Bld3r.com is the Reddit of Repositories

Bld3r.com (pronounced /ˈbildər/ "builder") is something my friend and I have been working on for a while. It's not just a repository; it's more like a 3D printing social network where you can share your 3D objects by uploading or by linking. We aim to find the best print-ready objects whether they're hosted on our site or on others.' So recently we've made a push to link to every site imaginable, including thingiverse, youmagine, cubehero, ponoko, github, instructables, grabcad, cubify, personal websites, universities, and museums like the Smithsonian and africanfossils.org.



As geeky as it sounds, we hope to be the reddit/ stackoverflow/ hackernews of 3D printed objects. It's been a labor of love for my friend and me to make this. In response to "movements in the industry," we're dedicated to being independent so that people can find the coolest objects and so that builders can have complete control over their objects. The problem for a lot of people in the open community is that thingiverse is owned by a closed company, but it has a virtual monopoly as the go-to repository and no one has come up with a working alternative. But our idea is that there will never be just one repository for everyone, and the web is all about making connections between people and objects and other people. So people should be able to share what they want, how they want, and where they want.

Also, our idea was to make a site that made it easier to "get into" 3D printing and reduce the learning curve. That's why we added a tutorials and wiki section. You can also find a list of links to RepRap parts too. We want it to be simple and independent. We're making updates all the time. It's in beta, so please don't hate it if it's too ugly or crashes. And let us know what you think and how you would like to improve it. We hope you all like it.

Thong Nguyen
Co-creator
www.bld3r.com

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2013 12:36AM by bld3r_cat.

its a good idea bld3r_cat, I've actually been thinking about it for a while. One problem I see is that not all these models are suitable or designed for a RepRap printer, and people prefer one site instead of 10 to get the objects.

Thanks zoroeye for the encouragement! The hope is that most of the designs will be suitable for RepRap printers or any commercial printer. As for a preference for one site rather than ten, sure most people don't want to be on two Facebooks or two e-mail providers. And many people might only want to share on Thingiverse. But we think that

(1) for print-ready objects people won't really care where the files are hosted: they just want the objects, and
(2) many people will want alternatives.

For example, when you google a question, you will find answers on a number of sites whether it's through a news article, a blog, wikipeidia, or wherever. So people rely on a number of reliable sources not just one. And we think that's what it'll be like for 3d objects. For instance after Makerbot went closed sourced, there was a huge schism in the community. Amazing designers like dzingof migrated their files to other sites like Ponoko. You simply can't access those beautiful designs on Thingiverse. Or take another printer company like Ultimaker and their own repository, Youmagine. That is a whole network of objects outside of Thingiverse.

So we thought that there is a need for independent parties to make it easier for people to find great objects regardless of repository host. That's where bld3r.com might help. We wanted to put the whole community in the loop and let people decide what's interesting (by voting up/down objects) and what are prints of high quality (by rating objects with stars and commenting on objects). So our idea is that it's not just about finding objects. It's about discovering interesting objects from anywhere that you'll not only want to print but will be confident in printing because others say so. And with an emphasis on learning rather than searching, we wanted to include tutorials and news in particular.

Anyway the site's still in beta, and while it's functional, we're still fine tuning. We'll only ever be as strong as the users who use us! We hope you like the site and will join.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2014 01:28AM by bld3r_cat.