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SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → The Latest in 3D Printing → Windows 8.1 and 3D Printing - also Solidoodle on front!
Just saw this on Mashable.
Windows 8.1 Cranks Up Support for 3D Printing
http://mashable.com/2013/06/26/windows-81-3d-printing/
You can see the Solidoodle printer and sign behind it.
LOL, The writer mentions makerbot and cube but grabs a show photo of a solidoodle 
Hmm, I love that Windows is trying to make this a native feature but would love to know more about how many printers they will support and if the drivers are proprietary, common across printers, or both.
What do you guys think?
Also, I really hope they get this right, if their driver support flops like Windows Vista it could be a step backwards, wouldn't you agree.
Regards,
Taylor Amarel
Nobody has needed them to get where we are so far, so I don't think any failure of theirs will be able to cause a step backward.
Tayloramarel, I expect it will be up to the manufacturer to provide the driver. Microsoft just provides the framework for it.
Having said that, it will be more complicated than 2D printing. I assume Microsoft is working with 3DSystems, Stratasys and maybe others to define with this is. I just hope it is easy enough for the smaller companies (like Solidoodle) to get hooked up to it.
As Leghk pointed out, its probably not a huge deal right now. However, down the road, people will want to do File/Print like they do with 2D today. Design software -> STL -> Repetier-Host -> fiddling with setting -> 3D printer is kind of hard for the mainstream market.
I hope it shows up as a update for other windows platforms and not just version 8+.
I hope it shows up as a update for other windows platforms and not just version 8+.
Have you ever known Microsoft to backport major announced features to versions of windows that are past or just over a year out from cessation of mainstream support (Win 7) or officially end of life'd (Windows XP, Windows Vista)?
You wont get this in an EOL'ed OS.. Simply, you will have to upgrade if you want the new features.
The Microsoft MSDN site has a lot more information on how this all will work. A "printer driver" will be needed for the Solidoodle printer to specify what the printer can and can not do. However, I'd be surprised if Solidoodle has the resources to do this themselves. I expect someone to come up with some open source version that will work with the Solidoodle and similar hardware.
The holidays are coming up... it may be time to do a bit of hacking to see how this all works.
Great collection of information, keep sharing such type information in future too.
I deal with print servers daily, they are a truely a F@$*-ing headache. They should just work. LOL.
I've had the joy of going "Office Space" on some of our broken printers to pay them back for the frustrations they given me.
It feels good, or rather really great, to take a sledge hammer to something that has given you hours of headaches, purely to destroy it!!!
If MS proceed to use the standard driver model of 2d printers, then as mark.burhop mentioned there would end up being some opensource reprap driver that would get modded to match the feature sets of whatever mobo your printer is running. In our case, it'd be for the sanguilolo (shut up, i know that I probably spelled that wrong & i dont care).
Its an interesting step taken by MS, I wonder when we'll see their Micro-doodle-bot as the newest 3D printer. *joking* I hope i never see a MS 3D printer, it would be harder to work then a basic stock Solidoodle [by a newb]. I wish they just finish returning my start menu in Win8 and get rid of those beyond redonkulous & useless tiles from my desktop and just leave them for tablets. But I could rant all day about such matters, so i'll stop now. :-)
I was typing a big thing about this, but it comes down to this:
I don't expect any useful support unless your 3D printing company can match Stratasys, 3D Systems and AutoDesk at the license table, and you as a consumer can afford to buy into those tool chains.
Open source tools will continue as open source has, until they completely lock off all unsigned drivers.
I'll continue running my semi-dangerous CNC equipment with Linux. Windows is adequate for my gaming & entertainment, and my net admin job.
Windows 2000!!!!!!!
they better not forget about 8 RT. i got stuck with thtis damn surface its only good for consuming media. its a nice gadget but android has more functionality than this thing right now. surface has a ver small user base
SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → The Latest in 3D Printing → Windows 8.1 and 3D Printing - also Solidoodle on front!
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