I cannot look into the future. But the prospect to design, customize and make your own things at home, design them exactly according to your own specifications while not going to a store, just sounds so appealing to me. What do you think?

Update: Fabricatis wrote down his thoughts on the killer application for 3D printing. Recommended reading!

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3D printing Online Creation

Product Relevancy for 3D Printing

January 18, 2012

On a regular basis, I hear people telling me that they do not know what to make with a 3D printer. Or that do not see the point of 3D printing or personal fabrication. In some cases, they take a look at the products available at Shapeways and do not find anything that interests them. They find it to be expensive or geeky or uninteresting. But it all boils down to relevancy! There is a lot of talk about the killer application for 3D printing. But how you look at it, it comes down to making things – making products. The challenge for 3D printing is to what you can make relevant. So what makes a product relevant? I see three factors, which makes a product relevant in the context of 3D printing:

  1. Design (form and function)
  2. Material(s)
  3. Price

Design
The design is all about form and function. The product has an intended use, and it should support that in an optimal way. The form itself should be appealing to the target audience.

Material
Material should be applicable for the design and support the intended function of the product. Often it needs to look and feel good. But also longevity, resistance to outside influences and sturdiness are important requirements.

Price
Price is a fluid definition with regard to relevancy. For instance a higher price for a particular product, can make it more relevant. The same applies the other way around. If it is too expensive, than it is simply not worth it, and it will not sell. Obviously price should cover cost and margin. In the end, the price should be in line with expectations of the target customers.

All three factors work together as a system. I mean with that better materials lead to higher price, which in turn can lower the product relevancy. It is a balancing act.

For example, you find a vase and want to have it made. The material is glazed ceramics. It measures 5x5x12 inches. Sounds good, right? If I tell you, the price ia $300 and delivery takes 3 weeks. Still interested? Another example you find a beautiful lamp shade. It costs $350, but it is absolute you stunning. But then you read that you have to use a LED or other low temperature bulb. Are you still willing to pay $350 for that?

3D printing is quite popular in high-end design. High-end design is less sensitive to cost. Larger pieces are expensive but high-end design can live with that. They also have margin to spare on post-finishing the products to improve the look and feel of the material, as well.

With Shapeways, we try to lower the barrier of entry for relevant products custom made using 3D printing. By applying mass-production know-how, and adapting it to unique one-off production, we are reducing the cost of 3D printing. We also invest in offering of post-finishing options to improve the look and feel of 3D printed products. It is our continuing quest to raise the relevancy of our product portfolio. It is our goal to enable everyone to buy, make and sell cool and relevant products on Shapeways.

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3D printing Online Creation

Lack of Frictionless Creation with 3D Printing

January 10, 2012

One of the major barriers for the success of personal fabrication is the ability to create or modify 3D models on your own. The current generation of 3D design tools are not easy to use, and require a substantial amount of investment of personal time to master. For real enthusiasts and hobbyists, this is not a barrier, but for the casual user the barrier insurmountable. The casual user market is where the big opportunities are for personal fabrication. Without them, personal fabrication will never get off the ground big time.

What does it take to get somebody to create? To me the major driver is frictionless creation. Frictionless creation means that the level of effort to create is low to non-existent. Internet users are creating content on the Internet all the time. Services like Facebook and Twitter are excellent examples of frictionless creation. Those services can engage huge communities and let them create content and interact with that content. The list of features offered by those services is very limited. For users, it is easy to understand and grasp the concept offered by these services.

The concept of frictionless creation not only applies to internet services alone, but also applies to software in general.

The current generation of 3D design tools and services has a high level of friction. They are complex, expensive and have a high learning curve. A possible solution is to make very specific and easy to use applications. Examples are our Sake Creator or the site of Fluid Forms. These applications are product configurators. They are easy to use, and let the user create meaningful and quality designs. But they have very narrow and explicit use cases. The number of variations are limited and will only appeal to certain users. Inspired users will be frustrated by these applications.

