Digital fabrication tools have revolutionized the way designers, engineers, and artisans express their creativity. With the right resources, you can learn to use these powerful instruments in no time! Whether it’s 3D printing or laser cutting that interests you, these articles will provide useful tutorials and inspiration for makers of all levels. Discover how digital fabrication can open up new possibilities so that your craftsmanship is truly extraordinary!
What would your reaction be to moving into an apartment and finding an old broken IKEA lamp? Normally you’d throw it out, but not if you’re Industrial Designer Samuel Bernier. Instead he designed and 3D printed a series of intricate lampshades.
Sketchfab, a website for uploading and sharing 3D models for free, is a great way to easily add an interactive element to your web content. Their model viewer can be embedded in almost any webpage, and they’re adding new features on a fairly regular basis. I caught up with co-founder Alban Denoyel to check in on their progress.
Social Coding company GitHub has released a free, in-browser viewer for STL files in full 3D. In comparison to the iterative, collaborative environments for working on software, hardware has a lot of ground to make up, and GitHub’s doing great work to push things along. I’m eager to see how this grows and how it’s used in comparison to popular services like Thingiverse.
The MakerBot Replicator 2X is now available in the Maker Shed! This model is optimized for ABS printing and has two extruders, opening up a host of printing possibilities. In addition to printing two colors, you can use one extruder to print a support structure for the other, or print two small objects at the same time.
MAKE publisher Dale Dougherty looks at the current state of the 3D printing industry and asks: “How soon do you think we’ll get to one million printers and what will drive those sales?”
Imagine being about to 3D print customized characters, enemies, and props from your favorite computer games. That’s the idea behind Sandboxr.
Creators of Tinkercad announced earlier this week that they would no longer be developing the popular cloud-based CAD tool. We’re fans of Tinkercad here at Make, having written about and praised it on the blog and in our Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing, so this is sad news. The free version is still available to use between now and the end of April, and paying customers will have access until the end of 2013.
Here are a few other free alternatives to TinkerCAD, starting with what I think is the most beginner-friendly and ending with the least beginner-friendly.
