You hear about 3D printing here and there, but for the most part it’s a bit irrelevant to the average person because fabrication is messy, difficult, and prohibitively expensive. Even dedicated DIYers have to get their stuff custom made. Hopefully that will all change with Shapeways, a new service which bills itself as a sort of Etsy for 3D models.
Users submit their designs in whatever 3D document format they like, and Shapeways does pretty much all the rest. Say you design a cool Megatron model or an improved coat hanger. People will be able to browse by category or go to featured pages just like any other user-generated merchandise site. They order it and it gets made and shipped, and within ten days, they’ll have a nice neutral-colored Megatron and you get however much money you put as the markup.
It’s not clear exactly how you are limited precision and size-wise; obviously you’re not going to be replicating 19th-century mechanical watches, and likewise you won’t be prototyping a new all-plastic car. Still, it’s a good size for miniatures, components of things, accessories, nozzles of various kinds, you get the idea. The best part is the descriptions, which run along the lines of “extruded with ‘mograph spline wrap’ on a cube with helix-shape spline.”
There’s nothing surprising about the business model, which is proven many times over, but the question to be settled is whether there’s enough market to keep this neat little service alive. I’d like to think so. And now I have a use for my 3D-savvy friends. They’re gonna design me up a sweet exoskeleton for my dog.
The site is live, as you can see, but it should be noted that it won’t be possible to order stuff until early Wednesday according to people who know these things.
Here’s the full press release, which I neglected to include at first:
SHAPEWAYS SHOPS HAVE ARRIVED:
NEW GLOBAL MARKETPLACE FOR 3D PRINTED PRODUCTS LAUNCHESFrom Model Trains to Gadgets, Shapeways Shops launches for 3D designers to Sell their Products in the Worlds First 3D to Reality Marketplace
CES – January, 2008 – Shapeways, the 3D printing and production service, announced today the
launch of the much anticipated Shapeways Shops. The Shops offer artists, designers and hobbyists alike, a unique online platform to show and sell their designs to a world-wide audience. This new marketplace enables anyone to make money with their 3D modeling skills, bridging the gap between the digital 3D models and real tangible products.More details can be found at www.shapeways.com/shops
Shapeways makes unique production affordable. Whether you design beautiful interior
accessories or make useful items for you and your fellow hobbyists. You don’t have to think about
mass production anymore. From now on you can actually make money with your 3D models.
Upload your models and sell them at the Shapeways Shop and start your own personal
production line without any investments.Shapeways does everything for you: payment service, customer support, production and
shipment, which is all provided free of cost. All you have to do is creating your own 3D models.Shapeways provides an easy, online interface for 3D artists and contemporary design consumers
of all skill levels to order their reasonably priced 3D designs as physical, printed objects. Within
ten business days, a tangible, 3D product will be produced and arrive at the customers home.
Join Shapeways and become a member of the vibrant and creative community to share your
knowledge, interest and now make some money with things you really like to do.
Key Points:- Shapeways offers an online platform for 3D creative’s to show and sell their designs to a
world-wide audience
- Shop owners can price the items they are selling with their own mark up.
- Artists and designers keep the copyright rights to their designs / products.
- Shapeways assumes full responsibility for production, orders, shipping and customer
service enabling designers to focus on doing what they do best: Imagine and create.
- Shapeways accepts most file formats of 3D modeling software (.STL, VRML, .X3D,
colada) what makes uploading a design easy and efficient.
- Users and potential buyers can browse through their favorite designs easily through
categorized objects the can enter the shop via the models or via the shop gallery.
- Shop owners have the ability to promote their shop and 3D designs on the Shapeways
landing page as well as display feedback and comments through Shapeways Shops.About Shapeways:
Shapeways is a 3D printing and production service that harnesses the power of a global network
of 3D production service partners to ensure cost-efficient, reliable manufacturing and order
fulfillment of 3D designs starting with custom 3D printing. Shapeways, passionate about creating.
Shapeways is spinning-out from the Lifestyle Incubator of Royal Philips Electronics, located in
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Nice Save with the Megatron Remark.. otherwise I would have thought this service to be rather pointless.. but COOL!
Yeah, I think it’s the kind of service where it seems pointless to everyone who doesn’t have a use for it. Sounds a bit self-evident, but I think you know what I mean.
Unlike Twitter, this is actually very useful to me and I will join-up ASAP!
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
lol@twitter
i’m so with you on that
‘Ode to Boogieman’ playset $625.25 Excl. Vat. I think I’ll pass.
Wonder how many people submit funny models.
Funny ha ha or funny uh oh?
A first step towards the future of full automated fabrication, and truly local manufacturing.
Milled, cast, laminated, and sintered metal parts, and fully automated assembly will soon follow, and from then it’s only a matter of time.
In 20 years, you’ll be able to locate, customize and order your new muscle car, have it built precisely to your exact specifications, and be able to drive it out of the factory, down the road. Or bicycle, boat, vacuum cleaner, electric guitar, or any other electro-mechanical device. Exciting times.
Great comment. I call it the Minority Report effect!
Yasser
http://www.jobstaxi.com
I think so too. It may not be that this site will be a major success, but the fact that it’s even launching for real is a sign of the times.
I Think the business model is really unique. This is an example of a great business idea with a good innovation engine.
Praveen
http://spraveenitpro.blogspot.com
The first?
Never heard of Protolabs I guess.
Protolabs is slightly different, since it delivers parts created by CNC milling of resin blocks. Heck, you can buy your own CNC milling machine fairly cheaply. Add SolidWorks/Pro Engineer or Autodesk Inventor & off you go.
3D printing, which is what Shapeways is using, is much closer to 3D Stereolithography technology, based on liquid resin or sintered metal, which has been around for many years.