Characteristics of frictionless creation:

  • extremely low barrier of entry
  • instant sense of applicability to the user
  • ability to see what others are doing to learn and be inspired
  • extremely focused set of features
  • wide range of variations & use cases to express users’ creativity

If we go back to making 3D models to drive personal fabrication, I do not think that most people will use 3D design software like we use word processors today. The opportunities lie in creating a frictionless creation platform. That will make a world of difference.

Any thoughts?

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3D graphics

Yes, WebGL Is Open: Here We Go Again

January 3, 2012

The other day I was reading this blog post “Protecting WebGL content (and why you probably shouldn’t)” from Brandon Jones. While reading, I got all these flash backs from the 1990s. Here we go again, I thought!

What is the problem? In short WebGL are Javascript calls as part of a larger javascript program running inside the browser. Due to the nature of the web, javascript – and HTML, CSS and all other web page assets – are open for everybody to see and inspect. When the web was gaining traction, I saw the same reaction to HTML and GIF images. Designers and companies were afraid due to the openness that their site design and image assets were copied all over the place. At the time, it was really hip to obfuscate HTML source code and disable the right-click action inside the browser, so that nobody could copy the web page and its content. Of course, this proved to be fruitless since circumventing these “protections” was trivial.

Now we are in 2012, and nobody is protecting their web page assets anymore. You do see obfuscated javascript code from time to time. But most sites have no protective measures. And you know what? It did not really led to any problems. I am even of the opinion that the open nature of the web accelerated the growth and innovation. People could learn from and get inspired by each other’s accomplishments.

Now we are entering the next evolution of the web with WebGL. I think the reason this question arises again is that 3D on the web brings in a new set of people and companies who were not delivering content on the web before. I am thinking about 3D designers, game designers and their respective companies. They have the same fears as the web designers and developers of 2 decades ago.

In my opinion, the reason that it did not lead to any problems is, that the value of internet services is not in their online digital assets. Those assets are the result of a creation process. The value is in that creation process. Next to that is the interaction. Interaction is mostly a server-side affair – though it partly moved to the client with the advent of AJAX. Server side is maintained and under control of the creators and cannot be copied. If you take games as an example, the value is in the creation of digital assets, the game scenario and playability of the game. If you copy the digital assets, you just end up with just the assets. There is no game.

Just copying the homepage of Google or a timeline of Facebook does not give you the ability to copy their services. You need the whole package.

Of course, there are copies of assets or (parts of) whole sites, but it is really not wild west on the internet. If everybody is benign in nature, why can shops have you freely walk around without supervision. Shoplifting is a problem but shops still exist and make money. The same applies to the internet.

At Shapeways, we use WebGL for our creators. WebGL allows our users to interact directly with the product and see it change in realtime. The generation of the product is done server-side. This is part is valuable to us. It is our intellectual property. At the same time, we use a 3D HTML viewer with generated JPEG sprites to show uploaded 3D models. The reason is that we cannot allow any 3D model information to leak onto the internet. Using WebGL it is theoretically possible to copy a 3D mesh from the GPU and save it. That is not acceptable for a lot of designers in our community.

So yes WebGL is open. You can freely look into the work of others and even copy the work others. But no it is not a problem. HTML javascript and CSS work in a similar way and web designers / internet services thrive regardless.

Do you think the openness of the web in general is good or bad?

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3D graphics 3D printing

2011 Wrap Up!

December 30, 2011

Since everybody in the blogosphere is doing a best-of-2011-post, I will do the same. Here is my list. I based it on both number of page views together with a bit of curation by me.

Hobby 3D Printers (needs an update since things are moving so fast)

So Who Invented 3D Printing Anyway?

3D Printing Is A Hype – According To Gartner

3D On The Web, WebGL To The Rescue

3D Printing Technologies Explained

I enjoyed blogging this year, and I am continuing writing next year. I want to thank everybody for the fantastic feedback and insights you send to me through Disqus, email and – especially – Twitter.

I wish everybody a fantastic holiday and a happy 2012!

