AutoDesk Announces Their Own 3D Printer and the 'Android' of 3D Printing

Pretty huge news coming out of AutoDesk today. They have just announced that they will be manufacturing 3D printers. They have also announced a new "Operating system for 3D printers", called Spark. They say it will be the "Google Android" of 3D printing. Spark will be a free OS, and the 3D printer will be open source. This could have a huge impact on the 3D printing industry.

More details at: http://3dprint.com/3760/autodesk-3d-printer-spark/

Here is a picture of their SLA based 3D printer they announced today.
http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...spark-feat.jpg

Oh wow, this actually has me cautiously optimistic. Autodesk is a company with enough resources to really flood the market with both its hardware and software. At $5000 it's certainly not going to be the printer of the middle class, but I could certainly see it dominating the "small office" 3D printer market. I really don't see where Autodesk can go with hardware compatibility that they haven't already gone with existing printers, but name recognition could go a long way for them.

As for focusing their software towards 3D printing, I am downright recklessy optimistic.

Looks like a coffee maker.. LOL

I followed all the links that I could and didn't find any good information. I couldn't find build volume of the reference design.

I don't see how this will get traction if it really does cost $5,000.

B9Creator has been around for at least a year now and I think is a better choice if you want an open hardware design.

If you don't mind closed hardware, Form1 is $3,300. The material cost is a bit high though, even from third parties. I suspect the Spark might require expensive materials too.

This is very interesting news indeed. Not too terribly surprising, given how much Autodesk has been trying to insinuate itself into the 3D printing world - there sure have been plenty o' tweets from that company with the #3dprinting hashtag.

I've been using Autodesk's design applications for years, and have always been impressed with what they've had to offer. However, the company has been very, um, "creative" in the last few years in getting to squeeze more money out of their customers in order to keep using those tools. This makes me skeptical about their open-source Spark OS - is it only a matter of time/money before the open source slams shut a la Makerbot? Probably.

Then there's the issue of a software company taking a step into the hardware world, and winding up with egg on their faces. The comparison to Android seems more than a bit ironic, given Google's difficulty with the hardware/smartphone market. Will Autodesk learn from others' mistakes? I guess we'll find out. It should be interesting, though.

-Crawford

I have confirmed, it will be in the $5,000 range.
Eddie

I think the bigger news from all this is that they are open sourcing the Spark platform as well as the technology behind this SLA printer. Ultimately this will lead to innovation, and a great deal of competition like we are seeing right now within the FDM printer market. We all know how cheap FDM printers are getting.

I had the chance to talk with one of the Press people at AutoDesk and asked them a few questions about Spark and the new AutoDesk 3D Printer. Here is what I got out of it :)

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- Would you be able to supply details on pricing, when it will be available, etc?

· Spark and the Autodesk 3D printer will be available later this year. We have not determined a final price but expect it to be in the $5k range.

- Can you provide specs on the 3D printer?

· We will provide designs for the Autodesk 3D printer when we make it available later this year.

- Also do you have plans on manufacturing any other 3D printers perhaps targeting industry or prosumers?

· We expect businesses to be the primary users of the Autodesk 3D printer, and hope that by providing designs for our printer others will innovate on our design

- Any further details on the platform and how developers can get access or when they will have access?

· Spark is an open 3D printing software platform that sits between digital information and 3D printing hardware. It will include the necessary algorithms (for example slicing and supports) to easily convert 3D models into the necessary format for 3D printing. It will also include tools for checking and repair of 3D models, utilities for print preview that are compatible with mobile and desktop operating systems, cloud connectivity, and the ability to publish and share models. Spark will be a highly extensible platform, with SDKs and APIs for software developers, materials engineers and designers who will be able to create software, services, and information on top of the platform. Autodesk will license the basic aspects of the Spark platform for free to 3D printing manufacturers and software developers. There will be some restrictions and usage guidelines to ensure a consistent user experience.

- Any screenshots of the Spark Operation System?

· We don’t have Spark screenshots available, but here’s an image of the 3D printer.

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... any news on the size of the build volume, and other technical specs ? I find it hilarious that they can already state a price but don't announce what this is buying.

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Originally Posted by LambdaFF

... any news on the size of the build volume, and other technical specs ? I find it hilarious that they can already state a price but don't announce what this is buying.

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This. In reality, they announced a rendering. The rendering looks nice, but footprint for build platform size is poor.

Do they even have a working prototype?

