Makerbot can print with Adobe.
Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) has announced it is taking the burgeoning 3D designer and maker movement seriously. Serious enough to release a tool called Photoshop CC, expressly designed to ameliorate the gooey, troublesome-prone craft of 3D printing.
Hearts of bloggers are meshing and melting into extruded lines of plastic happiness with the announcement. By aiding new Makerbot users in their quest to print the ultimate vase or Yoda figurine, Adobe may well have a hit on its hands. But like all other things associated with 3D printing, it pays to be cautiously optimistic.
In IT Blogwatch, bloggers print the future, layer by layer.
Filling in for our humble blogwatcher Richi Jennings, is a humbler Stephen Glasskeys.
Rohan Pearce creates a 3D scan:
Software vendor Adobe has added direct support for 3D printing to Photoshop. An updated to the company's subscription-based Creative Cloud suite rolled out on 16 January includes direct support for desktop 3D printers from MakerBot and the Shapeways online 3D printing service....
The Cube 3D Printer is also supported, but printing to it and to other devices that do not yet have Photoshop 3D printer profiles requires the export of an STL file to a USB drive. MORE
Prompting Jackie Dove to examine all three axes:
Adobe is cranking up the buzz around Photoshop CC, its flagship imaging app, with the debut of new 3D printing capabilities. Photoshop artists can now easily refine, preview, prepare, and print 3D designs to a 3D printer right from Photoshop CC....
While Photoshop has offered a 3D component for years...3D has evolved from a rather narrow focus of medical imaging and product packaging to consumer creation of 3D objects....
Adobe aims to bridge what it calls the "3D software gap" between creation of 3D objects and actual production of viable products and services....
3D printing is challenging because the models used to print are not always up to the task: There may be holes in the mesh, or the object walls can't stand up...or the structures are not strong enough to support the model. ... Photoshop's 3D utility aims at "single click easy" printing for a range of local printers and online services. MORE
Straight from the paint horse's mouth:
By radically simplifying the 3D print process, Photoshop CC will become the go-to tool for anyone who wants to print a 3D model....
With today’s release of Photoshop CC, designs can be printed to a locally connected 3D printer or via built-in access to popular online 3D print services. Photoshop CC supports the most popular desktop 3D printers, such as the MakerBot Replicator, and also supports the full range of high quality materials available on Shapeways -- the 3D printing community and marketplace -- including ceramics, metals, and full color sandstone. Additionally, Photoshop users can now directly upload their 3D models to the Sketchfab 3D publishing service, and embed them in their Behance profile using Sketchfab’s interactive 3D viewer. MORE
So Ken Yeung slices instructions:
With the popularity of 3D printing, Adobe sought to help make it more appealing to the mainstream so anyone can design and print their own creation. The new feature allows users to do is take objects they find online, from a 3D scanner, or from a modeling tool and import it directly into Photoshop....
Once you’re done creating your 3D model, where can you print it out? If you have your own 3D printer, chances are that Photoshop CC will support it. The software has integration with the most popular desktop 3D printers. ... But if you need to send the file off to a third-party service, Photoshop [has partnerships] with...Shapeways [and] Sketchfab. MORE
With Frederic Lardinois tweaking settings:
While you could always create basic 3D models in Photoshop, it’s clearly not a tool that was designed for this job, and Adobe freely acknowledges this. Because of this, the company assumes that you are bringing in models from a third-party tool and then finishing them in Photoshop....
Adobe also sees Photoshop as an ideal intermediary step between designing 3D models and printing them. The tool can take virtually any 3D model in the standard...formats and prepare them for printing. ... It will also look for potential issues with the model, so users don’t waste a lot of time and material trying to print a model that doesn’t actually work....
Adobe is clearly very interested in 3D printing, and given its heritage as a company that caters to creative professionals, I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued to invest heavily in this area. Currently, Adobe doesn’t have any 3D modeling tools in its lineup, so maybe it will add this functionality to Photoshop or launch (or acquire) a 3D modeling tool. MORE
We find Jacob Kastrenakes spooling filament:
Adobe is adding several features to make printing a model easy. Users won't have to worry about their model falling apart, because Photoshop will automatically generate temporary supports beneath and around their model to make sure that it doesn't collapse during printing. It's also partnering with MakerBot and Shapeways so that Photoshop can automatically generate previews of how a model will look when it's made by...their printers....
The integration is particularly useful for outputting to Shapeways, a made-to-order 3D-printing service. From inside of Photoshop, you'll be able to see what a printed model should look like when it's made with any of Shapeways' materials, from colored sandstone to solid bronze. The app will even estimate how much the print job will cost. MORE
A pleased Billy Steele shares the results:
Photoshop CC has built-in support for MakerBot [hardware] ... Shapeways online community/marketplace for printing away from home and publishing models via Sketchfab....
Using Sketchfab's 3D viewer, projects can be posted to Behance for online portfolio purposes. Drivers for Makerbot's printers are available for printing directly from Photoshop and support for "the most popular" 3D printer models -- like the 3D Systems Cube -- is slated for the near future. This means that, for now, you can only print directly from Adobe's software to MakerBot's hardware. MORE
Meanwhile, Kane Fulton designs something new:
Adobe reckons its first effort at supporting 3D printing already puts it ahead of competing 3D modelling and printing apps due to its ability to patch up flaws in the 3D meshes of products....
[An Adobe] spokesperson said: "Most importantly in terms of the pain points of 3D printing, Photoshop automatically corrects any problems with the meshes, whether it's holes or wall thickness problems, or they're not watertight, in addition to optimising support structures to ensure the printing happens reliably."...
"The fact is that these problems exist for people trying to accomplish 3D printing, particularly creative types, creating a huge overhead. It may take many hours to fix the models and get them ready to print." MORE
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