It is Alive in the Lab: The POV Dispatch is our Autodesk internal newsletter, published monthly, where we discuss the big ideas that are important to us and our customers. It is published by our Corporate Strategy & Engagement team of which Autodesk Labs is a part. Bill O'Connor is an Innovation Strategist at Autodesk. Bill contributed an article about our 3D printing efforts to a recent issue, and I thought I would share it with you.
4 comments:
THEY ARE NAMING IT ISAAC. They are naming the printer Isaac, and I am pretty sure they are specifically naming it after me. This article had a lot about why Spark would be useful and very very little about how it actually works or any specifications. It seems like this article is all just hype. I hope it is justified though because I think one of the common complaints is that getting the software to work with the printer is often difficult. A software and printer designed to complement each other could go really far. It seems like the difference in buying a windows and a mac. With a windows there are really good computers out there to run it but you have to search for them. With a Mac you know exactly what you are getting and it is often really nice that the software and hardware are designed to work together.
I can see some really grand promise with both of these products. I'm really excited to see how Spark turns out since AutoDesk has been in the Cad business for so long. I must be a really successful program, however the way they describe it as just looking at the weak points of 3D printing and improving it and making it simpler is just very vague and cliche. I'll be curious to see if this actually makes 3D printing more available for the public in years to come similar to how their 123D products made it easier to work in a 3D space on a computer.
I'm also ecstatic that Autodesk has chosen to name their 3D printer after Isaac Rudich. I'm also happy to hear someone closely involved in the 3D modeling and printing industry acknowledge what a disappointment the whole thing has been. I'm very surprised to hear Autodesk, of all companies, is taking an open-source approach to developing the software and hardware for this line. Although, maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise. As expensive as some of their software is, it still is quite a bit more affordable than many of their competitors, specifically Desault. They have also always been much more generous that Desault or even Adobe in giving their software away completely free to students. And with the recent development of the 123D line, free apps based around 3D digital imaging and printing, they are clearly making a stake for themselves in the open source world. Maybe they really are just interested in seeing this technology live up to its promise and revolutionize the way we design and manufacture our world. But I'm guessing there's a boatload of money somewhere in their plan as well.
Although vague, if Spark does what Auodesk says it will, it is going be a game changer. If Spark reduces amount of test prints and learning curve for 3D printing software, it sounds like anybody who knows CAD will be able to print with relative ease. Additionally, the fact that they plan to release a 3D printer with it to demo Spark will help a lot if it works. I like the comparison they made to Android and the Nexus One, because it was definitely a game changer. I hope this is successful.
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