Anycubic has made a very quite but potentially important ecosystem move.
The company has announced an exclusive partnership with Thingiverse, now operated by MyMiniFactory, that will bring more than two million 3D models to Anycubic’s Makeronline platform. Selected models will also be converted from STL to 3MF and adapted for multicolor printing on compatible Anycubic equipment.
This is more than just adding a pile of 3D models to the service.
Makeronline has been around for a few years, but it has not achieved the same level of attention or model momentum as competing printer-linked repositories, mostly because they got a late start.
A large and usable model catalog might immediately change that equation. Instead of Anycubic owners beginning their search for printable 3D models elsewhere, Anycubic can increasingly keep them inside its own discovery, download, slicing, and printing ecosystem.
For users, the immediate benefit is pretty obvious: more objects to browse. But the raw model count is only part of the story. Most printable objects have historically been distributed as STL files, which contain geometry but nothing at all about how the model should be printed. The operator must decide orientation, supports, colors, materials, and many other settings.
A 3MF file can carry most of that information, and that is what is increasingly being done on competing 3D model repositories.
In this case, Anycubic says it will convert selected Thingiverse designs to 3MF format and set them up for multicolor printing. That means an operator could find a 3D model, open a version already mapped with colors, and print it with way less setup effort.
Anyone who has manually colored an imported STL in a slicer will understand why this is so important. It is possible to do this, but it can be tedious. You will do it only once.
The operator has to identify the coloured regions, paint the surfaces or even chop up the model, assign filaments, and hope the it is all clean. Tip: It will not be clean.
A premade 3MF package would make multicolor printing significantly easier for operators, especially those new to 3D printing.
That is almost certainly the real purpose of this partnership.
Multicolor FFF printing has become a major competitive area for desktop 3D printer manufacturers. Toolchanging systems in particular are making it easier to produce colored objects without the enormous purge waste and lengthy filament swaps associated with earlier multi-material systems. As those machines become more common, the limiting factor will be whether operators can easily find models designed to use them.
A huge number of existing 3D models were created for single-color printing. They can still be used when printed in one filament, but many were never structured as separate colored parts. Anycubic’s conversion effort is therefore more than a file-format exercise. Someone must decide which objects are worth adapting and how colors should be assigned.
The competitive pressure is becoming pretty clear. Printer companies increasingly need a complete workflow from “I want to print something” to a successful physical object. Hardware alone is no longer the major problem. Model discovery, prepared print files, slicer integration, creator communities, and easy multicolor projects are quickly becoming a key part of purchase decisions.
Anycubic has now acquired a very large starting inventory. We’ll see how it affects their sales and 3D printing community.
Via Anycubic
