Now we can *scan* and print in 3D

[KnightShift]

Bet this is going to have some impact on the hobby. Pretty much a whole bunch of hobbies...

From CNN: Startup unveils 3-D scanner at SXSW (http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/08/tech/innovation/makerbot-pettis-sxsw/)

Just put in a Space Marine or Ork or whatever mini you want, scan for 3 minutes and then print. Heck you can even scale 'em up if you insist on real real REAL proportionate marines.

Dunno how good the printed "resolution" is but there's gonna be a lotta interesting uses for this.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Huh, surprised someone's making a dedicated scanner - you can just use a camera and freeware for that. Hell, the developers behind the makerbot (commercial 3d printer) get great scans with an iPhone camera, and you can do extra hi-def scans with an xBox kinect. You could probably get a good print by taking stills from gamesworkshop's 360º spin (I expect they'll stop providing that before long).

[KnightShift]

Huh, surprised someone's making a dedicated scanner - you can just use a camera and freeware for that. Hell, the developers behind the makerbot (commercial 3d printer) get great scans with an iPhone camera, and you can do extra hi-def scans with an xBox kinect. You could probably get a good print by taking stills from gamesworkshop's 360º spin (I expect they'll stop providing that before long).

If nothing else, maybe somebody with a Space Hulk set can scan the minis, upload them then others could get 'em off the Intertubes, "print" them out along with the board pieces etc. and someone like me could FINALLY play the Space Hulk board game! :)

[Nabterayl]

I think this is more about accessibility than anything else. Can I put it in a machine, press one button, and get a scan file? If not, there's room for improvement even if it isn't in the realm of scan quality. My flatscreen scanner doesn't give me PDFs that are any higher quality than I could get with a digital camera and a free .jpeg conversion suite, but the flatscreen is still the better scanning methodology..

[faolan]

In short... no.

Neither the scanner nor the Makerbot series has the resolution you want. Understand that while the scanner (for example) may have a resolution under .2mm, that's dependent upon the object's size, distance from the camera/laser, etc. CAD-Scan have a project going on kickstarter right now that can get phenominal accuracy.. if the object is large enough. Something the size of a Space Marine scanned on it, however, comes out very poorly indeed due to it being such a small object, and the measuring aperatures so far away.

Rev - same problem as I mentioned above applies, as do other issues, like consistent angle, coverage, etc. I've looked into it for digitally remastering hand sculpts, but right now you're looking at at least $2500 for the scanner, a printer that'll do what you want to have in your home is another $3500, the printing material is about $150/liter... You can see where this is going.

[Caitsidhe]

Sure. I can see where it is going. :) It is going exactly where I predicted not too long ago, i.e. two more years before they are cost effective and we they become common enough for us to have them in our homes.

[Mr Mystery]

People have been saying that for 5 years...

[DrLove42]

Yep.

Also WHY? WHY would you think there will be a time where we all have 3D printers. What situation do you forsee the standard family deciding they need a 3D printer

[Caitsidhe]

People have been saying that for 5 years...

I know they have. I've been saying two. :)

[Caitsidhe]

Yep.

Also WHY? WHY would you think there will be a time where we all have 3D printers. What situation do you forsee the standard family deciding they need a 3D printer

There are all sorts of things we could fabricate. I assure all these companies jumping into the market aren't doing so because they think they will support themselves on gamers. :) Screws, bolts, broken bits, glasses, nobs, dials, simple toys, dishes, cups, and whatever else your heart desires. More to the point, people don't NEED much of any modern device. That doesn't prevent them from getting them. They get them because they are neat.

[Blusox69]

Yep.

Also WHY? WHY would you think there will be a time where we all have 3D printers. What situation do you forsee the standard family deciding they need a 3D printer

I had a friend who once tried to tell me about 13 years ago that digital stills and movie cameras will never replace good old fashioned film, the film industry will never use it and they will never be cheap enough for any one to own. He was an argumentative little bar steward, so I recordred him saying it on my phone and I take great pride in sending it to him and playing it back every time he comes out with latest argument against the obvious.

