Rather than unveiling any new hardware last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2015) in Las Vegas, MakerBot quietly announced a wide array of ecosystem updates to make their platform more useful to a wider variety of users. Considering that their range of existing FDM 3D printer models are still among the most technologically advanced in the FDM 3D printer market, expanding their platform to appeal to more users makes a lot of sense.
Among other announcements that SolidSmack reported on last week, MakerBot has also teamed up with The Foundry to introduce the MakerBot Kit for MODO (AKA “MakerBot Kit”). The kit, which utilizes the Thingiverse and MakerBot Cloud Library API, allows MODO 801 users to both publish directly to MakerBot’s Thingiverse platform as well as store models within the MakerBot Cloud Library directly from within MODO.
The goal of the platform is to further optimize 3D design workflows for easier and faster sharing and printing of 3D objects. Users of the MakerBot Kit are able to create their own designs to share or iterate on existing designs from directly within the existing Thingiverse or MakerBot Cloud libraries.
“The MakerBot Kit for MODO is a logical starting point for us to bring the benefits of our partnership with MakerBot to the creative design community,” said Christopher Kenessey, Chief Officer of Sales & Marketing for The Foundry. “We’re focused on delivering intuitive modeling solutions that allow the Real-Time Prototyping of watertight meshes for 3D printing. Meanwhile, MakerBot’s customers and the large Thingiverse community continually push the boundaries of what’s possible in 3D printing, through both individual and collaborative design.”
Among other features, the MakerBot Kit includes:
- Load and save .thing files due to native file support
- Authenticate MakerBot accounts from inside MODO
- Explore Thingiverse and download free objects/files
- Update and delete objects on Thingiverse and their own personal MakerBot Cloud Library from within MODO
- Generate photorealistic renders of objects and upload the cover image for that item to Thingiverse and/or the MakerBot Cloud Library from inside MODO
- Upload and store MODO files (.lxo) on Thingiverse and/or their MakerBot Cloud Library for improved editing and easy sharing with other MakerBot users
“The Foundry’s software is already used for some really incredible graphics and special effects and used in movies and games created by companies like Pixar, ILM, Double Negative, Walt Disney Animation, Weta Digital, and Sony Pictures Imageworks,” added MakerBot CEO Jenny Lawton. “We think that the capability to output those designs directly into a 3D printable file, and then share or house those designs within Thingiverse, will be incredibly exciting to realize those digital creations and bring them to the physical world”
You can download the free kit (Windows and Mac) over at The Foundry.
