Files for 3D printing?

[Nigeld]

I hear more and more of 3D printing, and now wonder if Xara have any plans to develop 'that way'.
3D printing it about to revolutionise our world and I thought Xara would make a natural development tool.

[pauland]

Xara is totally unsuited to that kind of application - it's not a 3D design tool.

3D printers work from 3D models - something that Xara does not create.

Xara/Xara 3D has only the simplest of tools for manipulating 3D shapes and is not at all viable for 3D printing. I think Xara would be pretty foolish to pursue the market given the number of 3D CAD and other 3D Design tools out there.

[gwpriester]

Agree. Sounds like something for Corel Corporation.

[Cloud]

Hi Nigel

PLEASE don't fall for this whole 3D printing rubbish being hyped in the media. I used a form of 3D printers (though they weren't called that back then) on my engineering degree at university back in 1990 and they have been around all the time and every 7 or so years so one tries to hype it up, my friends in the industry have a hearty laugh each time some idiot on tv gets excited by this 'new' technology. Yes the technology is smaller and cheaper but the basic technology now is the same as back when I used it. At the most 3d printers would be bought by hobbycraft retailers to 'print' ready built files for hobbyists.

As far as the files are concerned neither corel or xara can handle them for this stuff, you would need actual 3d spftware like sketchup etc, there are even some basic free software titles out there like freecad.

Some companies are selling 'template files' so you can print out on your 3d printer; I can get a plan for a nice 5000square foot house but does it mean I should?

[gidgit]

While these 3D printers are interesting, they still use a costly product to print with, and unless for small scale prototyping, or for maybe printing out models you create for ornamental purposes, you will be spending more to produce things than a company specialized to do so would.