As for 3D printers in the home, you need to think past the obvious aspects like 3D model creation and think more complex like printable consumer electronics and other goods that you could buy on line and have in your hand in a few minutes.

[PaD]

Yep.

Also WHY? WHY would you think there will be a time where we all have 3D printers. What situation do you forsee the standard family deciding they need a 3D printer

People said the same about mobile phones back in the 80's - only business men will need these...

[Defenestratus]

I had a friend who once tried to tell me about 13 years ago that digital stills and movie cameras will never replace good old fashioned film, the film industry will never use it and they will never be cheap enough for any one to own. He was an argumentative little bar steward, so I recordred him saying it on my phone and I take great pride in sending it to him and playing it back every time he comes out with latest argument against the obvious.

As for 3D printers in the home, you need to think past the obvious aspects like 3D model creation and think more complex like printable consumer electronics and other goods that you could buy on line and have in your hand in a few minutes.

Someone famous once said that we would never need more than 64kilobytes of memory in our computers.

Saying that "we'll never need this technology in our houses" discounts all of the technologies that we now enjoy in our day to day lives that we would never have imagined.

Hell the invention of the smartphone was the stuff of science fiction only 15 years ago or so.

[Mr Mystery]

Laser Printers remain mostly office based, despite their better quality and faster printing times.

Toner remains expensive.

Fax machines never really made it into homes.

3D printing is cool, but what would I need it in the home for? In terms of resolution, I'm sure it will get there, but again the practical applications in the home aren't really there. Or to be fair, not yet at any rate which are of course different things.

[Defenestratus]

Laser Printers remain mostly office based, despite their better quality and faster printing times.

Toner remains expensive.

Fax machines never really made it into homes.

3D printing is cool, but what would I need it in the home for? In terms of resolution, I'm sure it will get there, but again the practical applications in the home aren't really there. Or to be fair, not yet at any rate which are of course different things.

Laser printers aren't cost effective for the volume of printing that the typical household requires- there is a lower cost alternative available for everyone that fulfills every need the typical household requires. You're saying that laser printers didn't make their way into the typical household and you're right - because inkjet printers did at lower cost. However both devices do the same thing - translate digital documents to tangible ones.

Fax machines are built into nearly every printer these days also - they've also been available in modems in computers for decades if you needed one that badly. Fax machines are dirt cheap so if they wanted to be in every household there's very little barrier to entry for widespread fax adoption - besides the fact that as a technology its completely obsoleted.

Saying that 3D printers wont make it into everyday homes because "its really expensive" is not a good argument. The cost of technology decreases over time, and 3D Printing technology will indeed follow this path. Will there be "laser" and "injket" versions of 3D Printers? Most definitely. If there is a market for low-cost, feature-rich 3D printers for home use, someone is going to develop it.

Will a 3D printer be in every home? Who knows. Will they be available to anyone who wishes to plop down $100 plus $50 for refill cartridges? -- Without a doubt.

[Mr Mystery]

Again they still need a practical application in the home, and I'm struggling to think what.

[Mr Mystery]

Thinking about it, I guess some stuff could be sold as a download file. But then digital music and books aren't that much cheaper. So it's possible it will follow suit. It'll appeal to some, but then others won't much fancy shelling out for the printer and materials (toner equivalent and that) and then not making that much of a saving on the files off putting.

But hey, I'm no expert, and could well be proven wrong.

[Deadlift]

Again they still need a practical application in the home, and I'm struggling to think what.

Lots of things.

Need curtain hooks of a certain type, print it. Need some cutlery, print some. Need a part for your Hoover, print it.
The list is endless. I have said this here before but I think home 3D printing is going to be massive, and not restricted to objects and devices either. 3D printing food is already being experimented with. To me it's not if but when ? 1 year or 100 years I don't know but it's coming.

[Houghten]

I don't know I'd want to eat off resin cutlery.

[Defenestratus]

Again they still need a practical application in the home, and I'm struggling to think what.

Want a set of dishes custom made for tonight's dinner party?

Need some decorations around the house for Christmas?

Need a part made for something around he house?

