This is go-anywhere printing, complete with IP protection. The new initiative to take Cloud printing to the world comes from two leading companies in the field — Pinshape, and 3DPrinterOS. The truly huge deal here is that the Cloud printing comes with safeguards for very valuable intellectual property.
A brief scene-setter — currently, 3D printing files and information have to go through third parties on the high end scale. This exposes the coded information to theft, hacking, or copying. Understandably, many IP owners aren’t in any hurry to trust their extremely valuable IP babies to the market, particularly at patent stage. IP is worth billions, daily, in revenue to individuals, corporations and nations, and the risk factor has been a major issue for all involved, until now.
The new method is a secure print only, with no exposure of the IP code. Cloud printing also makes 3D printing options very mobile, able to be printed anywhere. If you want to send a working model of a widget to someone in Peru, it takes a few clicks. You can also print other people’s designs on your own printer.
Now the big picture — 3D printing, at a certain level of efficiency, leaves mass production for dead. It’s selective. It prints anything, anywhere, anytime. There’s no significant labor involved, and the choice of products available is literally going nova around the world. There are more 3D products coming on the market every minute.
You can see why I was in such a hurry to do an interview with Pinshape’s CEO, Lucas Matheson, when the opportunity arose. Lucas is one of the people with both the big picture and a working knowledge of the hands-on side of the new 3D printing options.
Can you map out the advantages to users with the new Pinshape/ 3D Printer OS direct Cloud to printer options?
One of the biggest challenges right now in consumer 3D printing is finding exciting models to print. The integration with 3DPrinterOS helps designers, brands, and companies share/sell 3D models on Pinshape without sharing the source code. This attracts really high quality models that aren’t available anywhere else, and brings unique products to our community.
For our community, this also makes the print experience easier. Today, most people download an .stl file, uploaded into a slicing engine, copy the gcode to a memory card, insert the memory card into their printer, and then print. With streaming built right into Pinshape, users can click a few buttons and start a print job that’s optimized for their printer and filament.
IP protection is a major issue for many inventors and product developers. How does the new approach protect IP?
Agreed. The lack of IP protection is preventing a significant amount of existing 3D content from coming online. With this technology, models are sliced for each printer, and the gcode (printer instructions) is sent directly from the cloud to the printer without sharing the source code.
Going forward, I think we’ll see a lot of companies start to make 3D models of the products / accessories available online. This trend is driven by consumer’s interest in customizing and personalizing products. Soon, customers will have the ability to come to Pinshape and customize models directly online, click a button, and own something unique.
Is this “print on demand” for home users?
Most of the printers supported by 3DPrinterOS are consumer based printers. That said, it’s really designed for anyone at home or the office. As more products come online that are streamable, we expect to see a significant increase in the number of professional companies printing directly from Pinshape’s marketplace.
Can anyone use the new printing system? If so, any fees involved?
It’s open to anyone who has a 3D printer connected online. In terms of fees, all the designers and companies on our marketplace set their own price per model, and they all control the licensing around each model. Most of the models on Pinshape are free. Now that we’ve integrated streaming technology and have the ability to protect files, we’re starting to attract more high quality paid content.
Home printing is also business printing for some designers selling products. Where can they learn more about Cloud printing?
If you’re a designer and looking to market your digital portfolio to customer to print at home, you can make your models available for ‘stream’ only on the Pinshape platform. Here is a video that explains how this works
There are plenty of third party commercial printers on the market now, printing anything and everything for their clients. Can they use your new Cloud printing for getting print files from clients?
As more printing bureaus emerge, and quality / price becomes more attractive, we will open our platform to allow customers to order 3D prints from bureaus around the world. Today, the utilization rate of printers is expensive, and as we see faster, more efficient hardware enter the market, consumers will see opportunity to take advantage of the technology and own 3D printed products. At the end of the day, consumers want great products that are affordable, and 3D printing is close to being a part of this.
3D Printer OS currently serves a pretty wide bandwidth of top of the line, well-known commercial printers – How difficult is it to get new printer designs working with the new Cloud print options?
The team at 3DPrinterOS is incredible at working with manufacturers to integrate and support the current and future printers firmware that are entering the market. They seemingly add new printers every week so it’s been an easy transition to get new printers ready for cloud printing.
Further to the hardware issues – Software vs hardware is a picky issue for some systems. How are the hardware guys reacting to the new Cloud printing opportunities?
We have a long way to go in terms of software. With hundreds of 3D printers on the market, having custom OS for printers is proving inefficient. Eventually, the technology challenges around this will become standardized. Recently, the 3MF Consortium was announced, and they’re looking at creating a new file format in the industry. For 3DPrinterOS, the market reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, as their customers start to use their printers much more often. Hardware manufacturers have been desperately waiting for neutral OS to make it easy.
Some third party printers also provide CAD services, creating design files for their clients. Looks like Cloud printing is a good option for them, with IP protection and multiple choices of printers to work with?
We see this technology benefiting a wide range of companies from design shops to gaming companies, toy companies, product companies, etc. The bigger challenge with IP in the industry is going to be around modification of files and brand protection. Companies don’t want outside parties manipulating their assets, and as the consumer segment evolves this will need to be addressed. What the difference between fan art and derivative works? It’s grey.
If you’re getting the impression that Cloud printing will introducing a new dynamic into all aspects of 3D printing, you’re right. This is the breakthrough to a truly global, high-efficiency working model of 3D printing across a vast range of products. These principles are easily scalable, and highly cost-effective.
This initiative includes many long-overdue better business options for all types of product. In terms of product distribution alone, Cloud printing is so much more efficient that it will revolutionize commerce. Standardization of printers will deliver massive benefits at all ends of the supply chain, from consumers to printer manufacturers.
A process which works on the consumer scale will have a lot of positive upsides for the commercial scale, too. Instead of making and selling a product, why not let the consumer print it? Imagine the values. Imagine a world where everything you want is accessible, anywhere in the world. That’s where this idea is going, and this is the first step.
Check out that video Lucas mentioned above, and you’ll see how easy this process is. This is simplification at its best, and it’s exactly what 3D printing needs to become the default option for sourcing all kinds of products. Expect the future to be a lot easier to live with and work with, because the world’s best products and tech are about to become a lot more accessible.
