Makerbot had some big announcements at CES. Not the least of which was the new Makerbot Digital Store. The notion of a digital store has been percolating ever since Thingiverse came into existence. A lot of people right now are making a living from their digital design work at places like Shapeways. But, the extension of now having some model file itself is a bit different. The potential is there for infinite digital & physical copies (unless someone uses really arcane DRM). For this reason, some 3d model selling sites up until now have charged exorbitant rates for models. That's not viable in the long term as normal folks pick up 3D printing. Makerbot is aiming this platform at the audience that picks up a printer from them cold and asks, "Now what?"
The first set of "in-action" figure collections put up on the store are generally pretty ho-hum, but the Famous Flyers collection is REALLY freaking cool. You can infer from photos of the models that they are well done as toys and very printable (albeit with support). The price per figure is comparable to an iTunes song (1.29) and a collection is comparable to an iTunes album (9.99). This is a good price for commercial grade models. I've paypaled the equivalent of a cup of coffee to folks who I've shared models with. Taking the risk that someone can share your work with the wider world will continue to be a challenge.
There are more than a few things not to be crazy about with this first attempt at the digital store. For some reason, the most inventive name from Makerbot at CES this year was the Replicator Z18, their Big Daddy printer. These guys used to come up with crazy names for even laser cut parts from kits (You had to bolt the Little Dinosaur and the Big Dinosaur to the "Plastruder" in the Cupcake kit for support). Digital Store is the most generic name possible for something I look at on a computer screen and shovel money into.
Something that seems a bit bizarre is the use of .x3g format for the files, the actual binary build code makerbots use. It's stated to work for the Replicator 2 and newer 5th gen Replicators (Does the Gene Roddenberry estate get money for these at this point?). This is ostensibly to take work out of tuning a print, but it's obviously also meant as a poor man's DRM. Including an STL file seems like the right step to both open up the store and allow experimentation (I'd love to make the shuttle really freakin' huge!). The thing is, Makerbot literally sells a scanner one could use to turn around and scan a print right back to an STL and post it anywhere. The best compromise may be Makerbot exclusive "launch windows" which open up to anyone after a few months.
A cool possibility from here is if the store expands into a curated, premium Thingiverse. Maybe there is a plan to start a matching store under the Thingiverse logo (which isn't specific to Makerbot machines )or could even be open to a range of digital fabrication technologies. There needs to be more options in this space for users to get models, for creators to sell their work, and help guide the next wave of adopters for 3D printing.
Note: The airplane pictures can be attributed to Makerbot. I would have loved to print one myself, but was unable to do that since I have an older Replicator.
No comments:
Post a Comment