[White Tiger88]

If you even think about putting a GW mini in there you will be sued so fast.......

[Luke Licens]

Step 1: Replicator
Step 2: Holodeck
Step 3: ????????
Step 4: Profit!

[Defenestratus]

If you even think about putting a GW mini in there you will be sued so fast.......

As long as you're not reproducing them to give or sell to others, according to US Law you can do it all you like.

How is it any different than this:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-uusznKrVJ00/UT9G74-9rTI/AAAAAAAAhYo/BBjTq7jX6ZI/s821/IMG_20130312_111603.jpg

[archimbald]

Im confused as to what Defenestratus is doing, a RTV silicon mold of what?

[Blusox69]

They look like ruin bases to me

[Nabterayl]

As long as you're not reproducing them to give or sell to others, according to US Law you can do it all you like.

How is it any different than this:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-uusznKrVJ00/UT9G74-9rTI/AAAAAAAAhYo/BBjTq7jX6ZI/s821/IMG_20130312_111603.jpg
It's not. That's copyright violation too, at least in the US, assuming the items you're copying are copyrightable - which they certainly seem to be to me. [EDIT: Eh, "certainly" is too strong. But if they're copyrightable, you're committing copyright violation by copying them without permission.] You can't copy somebody else's copyrighted work solely on the grounds that you're not going to profit from it.

[Blusox69]

I'm siding with Nabterayl. You could argue that by not having had to spend money buying X amount of a copyrightable product for personal use because you copied it you are in fact financially better off and have profited at their expense.

[Wolfshade]

In England & Wales casting is also not covered by "fair use", I thought it was until a little while ago when I researched it a bit more and discovered that I was mistaken.

[Blusox69]

Along the lines of "why would we ever need a 3D printer", any one seen the company producing gun part 3D blueprints for these printers? They also posted a video of an AR-15 being fired with these parts incorporated. Although I'm not too sure of the ethics in this case you can see the huge potential for rapid distribution of a product with real world use. Imagine being able to order car/bike parts, or furnature and have them in your hand in a few minutes from a company the other side of the world.

[Nabterayl]

I'm siding with Nabterayl. You could argue that by not having had to spend money buying X amount of a copyrightable product for personal use because you copied it you are in fact financially better off and have profited at their expense.
That is precisely the argument. At least in the United States (if I can strip out some legalese to make the point), copyright exists so that people who want a thing have to buy it from the person who created it, and if they want more than one of the thing, they have to buy them all from the person who created it. The whole point is that the person who creates a desirable thing be able to turn people's desire for it into money.

The cases in which copying is non-punishable have to do with incentivizing activity that society has judged to be useful even at the expense of taking money out of the pockets of creators of desirable things.* Copying something because you want a copy is, perhaps obviously, not one of those situations. As the legal adage goes, fair use != personal use.

* For instance, you aren't allowed to copy your favorite portion of your favorite book just because. If you are posting in an online discussion forum disputing the meaning of that favorite passage, you are [generally] allowed to copy it. This is not because you aren't profiting from it, but because society has judged that people discussing the meaning of particular passages of books is so valuable - and that it would be so hard to do so if one were never allowed to quote the passages under discussion - that it is worth letting people trample on creators' copyrights to incentivize.

[Mr Mystery]

Want a set of dishes custom made for tonight's dinner party?

Need some decorations around the house for Christmas?

Need a part made for something around he house?

Nope.

Pound shop.

Store which has 3D printer will do it for me, without me having to pay the start up costs.

[Caitsidhe]

It doesn't really matter one way or the other, all these discussions about whether people can or should. The genie is out of the bottle now. Game companies could learn a LOT from the failed attempts by the music industry and film industry. They could get ahead of the curve now and be preparing for the day where they just sell you a very inexpensive download to print the models yourself. It will make them far more profit (as shown by the music industry) than attempting to sue people for a decade. :) Once the genie is out of the bottle there is no putting it back in. You simply adapt or die.

[Mr Mystery]

And as GW use rapid prototyping, one imagines the files are already there. Assuming there is a standardised PDF type file format. I haven't a clue on that one.