Furthermore, Shapeways seem to be able to accept a much wider range of 3D object formats, rather than the Pro-E/STEP/STL formats used by MCAD programs. Being able to use Studio Max, Maya or Modo to create solid objects is a huge breakthrough, imho.
The promise of 3D printing is to deliver those parts at a much lower cost than those older technologies. That’s a big deal.
True enough. The headline is technically inaccurate, but I’d say it’s the first _consumer-oriented_ market. Thanks for the extra info, iggy.
I’m gonna have to go with lazysupper up there.
Not only that, but Shapeways has been around for a year or so…it’s not new…
nice store. finally will be acquired by amazon.com in 2 year. just my thought. :)
I agree with syawal in thinking that Amazon are going to start getting into the digital manufacturing business, not least because it cuts down on warehousing and opens up more fully the infinite inventory.
As well as Shapeways, I identify several other fabrication sites – from T-shirt printers to Print on demand books – that Amazon might well be tempted to pick up if they do make a play as digital manufacturer: ‘Amazon “Edge Services” – Digital Manufacturing’ [ http://ouseful.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/amazon-edge-services-digital-manufacturing/ ]
Sounds a bit like http://www.ponoko.com/ to me, who have been around for a while.
Valuable input. I looked up their products here:
http://www.zookfind.com/searchme.php?type=image&query=ponoko
(linkback) Thrive or Fail? Shapeways creates first online market for 3D fabrication models [VOTE] – http://www.thriveorfail.com/06c8c
Patent lawyers will descend on them like a plague of locusts.
What is great about Shapeways is that it has potential to open 3D printing technology to everyone – at the moment it is only accessible if you can use (and afford) 3D packages with their steep learning curves and prescriptive formats. To see very intuitive 3D content creation software go to anarkikangels web site and see a video of Cre8 (http://www.anarkikangels.co.uk/VideoGallery.aspx) which we developed for a haptic device manufacturer. The next stage is the addition of .stl functionality for 3D printing. Have a look in the Gallery at the designs and the 3D printed objects that jewellers, artists and designers with either no, or very little, CAD experience have produced on our demonstration application. The combination with ‘easy and fun to use’ software will really open up this technology to everyone.
the current 3d printing services open a sweet box with many surprises now. We will see a lot of exciting stuff happening in user-generated design/user co-creation in the next few months. We have just entered the infancy…
Tried to open the shapeways/shop site but I get a (nice) 404 Error page. Thought the shops are already launched…?
We are going to go live with the Shops on the 8th. We currently have a private closed beta but people that are not in this beta can not see the Shops. Sorry about that.
The URL will be:
http://www.shapeways.com/shops
What shapeways is trying to do is admirable – in making 3D printing accessible to all. Our company http://www.jujups.com is attempting the same and we are aware of the many difficulties that it entails.
Cost and Quality are obstacles – but these will come down. This year we hope to see 3D printing becoming a consumer technology.
Sivam
Think you will be proofed right this year Sivam!
Ponoko has been doing it for some time now. They were a TC40 company. Not that they get much traction, though. Neither I expect these ones to be too popular.
A useless gift category.
Yes, if someone could speak to the comparison with Ponoko, I’d appreciate it. I’ve watched from the sidelines as they’ve struggled (and grown) for a while now, and (a) I don’t know if this kind of service can really be brought to a broad enough audience to make it a successful business, and (b) don’t understand what, if anything, is different between Shapeways and Ponoko. This article is written as though it is the first company to try to do this, or at least the only one trying to do it now, and Ponoko is fairly prominent in this area.
Its about time that people will be able to “print” their 3d models without having to be super rich…
@iggy
The headline reads “Shapeways creates first online market for 3D fabrication models“. Proto Labs does this.
Respectfully, you’re mistaken.
Shapeways is different, but I should have been much clearer.
What Protolabs does is a fast turnaround fabrication service based on CNC milled parts or molds. You, as the customer, provide the CAD file, and they’ll do the fabrication. The value-add comes from the short turnaround time, but in all other respects they are not substantially different to any other prototyping/fab shop.
What Shapeways provides is the ability to take existing designs, from their website, customize and then fabricate. They provide designs, and a tool to manipulate that design. Think of it as solid 3D content.
Ally that with 3D printing, which permits the fabrication of objects of significantly more geometric and topological complexity than milling, then you have a fabrication service that is well positioned to address the needs of 3D artists and sculptors.
I don’t disbelieve you, but there’s nothing on ProtoLabs website (and I’ve looked at http://protolabs.com/) to support the notion that they facilitate the ability for their customers to publish and/or share 3D models. That bit, is quite revolutionary.
The header image really caught my attention. Sounds interesting. I’ll check it out.
In 2005 my Company Digital Reality published a demo of our patent pending concept for consumer-based mass-customization called Made To Order Digital Manufacturing Enterprise. We’re working on a launch sometime this year (delays moved us back) but suffice it to say that we were talking about and working on this idea back in 2004 when http://www.customatix.com that made custom shoes and that same year http://www.3dcontentcentral went live and http://www.vistaprint. In 2006 we watched Zazzle.com launch. The light went on and we filed provisional patents. We’re prosecuting now and if/when awarded, depending on the outcome, Digital Reality will be uniquely positioned to own rights to a great deal of the business model company’s such as Shapeways are creating. By that time, we hope to have our own system running. You will agree it is a much more broad-based concept…after all, we”ve had years to think about it! I hope the guys over at Shapeways and us cane work together instead of against.
hmm.. interesting … interesting
The headline reads “Shapeways creates first online market for 3D fabrication models“.
http://www.Rapidobject.com does it Since 2005
http://www.Reality-Service.com (offline) does it Since 2006
http://www.fabidoo.com does it Since 2007