Microsoft’s 3D Builder Comes to Windows 8.1 | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft’s 3D Builder Comes to Windows 8.1

blogs.windows.com

75 pointsThomPete23 comments

Reminds me of what iMovie did when it shipped native on Mac. When I was younger it gave me an opportunity to play around with video editing software, and really lowered the barrier to entry.

I would love for this to do something similar in 3D printing where kids might not know where to start, but happen to open up the app and play around.

For a Windows analogy, the Movie Maker of 3D Printing?

I recently started using Google Sketch-up as I've been learning woodworking. Its not the first time I used a CAD or 3D modelling application. I went to high school in a blue collar town, and the local industry bought a bunch of CNC machines for the school. As part of that we learned how to use Auto CAD. I also used lightwave 3D, and 3D studio max (through less than legal means...)

but these latest programs are really making the process dead simple. I'm excited to see the stuff people make with these applications as they become easier to use, and more prevalent.

I'm an avid Sketch-up user (printing primarily with the Replicator 2) but I've been super impressed by www.tinkercad.com lately.

It's browser based (WebGL) but surprisingly powerful.

This is a nicely done windows 8.1 app. Playing with it right now and it really has polish and usability, much more so than any other consumer 3d design program I've ever seen.

EDIT, maybe design program is a little strong, more like 3d manipulation.

This is very good news. Getting a 3D printer is not in my immediate future but OS support for something like this is always a good thing.

I hope it includes a NSFW filter in the parts library. There are things little Johnny should not be able to print.

They can filter the parts library, but if Little Johnny heard of something at school and made his own design, I don't see how the system can prevent that short of a parental lockout / corporate approval system where every printed part must be approved before printing. Even then, the most determined hacker-kids will figure out how to subvert that system.

It looks like it only has a small set of built-in models, then the rest are file imports from somewhere on your machine. It doesn't seem to connect to an online store of models at this point.

I hope you mean 'things like guns' but I fear you mean 'things like dicks'. Meanwhile most of the workforce brings his dick to work while the guns stay home as they are 'not safe for work', as it should be. This is clearly an area were reality comes out ahead...

I never thought of 3d printing in that way. Inevitably someone will work out how to have sex with something.

3D printed sex toys already exist.

I suppose an advantage of them is there's no embarassment in purchasing them, you can tailor them to your body, you can choose colours, etc.

anyone know what kind of files this thing can export to?

I think it imports files, then prints them. I don't think it does modeling on it's own.

You can do very simple manipulation of 3d objects, resizing moving etc.

Looks like a copy of Ultimaker's cura(which is opensource) combined with a copy of thingiverse integrated in the same program.

This is what MS does best, copying someone else idea that already works, and putting money onto it.

It seems that MS is going to put some hundred millions into this as they realized this is the future.

On the surface, perhaps. But as far as I know, Microsoft 8.1 is the only operating system with a standard 3D Printer API defined.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn26313...

Microsoft may not have any innovation in the end-product (its not like any of us expect MS Paint to be "innovative"), but the OS-perspective, they are years ahead of both Mac and Linux. Of course, a de-facto 3d Printing API may eventually be developed for *nix systems, but Microsoft's standardization upon a 3d Printing API puts them far ahead of the curve on this one.

--------------

For other tidbits of OS Innovation, Transactional Filesystems (yeah, its deprecated, but word on the street is that next-generation ReFS is going to support it), User-mode Schedulers, WebSocket supported in the BSD Socket layer, and more.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb96... http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd62... http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh43...

Microsoft's main product is the Windows OS, and they seem to continue to innovate in this sector. Adding 3D Printing support to the OS is only a good thing!

I think you could argue that including a 3d printing api in the os is premature at this point. It could do more harm than good to get in between applications and their target devices when 3d modeling file formats are not yet mature.

I think the level of polish and usabbility this has combines with the standard printing interface will be good for 3d printing in general.

A normal user can now download this 3d printing app and make the realization they could print a custom train set for their kid right now on this device with no fuss if they had a OTC 3d printer.

Pretty cool stuff.

> but the OS-perspective, they are years ahead of both Mac and Linux

Thanks, I needed a laugh.

Hey, when Linux has a standard 3d printing platform, call me. But I'm pretty sure that the OSS Community is either going to copy Microsoft's protocol... or wait several years before they are 3d printer capable.

If Linux can be 3d printer capable within a couple of years, I'll honestly be surprised. And Mac doesn't seem to be going in that direction either. In this area, Windows is clearly superior by default. Microsoft has defined some 3d printing API, and there is no competitor out there for them.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/3D_Printing

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/07/29/native-3d-printing-...

"putting money onto it" - that's one way of saying this, another way is "makes a version that doesn't suck".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com