Over the past 2 Years Which Direction is the 3D Printing Space Moving?

[awerby]

A couple of years ago, many people who should have known better seemed to think that there would soon be a 3D printer in every home. Disregarding the difficulties of 3D modeling, the hassle of setting up, operating and maintaining printers, their low speed of production, the space they take up and the fumes they emit, and the lack of a compelling need to produce lots of little plastic parts oneself, they figured these machines would follow the trajectory of the home computer and the 2D printers that accompany them. But while everybody wants to communicate with others, and often needs to print out documents and pictures, only a few of us really have a compulsion to produce 3D objects ourselves. Those people bought printers, and then the sales curves tended downwards.

3D Systems threw in the towel about a year ago, closing down their consumer-focused Cubify division. Other companies have similarly refocused their efforts on the businesses which have always been the foundation on which this industry is based; it's not really surprising.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[Sebastian Finke]

3D Systems threw in the towel about a year ago, closing down their consumer-focused Cubify division.

3D Systems signed their own death warrant for the Cubify range. With just a few some tweaks they could have taken over the industry but no they did not listen to people actually using the machines or people that know and understand the industry (myself included). My suggestions fell on deaf ears and they ran the Cubes, CubeX's and Cube Pros into the ground. Cubify is still great software and the Sense scanner is amazing value for money at the price. but the printers... ouch.

They aren't bad printers either. Hardware-wise they were very well built. Crippled by garbage software/firmware and overpriced filament and lack of decent, responsive customer service.

I have nothing against proprietry designs either. But proprierty needn't mean $100 for a spool of filament. If they had sorted that out and had a decent slicer they could easily have cornered the consumer market. Look at Up! (Tiertime). They have proprietry filament and locked firmware and a custom slicer and they're doing very well.

But back on topic... I see the consumer market growing massively with every passing year. New printer technology, new and better filaments and lower prices...

[Todd-67]

They aren't bad printers either. Hardware-wise they were very well built. Crippled by garbage software/firmware and overpriced filament and lack of decent, responsive customer service.

So I take it you've used one as I have. The machines are way overbuilt and nicely packaged but...

I see the market growing as well. Everyone in my office wants a home machine and the prices are coming down to the point where it's getting feasible. I just think that a more user friendly method is going to be required for it to really take hold. 3d systems had the right idea in making it idiot proof they just failed on the execution.