Wow, who'd have thought Autodesk's entry into 3d printing would be open source?

Wow, who’d have thought Autodesk’s entry into 3d printing would be open source? I’d expect the form1 folks to have worried looks on their faces right now. No one want’s to compete with autodesk. Very interested to see what this spark thing looks like.

Originally shared by 3ders.org

Autodesk unveils new 3D printer and Spark, the Android of 3D printing

Yah the printer is interesting, may be a little pricey at ~$5K though given that it’s really a development/reference platform for others to pull apart and work their own ideas from, not too bad.
I’m far more interesting in this Spark platform, what kind of software are we talking here and does it include firmware.

The potential 5K price tag puts it in line with the 3D Systems 1200 desktop SLA. Their main purpose is to use this as a catalyst for SLA development, so I’m sure they’re not too worried about the volume they sell. The real value is getting people to use their Spark platform.

I’ve started diving hard into the fusion 360 products for design so this announcement into open source is pretty damn exciting. That print looks sexy too. 5k or not. You wouldn’t expect Autodesk to roll out something reprapish for a pilot or flagship product. Think Chromebook pixel. Here’s what you can do guys. Now go make it accessible.

The main page and the blog are kinda light on details…is there a technical rundown somewhere? The mention multiple materials…which seems odd for this type of printer…I thought UV reactive resin was all it could use?

@Mike_Miller With SLA there are many types of UV resins. Most of those formulas are proprietary right now though. One of Autodesk’s goals is to encourage open material development. This is very exciting!

Autodesk is not competition. They are dinosaurs. Form1 has nothing to worry about from Autodesk other than their VC’s forcing a buyout.

@Billy Really? They are worth 1.8 billion, have a significant chunk of the conventional 2d and 3d CAD market nailed down, their ceo is home manufacturing enthusiast and with the introduction of this bot and firmware their ecosystem will go from concept/capture, design, slice, host and print without ever touching a non-autodesk product. Plus, they’ll have sales channels into a massive existing global network of design and manufacturing firms.

Their complete 180 in the last few years is the clue. You don’t convert your $4000 software to “free” software if you’re not worried about the competition. You also don’t buy up fetal companies left and right if you feel that you can easily out compete them in the future.

Their legacy sales channels are weight and work against them.

@Billy sorry, which software are you talking about? Autodesk have are a whole bunch of their products, free to those that would otherwise not buy them or pirate them. That’s not necessarily desperation, it could also be ballsy common sense.
Their principal competion are dasault and UGS, both of whom have really only one core product. With an 85%market share in 2d CAD, autodesk need to ensure the eventual transition to 3d cad products allows them to maintain that share. If all the students of today have free access to inventor (combined with a thorough training program and knowledge base). That gives Autodesk a very real advantage over their competitors when those students become tomorrow’s industrial designers. If they further cement this advantage by releasing a holistic and professionally developed software/firmware stack that fills a (currently gaping) hole in the low cost market, they get a head start on integrating their design products into that stack in order to eventually be able to click ‘print’ from inventor or 3ds or Maya or mudbox, and just walk away a la 2d printers.
All off course my opinion, but not an uninformed one.

I think it is a very interesting development. I guess successful CEOs don’t sit on their hands. Microsoft showed that you can make a hugely successful software company without direct control of hardware (at a time when hardware/software were normally supplied by same company), then Google showed at least in smartphones you can be a successful services company without direct control of the software platform (by virtue of it being open source, or mostly).
So while controlling the whole ecosystem can be successful (eg. Apple), commoditizing the hardware and monetizing the software could be a smart move for Autodesk.

I am strongly suspicious of this. Open source goes against everything Autodesk has done and continues doing. Just look at the subscription controversy. Their fruitless attempts to patent the DWG file extension. Their army of lawyers suing left and right. You don’t change a company’s culture like that.

I guess we will see.

Unfortunately for Autodesk but fortunately for the world both 3d printers and CAD/CAM software are being commoditized.

This is innovation in America!!!