Here is a video interview with AutoDesk CEO Carl Bass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eee8Hf2qH2E

From a tweet from Autodesk CEO Carl Bass on Monday:

Quote:

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First #Autodesk Spark 3D printers being built. Designed in London and SF. Made in California #3DPrinting

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Can't wait to see these when they are released.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bsq8uk2CcAEUjJq.jpg

I had the opportunity to speak with Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski on Monday. He revealed some interesting things about the Autodesk 3D printer and most importantly the Spark platform. Read more on this interview at: http://3dprint.com/16422/autodesk-spark-3d-printing/

what is the exact technical specifications, what's it's exact full compatibility , is their what's it's market date (is it funding dependant for example kickstarter?) i need it to be officially Confirmed

well you can rule out kickstarter. This is Autodesk - 12.2 billion market share.
And they've been releasing a bunch of free to use software recently as well.

Presumably spark will tie a lot of different aspects of 3d printing together.

Look forward to proceedings with interest :-)

This will be bloody awesome, but will also be bloody expensive knowing Autodesk! but there is a reason as Curious said they are a 12.2 billion dollar market share..

I am still using 3DsMax 2.5 lol... it's the last thing I bought off them... prices just got silly after that.

it's chances are strong that are going to grow a more than that in time

lol on that video 1:20 minutes video time line

For those interested, Autodesk is taking pre-orders for the Ember 3D printer - http://3dprint.com/28250/autodesk-ember-3d-printer/

Are people really pre-ordering without knowing the print volume, cost of resin or machine overall size? From the photos the print volume looks tiny.

I'm pretty interested but no specs makes me wonder as well. Even the most basic specs would be good

Here are some details and what $5,995 gets you. Should start shipping Early 2015.

Early build Ember 3D printer
- X/Y Resolution: 50 microns
- Z Resolution: 25 microns
- Build Size (X, Y, Z): 64mm x 40mm x 134mm
- Speed: 15mm/hr at 25 micron layer height
- Includes 1 build head and 1 resin tray


Ember Explorer Supplies
- Additional build head
- Additional resin tray
- 2 bottles of resin (1kg per bottle of clear general purpose resin)


Ember Explorer Finishing Kit
- Cutting mat
- Tweezers
- 2 Plastic containers with lids
- Safety glasses
- Nitrile gloves
- Scraper
- Power cord


Ember Explorer Access
- Ember Explorer forum
- Dedicated support powered by the design and technical teams
- Option to provide direct feedback for Ember 3D printer

They are using an igus DryLin carriage+rail for the vertical axis. I question the precision there, any time I have used those slides for an application there is a bit of play in them - they have to by design as they are sliding elements. Preloaded recirculating linear bearings would have been a better choice for an SLA machine to keep the precision.

Very beautiful and very small build size. :(

I went to an AutoDesk presentation in Portland Oregon and they just barely touched on it.

They were much more excited about 3DS max and Maya... Which I can second them on the 3DS max bit.

Would have been nice to see the printer in person, but alas it wasn't there (of course it wasn't)

c:

Autodesk's long-anticipated 3D printer, the Ember, is available now for sale. First announced last May, then available for pre-order in December, today the company has taken all stipulations off and is taking orders now. Orders in the US and Canada can be filled now, and with the four-week lead time shipments of the first units should arrive in mid-March. European orders will begin to be filled in April. Find out more details about this long-anticipated release in the full article: http://3dprint.com/45084/autodesk-ember-available-now/

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Originally Posted by beerdart

Looks like a coffee maker.. LOL

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Rofl! Exactly what I was thinking!

But, I suspect that is their exact idea. I bet their design and marketing team did that on purpose. To get 3D printers into people's homes easier, they have to stop looking like the alien hulking machines that they currently do and more like innocuous appliances we already have welcomed into our homes by the millions. Popular acceptance of a technology has almost always been a battle of style, not function. You can make the most efficient and functional toaster on the planet, but if it doesn't look good, nobody will buy it en masse.

What are you going to print exactly with that build volume? Scale everything down by a factor of 6??

I have a Titan1 3D printer. It's much more cost effective. The price seems way too high. Only advantage is it's a bit more turnkey. But for the price difference I'll stick with my Kudo3d Titan1 for now.

It's doomed to fail, who does not have a strong hate for cleaning resin ? That alone would make many people stay away from SLA/DLP, unless you're some sort of maso...

Let alone the MSDS which would scared the target customers.

Big announcement today. Autodesk has just released the open source mechanical design files for their Ember SLA 3D printer. More details can be found here: http://3dprint.com/65051/ember-design-files/

@ 6K..... they have got to be out of their minds for the build size.......

Agree, when I saw the price tag originally, I thought I was smoking crack. The Titan1 kills the ember thus far and almost half the price.

There's no way to grab their cad file rather than sticking with slow as hell web application real time 3D viewing?

3D design software company Autodesk has just released Ember’s electronics and firmware under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. They have previously released the formula of their PR48 resin and their mechanical design specs. They have also updated their cloud-based CAD program Fusion 360 to include full simulation capabilities, granting users the ability to perform linear stress test simulations and modal analysis. You can read more about both of these stories over on 3DPrint.com: http://3dprint.com/96835/autodesk-ember-fusion-360/