Throughout universities across the world, students are dedicating their lives to studying for careers in industries such as engineering, medical, and architecture, all of which are starting to rely heavily on 3D printing technology. So, it follows that these students would need to be efficiently trained in additive manufacturing in order to prepare for their future endeavors. 3DPrinterOS, who claim to be the developer’s of the world’s first operating system for 3D printing, has just announced new educational and premium licenses that will be made available through a handful of global 3D printing technology providers including Dynamism, 3D Connectors, 3D Printlife, CreativeTools, and 3Dortgen.
3DPrinterOS’s newly developed educational license will help educational professionals and students connect to pretty much any 3D printer model. They have developed a dashboard management cloud system that supports multiple 3D printer functions all in one place. This allows staff and students the opportunity to expand their 3D printing horizons by offering everyone within the university unlimited access to any 3D printer on campus. The license also gives administrative users access to data tracking and reporting tools that will reportedly allow every part of the school’s 3D printing process to be monitored and analyzed. When 3DPrinterOS was creating these new licenses, they received testing help from Duke, Purdue, and Florida State universities, pretty sizable campuses that used the educational license to connect all of their 3D printing systems.
“In the first four weeks of operation our students have accumulated 1478 hours of 3D printing across 601 print jobs. We did this using only seven printers and a small student support staff,” said Chip Bobbert, the Digital Media Engineer at Duke. “3DPrinterOS allowed us to maximize output while minimizing input and at the same time gave a tool to our makers that is simple, easy to use, and requires a minimum amount of training.”
The premium license is more geared toward creative access, offering direct print API and premium applications such as Virtual Factory and HD camera support. Direct print API will give premium license users the ability to design and manage their own 3D marketplace with 3DPrinterOS’s customizable editing tools, while Virtual Factory will allow for the workflow management of laser cutters, CNC machines, and industrial 3D printers from the start of the process to the very end.
“We use 3DPrinterOS to track the quantity of prints going through our doors and the amount of active users we have. We can use this data as a point for calculating funding and costs for semesters to come,” says Davin Huston, a Clinical Assistant Professor at Purdue University.
The future advantages of these new licenses are portrayed pretty straightforwardly by Professor Huston’s statement. By giving university staff the ability to monitor the activity of all 3D printing sectors utilized within their establishment, schools should now be able to better appropriate funding by analyzing the rate and type of 3D printing being performed by each individual educational program. These licenses should make 3D printing with higher education much more reliable, allowing for smooth sailing by both students and faculty members. 3DPrinterOS has tacked on these educational and premium licenses in addition to the other cloud licenses that they have already released to users for free in the past, and are furthering their attempt to claim the throne of 3D printing operating systems.
