Hot off the heels of their announcement that they’ll be setting up shop within the cozy confines of Microsoft retail stores across the US, MakerBot has also just announced that they’ll be releasing their coveted 3D scanner next week. According to their announcement via their mailing list, MakerBot has “optimized the whole process to work perfectly with MakerBot’s Replicator Desktop 3D Printers”. Will it be more promising than what was released at this year’s SXSW? Here’s the rest of the details.
MakerBot Digitizer
For those who have been paying attention to various MakerBot news stories, you might remember when Bre Pettis unveiled the Digitizer at this year’s SXSW Interactive stage to ho-hum reviews from the general Maker crowd. First of all, 3D scanning isn’t necessarily ‘new’— you can take a 3D scan with your iPhone or even Google Glass. Second, the quality of scans that the Digitizer took at the time were…’okay’ considering that this is supposed to be ‘easy to use for the masses’. Let’s hope that the final iteration of the Digitizer truly will be “a natural progression for us to create a product that makes 3D printing even easier” according to Bre Pettis.
Here’s the rest of the announcement:
Because you signed up for our mailing list, you are getting the first public glimpse of the all new MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner! It’s the easiest, fastest way for anyone to create 3D models, and we optimized the whole process to work perfectly with MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printers.
- Simple, yet sophisticated software creates clean, watertight 3D models with just two clicks.
- Get a 3D digital design file in just minutes.
- No design skills, 3D modeling or CAD expertise required to get started.
- Outputs standard 3D design file formats that can be modified and improved in third-party 3D modeling programs, like Autodesk’s free software MeshMixer.
- Easily upload your unique scans directly to Thingiverse.com.
We said you’d be the first to know, so here’s an important heads up: the MakerBot Digitizer will go on sale next week at makerbot.com/digitizer. To learn more about the MakerBot Digitizer, check out our latest blog updates.
Full speed ahead.
The MakerBot Team
