New York City seems like the place to be for 3D Printing. Next week the Javits Center in Manhattan will host the first “Inside 3D Printing Conference”, which isn’t the first get together this month for additive manufacturing enthusiasts in the Big Apple. TechHive wrote about an April 6th hacking day, hosted by 3D printing company MakerBot, that was designed to encourage development of apps on top of the Makerbot Thingiverse library. Thingiverse is a place where users can upload, share, or acquire different 3D files that can be used for printing. One current limitation for Thingiverse is the sheer usability of it. Even with easy to use 3D design software popping up, 3D printing is still constrain by certain mechanical limitations that require at least a working knowledge of materials and supports to overcome.
Some of the attendees of the hacking day were dreaming big on how they could make it easier for users to take advantage of 3D printing. One such programmer explained:
“Basically, what I want to do is pull assets from Unity directly to STL format [the stereolithography file type used by 3D printers and upload it to Thingiverse,” Brian explained. If it works out, Brian says he could use the same programming wrapper he put around the Thingiverse API to pull basically anything he wants from any Unity application, which could include characters models or any art asset from inside a Unity game.
Unity is the game engine behind a huge number of popular titles across a variety of platforms including Temple Run 2 and the Angry Birds follow up Bad Piggies. Other 3D printing enthusiasts are hypothesizing that this type of gaming overlay, and more specifically Minecraft as a design platform, may be what brings 3D printing into homes.
With the much anticipated new industrial revolution fast approaching it will be interesting to see which killer apps rise to the top.