No video has broken my heart as much as this one in the recent past. I want this video to do well. This is a message I believe in. This is me, trying to change the world for the better. I wrote a script, spoke in a calm measured tone, and when I got to the editing… I realized the audio I recorded was corrupt. Of course I had a second audio source… the microphone on my camera. So if this one sounds like I’m talking through a tin can and a string, it’s because I am. I tried to cover it up with music, but that was just annoying.
I still aggressively edited this one, even going as far as animating a few segments and taking the time to texture and color the Low Poly Diplodocus. Okay, it was an admittedly minimalist coloring job, but I’m still probably going to print this on the Da Vinci Color. Because I can. My hope in putting this effort into the editing is that, despite the unforgivably bad audio quality, people will still watch this message and join me in support of this format. That maybe this message will enter the right person’s ear, and we’ll see wide spread adoption of the 3MF format.
The point is I really believe in this. 3MF is awesome. We should all start using it. And Blender, Fusion 360, ZBrush, all of them need to make it easier for us to use it.
Of course there’s another caveat to this conversation. You can’t upload 3MF to Thingiverse. Yup. The leading 3D printing repository, the defacto standard for many people, does not accept 3MF. In the past, when Thingiverse says “You can’t charge money for your 3D models” people thought that meant “you shouldn’t charge” and get offended when designers have the gall to consider their time and effort to be worth money. So what does it mean when Thingiverse says “You can’t upload 3MF”? People may take that to mean that 3MF isn’t a real format. What it actually says is Thingiverse is behind the times and no one is updating it. That’s because Stratasys hardly pays it any mind. And do I want them to? I don’t know. Because if Stratasys decided to focus their attention on Thingiverse, I can see that going very badly for the community. But, if I want 3MF to flourish, and Thingiverse doesn’t support 3MF, then I guess I don’t support Thingiverse.
Bring it on.
