makezine.com: Shapeways has established themselves as a leader in on-demand 3D printing services. With a community of over 40,000 shops and more than 600,000 items that you can browse, customize, and purchase right now, their impact on the market makes them a great place to try new materials and methods of 3D printing. Today, Shapeways has announced that they are teaming up with HP to give their community access to HP’s new Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology.
2 comments:
This is definitely a big leap for HP. I have to give them some credit, they are not only keeping up with the times, they are leading the charge on technology that is rapidly growing. Although I am no familiar with this type of 3D printing, I could tell from the video that it uses a completely different process and almost looks like there is a 2nd step that includes demolding the item. I am curious to see what other big corporations will latch onto the product and even if we will begin to see it in the university setting. The ever-evolving 3D printing industry is something that I like to pay close attention to. A lot of people seem to think that it will have a large role in our lives as it continues to improve. And seeing how much money these corporations are putting into it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more and more readily available to everyday consumers.
This business model makes a lot of sense. Not everyone can get a 3D printer, but a lot of people might want 3D printed objects even if they can’t print them themselves. Afterall, even now that standard printers are pretty ubiquitous, there are still shops where you can go if you need something printed in a large format, on special paper, or with a higher quality printer. I think as 3D printing technology becomes more common more of these types of businesses will appear, not just online, but I think some physical 3D print shops will start to appear. I actually expect that those types of stores will become pretty common during a window of time when 3D printing is just becoming accessible enough that someone can get a few and open a shop, and then will start to become less common when everyone has a 3D printer, but even then, just like the printing shops that exist today, I don’t think they will die out entirely.
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