I wonder how long it will be before we can port our Poser/DAZ files into this 3D Printer?

http://news.yahoo.com/you-don-t-bring-a-3d-printer-to-a-gun-fight----yet.html

It would have been about two to three years ago, actually.  Back when e-frontier was offering the service. As for now, you can totally do it - I can't garuntee it's perfectly legal...not sure what the EULA says about 3D prints.... but you'd have to do some prep work first.

I had my old Ssorya Poser character printed back in the day by 3d-art-to-part. Good print too, though the materials were cheap. Recently had some stuff printed by Ownage but they weren't Poser models- that was some quality work. Hand painted to get the look of the models from ZBrush right. Very nice job there.

The home printer in the article has a Pro version that is pretty good in terms of detail considering the price. Won't be long before we're all printing statues on the fly.

Probably not long ...possibly now if you converted from poser to shapeways. But I wouldn't worry about poser users printing guns, it'll be NVITWAS's:) Seriously though theres a interesting notion. If most high street photo-printers won't print naughty photos, would a 3d printer refuse to print the kinda poser models, some poser users like?

Every so often, the subject of 3D printing comes up again.

Major problem is with DAZ's EULA which interprets this as redistribution of their mesh.

The other problem is DAZ/Poser characters are not suitable for this type of reproduction without a lot of mesh mods to make it "watertight".

Not just watertight but scaled up to allow for thickness assuming clothing is involved and even then, if the clothing doesn't have actual thickness, you'll have to create it, cap it or go without.

Ah...interesting points.  I was thinking Marquettes of some of my  figures I've done in my art.  Perhaps I'll just be patient and wait for the Angelatron (from "Bones") to become available and make some then.

Oh yea the techie side is certainly a challenge. Though I like CyberDream's point about EULA's. Citing copyright, supermarkets bakers already refuse to print photos on kids birthday cakes if the kid is wearing a football shirt or dressed as something like scobby doo. Highstreet photo kiosks, and sometimes the staff, ask if the work to be printed is professional. Which for me often is, and I've been asked a few times to prove it's my work or if I'm a pro. While thats easy to confirm, in future will 3D printers ask us to prove we own something before printing it? If so where does that leave things like fan-arts?

Attached Link: http://news.yahoo.com/you-don-t-bring-a-3d-printer-to-a-gun-fight----yet.html

Quote - This was in the news a day or so ago.

It would be far easier to here in the States to just go buy a gun (and a lot safer to fire, too)...

Quote - Highstreet photo kiosks, and sometimes the staff, ask if the work to be printed is professional. Which for me often is, and I've been asked a few times to prove it's my work or if I'm a pro.

So, you go in with your USB and ask them to make prints and they want you to prove the images are yours? What, they insist on printing directly from the camera? I mean, the EXIF is easy to fake. How do you prove a CG image belongs to you? Show them all your WIP's?

So, you go in with your USB and ask them to make prints and they want you to prove the images are yours? What, they insist on printing directly from the camera? I mean, the EXIF is easy to fake. How do you prove a CG image belongs to you? Show them all your WIP's? I've never experienced it with renders, often the staff will ask how you did those. Usually because they like it or it's very different from the usual images. Especially when print 6ft long renders of V3 vorgs :) It's only with photos I've had this. On the 1hr and instant kodak kiosks in Boots theres a screen about this, which you just click yes, so yea pretty pointless. It's the staff that will sometimes ask, usually in Boots or Jessops. I asked why once and was told the staff are trained to look out for images that are deemed as looking 'professional'. Not sure how they define that, but I've noticed it's more likely to happen with the stuff most people don't do. Like aerial or long-lens action images. But when I took in some arty B&W's landscapes for posters recently, the kinda image you'd think they'd ask about, all their guy asked was what ND grads where used. http://webaux.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=14076&pq-locale=en_US

Great story about modeling and 3D printing for an injured bald eagle.

http://grist.org/list/injured-bald-eagle-gets-new-3-d-printed-beak/

Ah, okay. I was beginning to worry that photography in Britain had become a practice limited only to licensed government lackeys, what with all the stories about photographers being harrassed by police there.

Still, when I go into a print shop, it's none of their business. If they want everyone to check a box on a form assuring them that they hold the copyright, that's fine with me... but inspecting images for suspicious levels of skill? Urrrghh. That's one print shop I would never return to.

As somebody that is thousands (and thousands) of dollars in debt for a sculpture degree, Teyons comment "The home printer in the article has a Pro version that is pretty good in terms of detail considering the price. Won't be long before we're all printing statues on the fly." is a little disturbing. Not that I'm against the idea of 3d printing, It was quite a hot topic in the sculpture dept. of the school I attended. One of the the nice things about digital modeling is that you can create an object in a contrived three dimensional space and not have to worry about where to store it, or it's scale, etc. Do we really need more detritus in the world?, or 3d printed versions of bad poser art "on the fly"? At least when someone goes to make a ceramic or plaster Garden Gnome they need to have enough skill to use a slip cast or case mold. Imagine hit print, quite the boon to the world of kitsch.

Anyway, just some thoughts... hope I haven't irritated anyone again.

Quote -  Do we really need more detritus in the world?, or 3d printed versions of bad poser art "on the fly"? At least when someone goes to make a ceramic or plaster Garden Gnome they need to have enough skill to use a slip cast or case mold. Imagine hit print, quite the boon to the world of kitsch.

Pretty much how I felt when digital cameras first became mainstream and affordable. Shortly after that, they were on everyone's phones. Fortunately, this coincided with the urge to share online, so we were not inundated with people holding thick packets of 4x6's of their friends vomiting outside a nightclub. Unfortunately, it does not seem possible to browse any photography sites without slogging through endless screens of very bad vacation snapshots and blurry sunsets.

