EDIT: My upload just got rejected. Apparently on top of a known printable object with pictures of it printed they wanted 3D renders of the objects. Funny, thingiverse has created their own 3D renders from day one. And there was nothing about this when I was uploading it the first time. Treasure Island needs content. If they’re going to make it difficult to get that content then they’re not going to have any.
EDIT 2: And now it’s magically accepted. Gonna chalk this one up to growing pains… at a really inopportune time. Hopefully I helped them grow up. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be helping them grow.
Pirate3D, creator of the Buccaneer, a 3D printer that I would love to get my hands on one of, has created their own not-thingiverse called Treasure Island.
Props for sticking with the theme, guys. In name at least.
If you’re a 3D printer manufacturer who is not makerbot I can understand the drive to make a repository of things that is not associated with Makerbot. The problem is you’re competing with the oldest and bigest repository of 3D things to date. You will forever be behind. If you don’t come up with something to make yourself stand apart, and have a ton of luck, it’s a death of obscurity for you.
That said the Pirate3D folks are jumping in with both feet. Slick interface, easy navigation, easy upload, “curated” library so you know you’re only downloading things for your 3D printer, and a bookmark tool for saving the cool things you find for later. There’s still a few rough edges, like the fact that they only accept pictures that are bigger than 1158×560 and the only pictures I have of my lovecraft pawns are 1024×768. Still, they nailed it on ease of uploading, attribution, and editing. And despite their claims of curation my first upload was approved way before they could have actually printed it to verify that it would work. They’re clearly using something to programatically verify prints which puts them ahead of where myminifactory started.
Now all they need is for people to upload some cool things.
Treasure Island is still young and it has a lot of room to grow, so I’ll withhold judgement for a little while. But I will say, as a content creator, that they need something to incentivize model producers like myself to use their service. Personally, I’m still looking for a good place I can offer paid models. Either that or if Pirate3D would be willing to send me a Buccaneer I’d negotiate exclusive first show rights to anything I produce for some length of time. Call me.
