Among the various services, retailers and communities springing up in response to the rise in 3D printing are the sites devoted to 3D printables. Because many of these model repositories are free, I have no problem with their proliferation; more sites mean more printables. And, thankfully, there’s a meta-search that will scour the whole Internet for all of them. One thing that I recommend, if you are planning to create a printables site, or any endeavour, is that you consider what makes you stand out from the crowd. Cadigo is new a 3D model repository that, in some ways, may be distinct from the rest, but I’m not sure they are fully aware of it, yet.
Started by two web users, GChan and Wayward, Cadigo is much like any other printables site: you either upload or download a CAD file for or from the community. The site is already populated by an array of 3D models, from Final Fantasy characters to printable houses, and it is just starting to grow its community. What Cadigo has, that other model repositories might not, is a particular character and sense of humor.
From the site’s team members, relying on aliases, to its How-To page, to its cat logo, Cadigo is geared towards a particular crowd or maybe even generation. The crudely drawn images on its How-To page are paired with an elaborate enumeration system: “[Step] 5. If you are proud of what you created, share it with your friends! 5a. Share the model through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest 5b. (If we left out any social media platform please accept our apology) 5c. (That is because there are 5 billion new ones out there that have we never heard of).” This is clearly a site marked with the irreverent, “slacker” mentality associated with “internet humour.” Cadigo is the sort of place that people who might think scenes from Dr. Who overlayed with something sarcastic written in Impact would go to share their 3D models, free from the moms and dads and the rest of us squares on Thingiverse.
The only thing that’s missing is intentional typos and grammatical errors, which proves that Cadigo, despite its casual appearance, is not the work of actual slackers. It takes a lot of epic care to create and maintain a 3D model repository. So, even though there are Snoop Dogg quotes used ironically on the site, that doesn’t mean that GChan and Wayward aren’t trying. The fact that the objects on the site are licensed in the Creative Commons, when thought about in terms of their lackadaisical attitude, could signify that Cadigo is a place to go where users can share, remix and interact in a similarly relaxed manner, without worrying about copyright law, firearms or the other lame stuff that regular people obsess over. If Cadigo keeps it up for the long haul, you might consider them the Something Awful of 3D printables sites, not that it would matter to them one way or the other.
Source: Cadigo
