Hmmmm…
interesting.
I hope they don’t screw it up and make it so I can’t use what I want to use to run my printer.
You can add whatever printer driver or printing software you want for 2d printers now.
The key is the drivers, with fewer options if any, other than what the printer manufacturer provides. Those have to meet certain standards of the OS.
So I am not worried about this. It’s a necessary step in the democratization of the tech. It will never reach market saturation without fundamental support like this.
Makerbots to be sold in Microsoft stores. The API only supports Makerbot and CubeX. This on the heals of the Makerbot acquisition… Call me cynical but I feel this is the beginning of the end of a great thing. Once the top dogs in the 3d printing community are gobbled up and consolidated we will be back where we were before the oft mentioned manufaturing revolution. I am waiting for the lawsuits to start flying on 3d printer IP to clean up the rest of the competition.
no mention off the reprap community, shame on the shitheads, want belong before they try adding DRM into the mix start to block prints. like these freaky Dans… http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130626-danish-company-says-its-software-will-stop-you-from-3d-printing-guns.html
Wait what, it’s not suddenly April 1st again? Sounds like something off Onion news… o_o
It will be ripped from the hands of the people. Those who helped facilitate the rise( i.e. repRap community and derived products) will be bought out or tied up in legal battles. The larger audience will miss the point. We are not angry at success. We are not angry at the meteoric success of Bre and company. We are angry that the Rebellion is joining the Empire rather than helping destabilize it.We are angry that we are witnessing yet another consolidation and monopolization of an emerging truly democratic market.
Thanks for sharing.
realize that this will not prevent the reprap community from doing what it does. it simply sets a framework that will be standard. there was another article that mentioned it is intended to work with printers currently ranging from $800-$8000. I have it open at work I will post it tomorrow. I believe it also mentions working with Reprap style machines natively. but I am not sure.
@Camerin_hahn the problem is with who is setting that standard : will it be open ? Will the specs tool be accessible to all ? Will the implementation be of quality ?
It would be good if the answer to all those questions was “yes” sadly given microsoft’s track record and the close sourcing of makerware I do not believe so.
I don’t see why this is an issue. If Linux wants to add native support to 3D printing then great. There is nothing stopping them.
@CoffeeSCad the kinect is a good example of an API that microsoft has recently supported. Look through the code repos on the microsoft pages for that, it is pretty nice IMHO. As i said i remember seeing an article with more details (marginally more). Native support by the company the largest market capture for an operating system is a step forward for the community (<90%). the non native methods for printing would still work, just the native methods would be easier to work with.
Considering that NetFabb is who they’re working with and there are non-Makerbot machines on display at their booth, I’d say there’s a good chance that Windows will play nicely with all sorts of machines. If not, well, we still have all the software that we’re using right now: http://www.netfabb.com/blog/index.php?bid=159
To be clear, I have reviewed the API and it simply exposes a way of working with 3d printer drivers. While I admit my statements can be viewed as FUD spreading; I have genuine concern about an innovative community being gobbled up by the machine, and turning to the same pointless iterative churns that we witness current market leaders go through. Innovation is a buzz word used by the likes of Apple and M$ attached to products which are the antithesis of innovation; all the while milking their position by purchasing competition or tying them up in lawsuits simply because they have the budget to do so.