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Autodesk Invests $100 Million Toward The First 3D Printing Fund

 Autodesk keeps getting better..

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Spark Investment Fund, Autodesk's new 100 million 3D printing fund, it's inception is to give money to startups and designers in the 3D printing space.

 

 

 “We want everyone to solve new problems with new solutions with less effort, better results, and greater expression reliably and with confidence and with good quality.”

                                                 – Jeff Kowalski, Autodesk Chief Technology Officer

 

 

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The Spark platform will provide the building blocks for innovation that product designers, hardware manufacturers, software developers and materials companies can use to push the boundaries of 3D printing technology and accelerate the new industrial revolution.

 

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Spark is a complete, open and free platform for 3D printing that will connect digital information to 3D printers in a new way. Spark will allow companies to focus only on the hardware aspects of designing the best possible 3D printers that they can, while letting the Spark platform do the rest, specifically by

  1. Shortening the path between digital content and hardware, greatly improving information exchange between design software and the printer
  2. Optimizing design before production begins
  3. Providing open APIs that that will enable a broad group – from materials science companies to crowd-funded startups – to access and innovate the 3D printing pipeline

 

Spark connects digital information to 3D printers in a new and streamlined way, making it easier to visualize and optimize prints without trial and error, while broadening the range of materials used for printing

 

 

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Those who receive investment from the Spark fund will become part of Autodesk’s Spark partner program and will have access to marketing and other developer services available to Spark partners

 

The company is now encouraging those interested in developing hardware, software, materials, marketplaces and maker spaces to apply to participate in the Spark Investment Fund’s investment portfolio.

 

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“Numerous industries recognize the value of tapping into entrepreneurs or startups with better ideas and approaches, and 3D printing is no exception,”

                                                                - Samir Hanna, Autodesk’s VP of consumer products and 3D printing

 

The platform is not on the market just yet, but it can work with many different types of 3D printers and materials to create specially designed objects. The design software firm is hoping those in the 3D printing community can help collaborate and improve the platform and its associated Ember 3D printer and materials.

 

 

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We are always looking to remove the limitations of the software for our customers, help them reduce costs and increase performance. We want to make sure designers can create the products with the design intent intact and where workflows are easy

 

 

Spark platform is open, everyone -- from hardware manufacturers, to app developers, to product designers

 

 

 

The open nature of the platform is undeniably one of the key interesting things about Spark.
                                                                                                                                    ~ Katie Collins, Wired

 

Post your comments & thoughts down below..

 

 

http://www.spark.autodesk.com/fund

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/30/autodesk-invests-100-million-toward-the-first-3d-printing-fund/

Details separate people.

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interesting....

3D printing needs to become widespread

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3d printer may seem good in theory, but they are not useful in a domestic environment. not only are they high maintenance, the idea of needing something and then 3d printing it will rarely work. they are usually specific to one set of materials, most things you need are a mixture of several different class of materials. also engineering software to create the parts is far to complicated for the average person. 

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Now we just affordable pricing.

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I would love to get me some 3d printers so I could start printing out random crap.

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Really smart of Autodesk. If they can get Inventor to be the expected program for 3D printing applications they will have a major leg up on Solidworks and PTC. 

 

I am not the largest fan of Autodesk products but this is just plain good business strategy. 

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We need to skip 3d-printing and go straight to food replicators...etc.

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We need to skip 3d-printing and go straight to food replicators...etc.

 

Errrr...you're not supposed to make munchies on these kind of 3d printers lol

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Brilliant marketing. Autodesk will be rolling in money once 3D printing takes off and they manage to convince everyone that free alternatives are garbage and that they should use Autodesk's software to create models. Microsoft got that same monopoly with Microsoft office and I'd be surprised if Autodesk didn't attempt something similar.

 

Also the ground work is already done. Since I never cease to get amazed by how few people (especially people that are teaching design related programs like my design 10 teacher) don't know about Blender yet completely know about and like sketchup and Autodesk software. Blender is basically a free and open source alternative to CAD that actually has a decent amount of capability unlike sketchup. Which is why it amazed me that my design 10 teacher didn't know about it and worst of all though sketchup was better. Seriously design 10 was a huge waste of my time. I've learned a couple thousand times more on my own time than in that entire course! (Currently I have a pm between a few other LTT members going where we are teaching each other Blender. It might get thread status at some point but atm we just have it as a pm so if you want to join ask me to invite you)

 

Anyways my point with people not knowing about Blender is that when 3D printing gets accepted by the masses open source programs like Blender will be seldom used when compared to CAD and sketchup. Although I can understand that since Blender's measurements are not the greatest thing ever. I wish they would lock to vertices properly. There are ways around that like extending a vertices and typing in the number manually and then locking to that vertices but the average idiot won't know how to do that. Also Blender's current audience doesn't require accurate measurements. Players don't run around with rulers in games very often :P

 

Personally I'm looking forwards to 3D printing getting cheaper since I've been using Inventor to create a hiddenblade design for sometime now. I'll still have to export it to blender and fix up a few things before I can consider it done enough to either buy a 3D printer or have shapeways print it for me but progress is slowly being made.

