Just a couple of days ago, we reported on Materialise’s new challenge to support its Ideas Worth Making initiative, now here we are reporting on iMakr, another important 3D printing player, introducing an Ideas section to its MyMiniFactory 3D model network. It seems that ideas are a valuable commodity in the 3D printing industry. That makes plenty of sense, since a technology that enables you to imagine doing just about anything only needs you to… imagine what that anything might be.
For MyMiniFactory, “anything” consists mostly of consumer-targeted products and toys. A user favorite in the new section is videogame props and, with the latest E3 characterized by a series of announcements that brought back “ancient” cult franchises – such as Shenmue (the long awaited third installment was actually launched on KS, but you get the drift), Doom (are we up to 15 yet?) and Fall Out (4) – the only real innovation would be owning physical version of the games’ many amazing virtual objects and weapons.
MyMiniFactory Ideas is basically a place for its designers and other users with design skills to gain and confirm user support before embarking on a lengthy and challenging new design project. For example, creating a 3D printable model of the Sagrada Familia or a dishes drainboard shaped like the Canary Wharf skyline. One very interesting project IMAO is a bird feeder shaped like a T-Rex mouth.
In fact, even though the Ideas section was just introduced and does not yet even have a highly visible direct link from the homepage, there already are quite a few fascinating 3D printable ideas out there. Some of them – for example, the Sponge Bumbers and My Pets Project – are described precisely and clearly, clearly showing that the project has legs.
The only possible issue, as is often the case with MMF, is that of copyright infringement, since it could be argued that virtual props, within video game IPs, are, in fact, IPs themselves. Nevertheless, the public is asking for it and voting for it, so someone needs to give it to them. If the video game companies won’t make a move, then it might as well be iMakr.