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3D printing

Finally, a 3D Printer With Closed Loop Control

December 29, 2011

One of the challenges in 3D printing is making it cheaper and more affordable. There are a few ways to do that. Mostly it boils down to reducing cost, increasing efficiency and increasing output. One of the major drivers of increasing the output is the speed of the printing process. In other words, how fast can the 3D printer produce the products. But how do you do that?

One of the intriguing facts is that all printers do not have – or only extremely limited – closed loop control. In essence, the 3D printers cannot self correct. It makes the whole printing process somewhat of a black art. Just ask any 3D printer machine operator and he will tell you. The best results are produced when the machine is properly cleaned, machine and powder are in a humidity / temperature controlled environment and the builds / trays are packed in a certain way. Then still a stray human hair inside the powder can ruin a whole build.

Then I read this article on Wired today. It is a 3D printer build in the research lab of Pieter Sijpkes. He built an ice printer. The idea and execution is fascinating, but then my eye fell on this: “After every five layers have been deposited, a laser-displacement system measures the geometry of the top layer and adjusts the valve-control data to correct for any errors.”.

I thought “Yes, that sounds like closed loop control!”. I am sure he needed it because the robot arm is probably not terribly precise otherwise, but I love it anyway. I wish that manufacturers would pay more attention to closed loop control in the design of their machines. I am confident it increases the reliability of the 3D printers tremendously and makes it possible to print faster. Both will lower the price of 3D printing – while reducing the frustration of machine operators when they have yet another failed build.

I love to hear opinions on why closed loop control is so hard for 3D printers and any proposals or ideas on how it could be implemented!

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3D printing

Reality Check On 3D Printing

December 26, 2011

Last week I came across two blog posts in which the authors highlight their frustrations with the current state of 3D printing instead going into how great 3D printing is. The first one is from Robert Mitchell called 3D Printing is awaiting its Ipad moment. He basically argues that 3D printing is a nice technology but is still lacking traction because of technical and content constraints of the current generation of (consumer) 3D printers. The second post is from Anil Dash and is called 3D Printing, Teleporters and wishes. Anil writes about more or less same issues as Robert.

Those two posts flagged my interest because Gartner put 3D printing at the mere top of the hype cycle a few months ago. The next phase is the trough of disillusionment. It seems we are slowly moving into this phase. In my point of view this is a good thing. The previous phase called peak of inflated expectations has done its work. A lot of people are now aware of 3D printing and it is time to start focusing on maturing this technology. We need cheaper, faster and better machines and ditto on materials. This can only happen with economy of scale. 3D printing is still tiny compared to almost any industry. Even the market of CNC machines is several magnitudes bigger than the 3D printing industry of today.

So what did we gain last 2 years? The awareness and knowledge of 3D printing has spread beyond the niche market in which it was in. This is great because it makes 3D printing part of the decision process of product designers and (manufacturing) process engineers. I am hopeful that this will increases the number of applications and the actual usage of the technology. I think the investments in Shapeways ($5.1M – I work there) and MakerBot ($10M) are just two proof points of that.

Regardless of the incapabilities of 3D printing today I am still confident that we can overcome them over time. And if I am honest the technology is already damn useful today. Six months ago I wrote about the future of 3D printing. In it I laid down four major areas where 3D printing will have a major impact. Those were:

  1. Personalized products and personal fabrication
  2. Reduction design-to-manufacturing cycle
  3. Bring back manufacturing to the Western world
  4. Manufacture parts which were not possible before

If I go over this list I see all four of them are happening today. Not on a large world-changing scale yet but I do see it happening of front of my eyes. I am happy to part of it. The same happened with personal computers and the internet. Those are awesome technological achievements and I am happy they happened in my lifetime. 3D printing is in my view another one. What do you guys think?

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3D printing

Is 3D Printing A Disruptive Technology?

December 23, 2011

No, I think it is not! Not today. In the 3D Printing scene, a blog post from Robert Mitchell called 3D Printing: A technology awaits its Ipad Moment is making rounds. In this post he argues that 3D printing is not ready yet. He gives two reasons: the first is that 3D printing is too expensive, and second lack of imagination because 3D design software is too complex at this moment. I do not agree. Those are not the reasons why 3D printing is not (yet) mainstream.