But whilst it will proliferate into the business world, I just don't think it's going to become a household item. For instance, in the UK, we've just had something of a food scandal, where horse meat has been showing up pretty much everywhere, including formerly trusted brands. As a result, and being a bit of a foodie, I bought me a meat grinder with a sausage making attachment. That way I can be sure comfort food isn't utter crap. And in particular not full of salt and Lordy knows what else.

Wasn't an expensive device. And it's a cinch to use. Yet I am the only person I know to own one.

I see 3D printing in much the same light. It's an awesome idea, but most people won't pay the start up costs (machine I got was £50, down from £100) and will just buy from shops, because it's a damned sight easier, and perceived to be cheaper. Not a novelty (Big Mouth Billy Bass) but far from ubiquitous (mobile, PC, Tellybox and that). It's a difficult position to take!

[Houghten]

Is your price missing a zero? I can't find them cheaper than £500.

What kind of resolution do you get for £100?

[Deadlift]

Is your price missing a zero? I can't find them cheaper than £500.

What kind of resolution do you get for £100?

He is talking about his meat grinder for making sausages :) not a 3D printer lol

Not sure what resolution his bangers are.

[Defenestratus]

Regardless of the legality of casting - its in essence "3D printing" already and yes, there is a HUGE black market for GW and FW stuff out there. I know a dude who just sold a painted GK army for around $1200 in total on Ebay, then turned around and bought that same amount in black market GW/FW for about 33% off retail. The kicker is that the black market stuff is BETTER QUALITY than at least the FW stuff... once its painted, nobody will ever know the difference, and he's going to be entering GT's all over the country with the models.

Black markets are a by product of free market forces when supply is priced too high for demand. 3D printing technology WILL make it easier, and margins for "re-casters" will be better and incentiivize them even more.

Ignoring it, like some here seem to be saying, is the worst thing GW could do.

[Caitsidhe]

Regardless of the legality of casting - its in essence "3D printing" already and yes, there is a HUGE black market for GW and FW stuff out there. I know a dude who just sold a painted GK army for around $1200 in total on Ebay, then turned around and bought that same amount in black market GW/FW for about 33% off retail. The kicker is that the black market stuff is BETTER QUALITY than at least the FW stuff... once its painted, nobody will ever know the difference, and he's going to be entering GT's all over the country with the models.

Black markets are a by product of free market forces when supply is priced too high for demand. 3D printing technology WILL make it easier, and margins for "re-casters" will be better and incentiivize them even more.

Ignoring it, like some here seem to be saying, is the worst thing GW could do.

I'm not telling them to ignore it. I'm telling them to get ahead of it and embrace the new market they will have to deal with. The music industry fought a losing battle for almost two decades until they finally broke down and changed their strategy. Now they are back in the black. When you provide a product at a reasonable price, most people will pay for it rather than go through the up front costs or effort (and risk however minor) it takes to steal it. In short, Games Workshop needs to be preparing to the day that they MUST shift to selling the downloads directly and accept that it is better to sell the stuff bulk and make a profit than sell a model once and then never sell another.

[Chris Copeland]

Go read the novel "The Diamond Age" by Niel Stephenson. Home printing is coming and will be ubiquitous. I agree with my old friend Cairsidhe: GW (and others) can either fight the tidal wave (ala the music industry) or adapt and make some money (ala Apple)... the choice is theirs.

[Defenestratus]

I'm not telling them to ignore it. I'm telling them to get ahead of it and embrace the new market they will have to deal with. The music industry fought a losing battle for almost two decades until they finally broke down and changed their strategy. Now they are back in the black. When you provide a product at a reasonable price, most people will pay for it rather than go through the up front costs or effort (and risk however minor) it takes to steal it. In short, Games Workshop needs to be preparing to the day that they MUST shift to selling the downloads directly and accept that it is better to sell the stuff bulk and make a profit than sell a model once and then never sell another.

I completely agree.

[Defenestratus]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/16/3d-printing-goes-mainstream-liveblog/

Its happening and sooner than you may think.