CGTrader issued a rather interesting report on their customer activity.
CGTrader is one of the “big” sites for finding 3D printable content. Originally, there was only Thingiverse, but now there are multiple options, including CGTrader. Several of the major sites are intimately tied to specific 3D printer manufacturers, but a few are not, including MyMiniFactory, Thingiverse, and of course, CGTrader.
I’m quite interested in this report because we very rarely see any statistics from the major 3D model sites. Here, CGTrader has delivered what is possibly the most comprehensive statistical report we’ve seen from a model repository.
The report from CGTrader examines activity at the site from the past year, ending this May. The report in total is a 17-page PDF, which is freely downloadable.
What’s in the report? Well, you should read it yourself at the link below, but as I ran through the report, I came across a number of interesting points. Let’s go through them.
They say they are the world’s largest 3D printable model marketplace, and I am a bit suspicious of that since several other sites very likely have far more 3D models on their sites. However, CGTrader is still enormous, and they say the number of listings grew by 18.5% this past year.
CGTrader is positioning itself as a marketplace, not a download site. Their priority is to serve the needs of designers, who are paid for downloads. This is quite unlike some of the other sites that support 3D printer manufacturers and simply want to get free content out there. On the other hand, paid 3D models tend to be of much higher quality or function, which hopefully justifies their prices.
CGTrader reports that their sell-through rate is 18.4%, which apparently rose 40% over the year. That’s a pretty decent statistic that could attract more designers.
The top demand category of 3D models on the site is, unsurprisingly, “Characters”, which was flat over the year. Meanwhile, Exteriors, Interiors, and Military 3D models all grew somewhat.
The file format demand is quite interesting. Several formats grew: USD/USDZ +40-48%, Unreal Engine +26%, glTF +25%, Blender +11%. All of these, except for Blender, are not really for 3D printing — they are for visual applications.
Meanwhile, ZBrush demand fell 14%, suggesting that the long-revered sculpting tool’s popularity is dropping.
CGTrader reports that AI-generated content is performing poorly. They represent 17.6% of all uploads, but only 1.1% of dollars of revenue. In other words, tons of content, not a lot of return. I can’t see this getting any better, because at some point people will simply generate their own 3D models instead of downloading them.
CGTrader split out several reports on the demand for 3D printable content. They found that all 3D print categories were growing, the lead being Hobby & DIY that grew 14%. The largest category was Miniatures, which had 104K downloads.
Also, they say that only four percent of downloaders reported that AI-generated content “works well”, and that 72% haven’t used it at all. It seems that the AI content being uploaded to CGTrader is generally crappy, and that’s likely the case on most other 3D model repositories, too.
There’s plenty more in this interesting report. Now I’d like to see something similar from the other 3D model repositories.
Via CGTrader
