MR ALBIN A HASTBACKA wrote:
> The talk about market saturation at 2500 units is absolute nonsense.
RIGHT ON!!
> 1. Easier to use 3D software. e.g. JewelCad is making the design of
> jewelry possible by model makers (i.e. people) who are not previously
> trained in CAD. This is an area where the universities and colleges can
> make a significant contribution.
Maybe rp manufacturers should consider what apple did with the education
market. $50,000 is a lot for an art school to spend on rp. Most will
have a hard time coming up with that kind of money for one machine(most
art schools are small 200-600 students). How about making sure through
one means or another that art students are using this technology. I can
see your faces now, "Art Students, huh" you say.
I've taught in 4 art schools and it is AMAZING how these kids come up
with creative solutions to problems. All the schools have computer labs
and cad programs. Believe me, if you have some sort of educational
exchange with art schools you will see them using this technology and
demanding new features and applications that you never dreamed of. It
will be a hot bed of information exchange and research.
(Note, in one elective class I taught, I had 20 freshmen up and running
on form z {a difficult program to learn} in less than 4 weeks and doing
complicated projects by the end of the class-a six week time frame. I
had similar results with high school students over four weeks)
Where do these art students go after school? Disney, Hallmark,
industrial design firms, sprint, and on. You get the idea--they end up
selling your product to the firms they go to.
> 2. Lower cost RP systems- This will come with larger volume sales.
YES YES YES
> 3. Better education in the area of 3D CAD design- Again the universities
> and colleges are major factors here.
Don't forRget the art schools.
> 4. Lower cost 3D CAD software- Too bad Trispectives has not turned out
> as well as several of us had hoped.
There are a lot of other programs out there that are not as cad oriented
as trispectives that people are learning and that can create stl files.
Some cost around 500US$ some a little higher at $1000. THese prices are
in the park of standard graphics packages that everyone has--adobe
photoshop, quark express, adobe pagemaker. These come in around
$600-$700. Want to see a goofy one thats a lot of fun with a very
original interface check out <http://www.yonowat.com/>.
If I were marketing in an rp company, one of things I'd do is to lobby
all the animation/modelling packages to include stl as a defacto file
format in their programs (or to go the other way figure out a way to
make vrml work as an stl file). I would also supply each of them with a
clear written description to be republished in their manuals about what
rapid prototyping is and how it works. Check out the form Z manual. They
have such a blurb.
2 cents
-- michael rees sculptor zedand00@sound.net http://www.sound.net/~zedand00/ 0=zero 4501 belleview kansas city mo 64111
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