Newbie question about development.

[Panowin]

What good is a cloud printing system if I still have to wait for a third party service to clean up the previous print, setup the printer for my print, remove my print when complete, inspect and confirm it meets the drawing, and then ship it to me?

Indeed for the personal user who just make 1 or 2 project a year.

[Roxy]

Is it possible for someone to perform and complete the development work for a simple 3D project without having the physical printer. I'm asking because my father in law is wanting to get into the hobby anyway that he can, but in no way afford a printer. Besides the development is that part he enjoys the most and the physical product his development would produce is secondary to his interest.

If you are a RepRap'er... Everything is "Open Source". Mostly I like developing firmware, so the Marlin firmware is good for me. And I'm taking off on a ski trip tomorrow. I'll be developing pieces of firmware as time permits without a printer. Albeit, other people with printers will be helping with the testing. And all of the plastic parts of the printer are printed by the printer. So that is a lot of development opportunity. Most people developing printer parts are doing it for their own printer. They typically test the parts by using the destination printer to make the parts. But the CAD tools are getting good enough... You can get pretty far without actually printing anything.

[curious aardvark]

basically for someone who just can't be arsed to get a printer and make their own stuff :-)

[shawnivan110]

[QUOTE=curious aardvark;105634]basically for someone who just can't be arsed to get a printer and make their own stuff

[Marm]

Soooo... shapeways.

I'm not saying don't give the business a go, competition is a good thing. Just don't try to sell your product with a bunch of marketing keywords that actually turn off customers.