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Really smart of Autodesk. If they can get Inventor to be the expected program for 3D printing applications they will have a major leg up on Solidworks and PTC. 

 

I am not the largest fan of Autodesk products but this is just plain good business strategy. 

 

It's pretty neat how it's becoming integrated into the workflow.  I work at Autodesk, and we've had a prototype of the printer since early summer.

 

To give you an idea, I wanted to print a nameplate for my Steelseries Rival a few months ago.  Took me 10 min to download the model from SS's website, emboss my name on the model with Inventor, and bribe a highschool intern with some candy to print it (the intern at the office was working on spark).  I provided him with an Inventor part file, and he had it printed with an Autodesk desktop printer that was sitting in his cubicle by the end of the day.

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3d printer may seem good in theory, but they are not useful in a domestic environment. not only are they high maintenance, the idea of needing something and then 3d printing it will rarely work. they are usually specific to one set of materials, most things you need are a mixture of several different class of materials. also engineering software to create the parts is far to complicated for the average person.

That is why, we inteligent human beings, solve these problems by making a multiple material 3d printer!

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It's pretty neat how it's becoming integrated into the workflow.  I work at Autodesk, and we've had a prototype of the printer since early summer.

 

To give you an idea, I wanted to print a nameplate for my Steelseries Rival a few months ago.  Took me 10 min to download the model from SS's website, emboss my name on the model with Inventor, and bribe a highschool intern with some candy to print it (the intern at the office was working on spark).  I provided him with an Inventor part file, and he had it printed with an Autodesk desktop printer that was sitting in his cubicle by the end of the day.

 

Pics or it didn't happen.  :D

 

Btw, what do you do at Autodesk? I have a bone to pick with the guy who decided the scroll wheel shouldn't work the same between Revit/Inventor/CAD. (Forward zooming in on one and out on the other two).

 

3d printer may seem good in theory, but they are not useful in a domestic environment. not only are they high maintenance, the idea of needing something and then 3d printing it will rarely work. they are usually specific to one set of materials, most things you need are a mixture of several different class of materials. also engineering software to create the parts is far to complicated for the average person. 

 

Uhh, what?

 

The DIY ones might be high maintenance (don't really know as I still haven't finished mine lol), but commercial ones sure are not. I don't think I've ever seen a Dimension printer break down, and they keep getting cheaper to the point the average person could afford one with a bit of saving.

 

Go tell the reprap crowd how un-useful they are and see what the replies are. As for the people who don't know how to design: http://www.thingiverse.com/newest/

 

Just download and print. Yes most are locked to single materials, but ABS covers a very wide range of uses and will work for the majority of the things you would want to print.

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It's pretty neat how it's becoming integrated into the workflow. I work at Autodesk, and we've had a prototype of the printer since early summer.

To give you an idea, I wanted to print a nameplate for my Steelseries Rival a few months ago. Took me 10 min to download the model from SS's website, emboss my name on the model with Inventor, and bribe a highschool intern with some candy to print it (the intern at the office was working on spark). I provided him with an Inventor part file, and he had it printed with an Autodesk desktop printer that was sitting in his cubicle by the end of the day.

I work as an engineer at a major agricultural equipment manufacturer and have had a few parts run on our steriolithograph (forgive me if that is spelled wrong, my phones autocorrect isn't up on 3d printing nomenclature) and the process was fairly strait forward exporting an .STL file from creo.

Can you explain in a bit more detail how this is going to improve the process?

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Pics or it didn't happen.  :D

 

Btw, what do you do at Autodesk? I have a bone to pick with the guy who decided the scroll wheel shouldn't work the same between Revit/Inventor/CAD. (Forward zooming in on one and out on the other two).

 

I'll have to figure out where I left it.  It was printed in blue and it started to annoy me so I went back to the black rubber nameplate that came with it.

 

I work on Inventor. :) Have you posted your request in the forums?  We're always reading them!

 

I work as an engineer at a major agricultural equipment manufacturer and have had a few parts run on our steriolithograph (forgive me if that is spelled wrong, my phones autocorrect isn't up on 3d printing nomenclature) and the process was fairly strait forward exporting an .STL file from creo.

Can you explain in a bit more detail how this is going to improve the process?

 

I'm not sure how it will improve the process in a manufacturing setting, to be honest. :wacko:  I thought it was neat to see how we've gone to being able to 3d print stuff right at your cubicle.

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