Technology can only be truly disruptive when it either creates a new market or (almost) downright replaces an existing market. That is not happening yet, but it can be. As Robert Mitchell writes “As with the tablet PC, 3D printing technology awaits its iPad moment when everything comes together.” That is exactly the point. When you look at history, the invention of the automobile was not disruptive at all. Although looking back, it replaced a complete market (horses) and opened up a new market (personal transportation for the masses). So what happened? Well the T-Ford happened. Early automobiles were cumbersome to operate, expensive and error-prone. With the introduction of the T-Ford, an affordable and reliable automobile came to the market. That made the automobile disruptive. Its invention did not.

The same applies to personal computers. Early personal computers were ugly, expensive and had an extremely limited feature set. Until the birth of the IBM PC, they were niche devices. The concept of a mass-producible and open design made the personal computer big.

Going back to my earlier statement that 3D printing is not disruptive, we are indeed waiting for a few things to come together. I am not a big believer in easy to use personal 3D design software. The act of creation only scales when it is frictionless and effortless. When you look for examples you see that reducing the scope and features are excellent ways to entice people to create. Just take a look at Twitter and Facebook. The act of creation by typing simple messages or uploading pictures is easy. I am sure we will get better and easier to use personal 3D design software, but I am not so sure this will be game changing for 3D printing. There is lots of software which is easy to use but only a limited number of are using it. That is just because it takes time and effort to create something with it. Only when people are genuinely engaged they are prepared to put in time and effort required. This is mostly in the hobby and semi-professional areas. I think for this reason that creating products using 3D software is not going to take off.

The other argument was that 3D printing is still expensive and I agree. But that is more an attribute of where we are today than a reason that 3D printing is not disruptive. Prices will come down over time. When the demand for 3D printing rises economies of scale will make components and materials cheaper. Time solves that problem.

Obviously I am talking in this post about consumer 3D printing. The technology has certainly applications in industrial and professional areas. In those areas it is some cases already disruptive. Hearing aids in the western world are almost exclusively made using 3D printing and a lot of tooth implants as well. The media attention to 3D printing of the last year is helping tremendously to spread the word. A lot of manufacturing engineers I spoke 2-3 years ago were not aware about the abilities of 3D printing or even its existence. That has changed. I expect that much more applications for 3D printing in industrial or B2B products will be developed in the coming years.

3D printing is a powerful technology and a crucial step as a concept in manufacturing. I wrote about that  in an earlier post titled What Gets Me Excited About 3D Printing. It has all the attributes to become a serious disruptive technology and indeed it is a matter of time when everything falls together.

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3D printing Online Creation

3D Printing Spawns a New Breed Of Startups

December 20, 2011

David Minich started in 2011 his company Make Eyewear to solve his problem that he could not find any glasses he liked. Now his company delivers designer glasses and personalized glasses – or Freestyle glasses as he calls them – as well. You can order their glasses online. What is interesting is that he uses 3D printing via Shapeways to produce the frames and assembles them before shipping them to customers. There is a great background article on Make Eyewear at Fast Co.Design.

What I like about the story is that it shows two things. First it shows that 3D printing makes startup companies who produce physical goods possible. And second that 3D printing can be used as a manufacturing technology.

Where the internet and open source software have significantly reduced the cost for startups to create online services 3D printing is doing the same for manufacturing. Startups look for product-market fit and need to quickly iterate through product designs based on customer feedback and behavior. The internet and web sites support this type of company development. But the same applies to 3D printing. An entrepreneur can quickly develop and manufacture a design without a lot of upfront investment. He can continuously update the design throughout product-market fit stage of the company.

In existing manufacturing there are two major drawbacks and that is the upfront investment – to create tooling and molds etc. – and lead time – assuming you produce overseas. Both are not helping entrepreneurs to get as fast possible to product-market fit.

Make Eyewear is showing that you can use 3D printing as a manufacturing technology and you can go quickly from design to implementation. I expect that Internet startups will be joined in the near future by (physical) products related startups as the fast rising stars in the business scene.

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