A 3D content cloud: Sharing, trading and customizing 3D print-ready objects

Abstract

3D printing has been widely used in various industries ranging from product prototyping to customized applications in medical therapy nowadays. At the moment, the main users are typically limited to developers from cooperation or product designers with 3D model editing skills. One of the critical reasons about the popularity of 3D printing is the limited availability and customizability of 3D print-ready contents. Since the creation of printable 3D models will require specialized knowledge on 3D editing, this does not favor normal users to get into the world of 3D printing. Therefore, this paper aims at developing a cloud-enabled system which allows authenticated sharing and trading of 3D print-ready objects on the Internet, as well as user-friendly customization of these 3D contents under the same platform. We would like to attract more 3D content users who can buy, post tender and DIY their own printable object via the web environment. Our system can fulfill the needs from the 3D model creator, 3D model consumer and 3D printing service provider. A preliminary evaluation of the system shows that the quality of certain provided functions are satisfactory including the 3D content search and the model customization tools.