3D printing is a slow moving train, but once it has gathered enough steam, it will start to cause all sorts of issues - both good and bad. 

It's kind of odd to me how long it's taken to get off the ground, considering it's been around since the mid to late 1980s. I suspect it has something to do with the manufacturing industry trying to keep the lid on it/costs higher than the average consumer can afford. Of course that is largely speculative, but just like with 3D software - for years it was something only hollywood and big studios used.

Combined with 3D scanning, once it becomes an average consumer affordable process, what is going to happen to the manufacturing world? 

I was reading an article that predicted it would replace retail stores, much like the digital camera has reduced photography developers to self-run kiosks in walmart, and services like Netflix and Redbox have reduced movie rentals to vending machines and online streaming. In the not-too-distant future - a decade or less - instead of paying shipping on your order from Amazon, you'll just download the digital file and print it out on your desktop. 

Of course, 2D printers haven't replaced traditional books and magazines, devices like Kindel are causing book publishers to close and consolidate in droves.

All of this technology is great, one one hand, but what happens when technology replaces the need for factory workers and skilled craftsmen? Or even offsets it to such an extent that there are more consumers than there are a need for real people running the presses because all their jobs have become automated.

It's likely too far fetched for most people to consider a threat at this point, but I see it causing problems in the future, even though the technology behind it is great for the individual.

~Shane

"Do we really need more detritus in the world?"

Inexpensive and easy to use cameras, tape recorders, programming languages ... the list goes on. Whenever technology becomes democratized, you inevitably get a lot of dreck - in the eye of the beholder of course. You also get gems that would never have been created and talents who would have never have emerged had the means of creation been more limited. The internet is probably the greatest example in history to this point. It may make sifting through the pile more challenging, but on the whole, it's IMO a positive development. The alternative may be culture dictated from the top down.  It may result in a certain popularity for kitsch, but that has always existed.  In the end there will always be a place for excellence though. I don't think that Rodin is going to be replaced by 3D InstaPrinted NVIATWAS. Let a thousand flowers bloom or whatever

*"It's likely too far fetched for most people to consider a threat at this point ..." *

I wouldn't have thought that (print) newspapers and magazines would be in danger of vanishing in my lifetime, or pay phones or a lot of other things. As you say, the social and economic implications are pretty sobering if you think about it. It's not really new. We went from an agrarian to an industrial society and now we're well on the road to post-industrialization. The difference is that the pace of change has become much faster. What's frightening is that I don't think anyone has even a clue as to how to make the transition survivable for large numbers of people.

We already have home sewing machines with computers in them and small computerized cutting machines to make stencils and such. Imagine going down and getting a body scan. You download patterns and produce your own custom fitted clothing at home. There goes a huge swath of the clothing industry. First it was the domestic jobs, next, the overseas sweatshop workers will lose their meager earnings too. I don't see that happening anytiime soon because human labor can be had so cheaply in the developing world but who knows.

*"Or even offsets it to such an extent that there are more consumers than there are a need for real people running the presses because all their jobs have become automated." *

There will always be a need for personal services etc. from emptying bedpans to flipping burgers - until the robots take over. Frankly, I'm surprised that McDonalds hasn't opened an entirely automated store yet, at least as an experiment. Something has to give though - a huge decline in population, interplanetary colonization. Maybe there will be a neo Luddite revolution.

From previous discussions, most poser meshes have too many gaps and holes to be doable.  Then there's problems with clothing and hair.

So my guess is it'd be a long ways off.

I used to think that at least the hands-on service professions were safe from automation. Then I saw that someone had created a machine/robot that cuts hair. We're probably not that far from having machines or robots doing complex surgery, nursing, child care, and teaching. At some point, they manufacture and program each other and, well, we can imagine where that goes, and it isn't keeping people around, entertained by the Matrix.

Well, I'd say that all it would take is one robot barber going Sweeny Todd on a customer to put an end to that trend. In reality though, if it's cheap and convenient enough, people will accept anything. The last service profession to go may be the oldest one. Once the fembots (and a few himbots) put the sex workers out on the street (or rather take them off the street I suppose), then that's all she wrote.

Quote - I used to think that at least the hands-on service professions were safe from automation. Then I saw that someone had created a machine/robot that cuts hair. We're probably not that far from having machines or robots doing complex surgery, nursing, child care, and teaching. At some point, they manufacture and program each other and, well, we can imagine where that goes, and it isn't keeping people around, entertained by the Matrix.

The robot surgery part is already happening for real: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_surgery

Well, it's robot-assisted, which is why I said we're not too far. I don't think anyone will trust themselves yet to an operating room manned (or rather "robotted") by machines only; whereas the hair cutting machine was entirely autonomous.

I saw a BBC documentary recently in which surgeons use robot arms to do the surgery. The surgeans themselves predicted that in a few years the robot/computer would guide itself and the surgeon would only supervise multiple operations at the same time.
Not because of cost efficiency, but because the robots would be more accurate with less chances for mistakes.

It is not so surprising. The large aeroplanes have been landing themselves for more than a decade.

Rigth Wim.
As do cruise missiles.
As do Modern intercepts.
As do the F-22 and the F-35 auto-engage designated air or ground targets.

But it will be some years before I can print me a new car on my home 3D printer :-)

I want a HONDA, where is the file :-)
:-)

Just read on F-16.net that the code for the F-35 is some 9.4 million lines of code.

Nevermind a Honda. I want the F-35. No rush hour traffic for me. ;)