Sometimes the innovative creative spirit behind the ever growing 3D printing industry brings a smile to my lips — even just for the volume of permutations of names for companies, products and services that involve ‘3’ and ‘D.’ Almost every imaginable variation of 3D printing Twitter handles have emerged over the past year. Threeding (three d’ing?) is an EU registered 3D printing marketplace and file sharing website.
For those new to 3D printing, the current wave of home 3D printers can generally be traced to the RepRap project of self-replicating machines: 3D printers that can print most of their parts – and more now that home 3D metal printers have arrived – to create a new 3D printer. In his short 2004 overview Adrian Bowyer called it ‘Wealth Without Money‘ and the said professor broke the concept down to just three bullet points and a subsequent paragraph:
‘The three most important aspects of such a self-copying rapid-prototyping machine are that:
1. The number of them in existence and the wealth they produce can grow exponentially,
2. The machine becomes subject to evolution by artificial selection, and
3. The machine creates wealth with a minimal need for industrial manufacturing.
…This could turn rapid prototyping from a development into a production technology. It also means that people of modest means will be able to own them, and also let their friends have copies. They will be able to make themselves a new flute, a new digital camera, or just a new comb by downloading the designs for them from the Web. Some of the designs will be sold; some will be available free.’
Threeding thus maintains the spirit of the RepRap project – and possibly the respect of the home 3D printing community – by offering the potential for users to exchange their designs for free, whilst offering the potential for a profit based choice also.
Threeding has stiff competition, however, in a massively saturated 3D file repository market, for it is not just Thingiverse, laden with 100,000+ free designs for everything from a flute, to a new digital camera or simply a new comb, that offers competition, there are now many other sites offering free 3D downloads, some of which can be found via the free simple search engine, which, for your convenience, can be found here.
A breadth of 3D file sites taking a range of approaches to 3D printables can only be a good thing in the short term. The better of these will eventually be selected over others – or so the theory goes. But what will constitute ‘better’ to users?
As Threeding state: ‘Unfortunately, not everyone is an artist and designer, and not every object could be personally designed on a computer, so people have to buy some of the items they would like to print. What better place to find different things than a marketplace?’
An interesting antithesis to this approach for a 3D model repository can found at a new overview of Shapedo today, which can be found here. Ultimately a range of paid original products, closed-source free samples, barter / kudos orientated free open-source printables and what this author at least has decided to call repairables (replacement parts for existing objects) are some of the emerging strata of what may be collectively called 3D-printables, and marketplaces that can fulfil as many niches as possible stand the best chance of still being extant this time next year. The competition is already tough, and it is only going to get tougher. Threeding more than makes the cut in 2014 however, one of the better offerings currently available, IMHO.
