According to MIT Technology Review, the largest companies in 3-D printing are racing to simplify design software so that it can become as easy to make an object as it is to send a document to a printer.
... The bigger obstacle to a 3-D printing revolution is that few consumers or designers can actually operate the software used to render objects and turn them into files that can be printed. “A lot of people are 3-D printing other people’s designs, but they can’t yet model their own.
The problem is that the design software is too complex, says Igal Kapstan, a vice president at PTC, a Massachusetts company that sells computer-aided design software... Computer-aided design software creates shapes, or “geometries,” but it often takes expert knowledge to reliably translate these into files usable by a 3-D printer. Kapstan’s company is working on software that would take a shape on a computer screen and print it directly. Other companies, including Autodesk and 3D Systems, said they are developing similar software.
Image left, my cameraphone shot at the Mcor Technologies stand here at the Inside 3D Printing Expo in New York. The only company to date that markets 3D paper printers. Theses samples were made with simple affordable office paper and some of them are in color. They are incredibly strong. It's hard to believe when you pick one up that they are actually paper. Amazing. This is the company that provides the paper printers to the Staples stores in Europe that are offering 3D printing services.
And in an annoucement made here, Mcor Technologies have now released software to make the full colour 3D printing process even easier, ColourIT.
All of our technology decisions have been made in support of making professional-class 3D printing more accessible while remaining eco-friendly,” said Dr. Conor MacCormack, Co-founder and CEO of Mcor Technologies. “Now, with ColourIT and the IRIS, the once niche color 3D printing capability is widely accessible with a low-cost, eco-friendly, comprehensive solution.
A blog post by Shaan Hurley, Autodesk Technologist for the Office of the CTO on where 3D printing is headed.
... I don’t think in the near future every home will have a 3D printer, but I believe they will all have access to one. We are starting to see companies like Staples [offering 3D printing services in in Belguim and the Netherlands] but I want to see a day where the manufacturers of consumer goods provide free or a for a small fee replacement parts or custom modifications that you can purchase online and then pickup at your local FedEx Kinkos which are located about everywhere. That would save time, energy, warehousing, transportation costs and be better for the environment.
A good option is my friends like Duann at Shapeways.com that have some 25+ materials from plastics, ceramics, to metals they can 3D print in and also you can even market and sell your designs on their marketplace. There is also Ponoko, Scultpteo, i.materialize, and many more.
Tinkercad, a software used for drafting 3D models, touts itself as the world's first browser-based design program. Salon reports via @3d_printer.
Tinkercad, which calls itself the world’s first browser-based CAD. (CAD stands for computer-aided design, and is shorthand for the software that engineers use for drafting 3D models.) What does this mean for the user? For just a low subscription rate, anyone with a web browser can embrace the world of 3D product design. Tinkercad comes with a host of interactive shapes and modeling tools. Designs can be ported directly to Tinkercad’s partner 3D printing services that can print and then ship your work to you. Browsers have to be WebGL-enabled, so that means only Chrome or Firefox at this time.
It is a contemporary and advanced but easy to use CNC simulation system with a virtual CNC controller and various machines as well as the integrated CAM system SimCam. We are still in the beta stage of the development meaning that new exiting features are added frequently.
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Chopper software divides the model into logical sections and automatically prepared joints for easy assembly and gluing. Watch the video to se how it works.
Autodesk, the industry leader in CAD software, has announced it is partnering with biological printer manufacturer Organovo to create 3-D design software for designing and printing living tissue. Wired reports.
It’s an area of interest to Autodesk, whose software runs the industrial design and architecture worlds, allowing them to expand further into new fields by helping researchers interface with new tools.
Organovo’s bioplotter, one of the only machines that can shape living tissue, works like a standard desktop 3-D printers but uses living cells instead of ABS plastic. It creates tissue by printing a gel base material as a scaffold and then deposits cells which mature into living material that can be used in the process of developing new pharmaceuticals.
Specific details about the system, including pricing and availability, are not yet available. Even with scant details, executives at both companies are excited about the potential of such a system.
... Anyone who buys a Makerbot 3D Printer can immediately download and print any of Thingiverse's 25,000 designs.
Its store of uploaded blueprints doubled since the beginning of the year, with 8.5 million downloads and half a million since August, far more than any other consumer 3-D printing platform. That's helped Makerbot attract $10 million in investment from Foundry Partners, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and others.
Robotics Tomorrow reviews Autodesk 123D Design, a fre 3D modeling tool that allows users to create a digital model and then 3D print or fabricate their idea whether on the iPad, Mac, PC or via their web browser.
For the first time ever, users can create sophisticated, precise 3D models of real objects on their iPad, Mac, PC or via their web browser. People said this couldn't be done on iPad, and we're happy to prove them wrong," said Samir Hanna, vice president of Consumer Products, Autodesk. "We believe that everyone is creative, and we intend to put easy to use design software in the hands of millions of people so they can create real objects, have fun doing it and then fabricate the things they want and need, just the way they want them.
... The bigger obstacle to a 3-D printing revolution is that few consumers or designers can actually operate the software used to render objects and turn them into files that can be printed. “A lot of people are 3-D printing other people’s designs, but they can’t yet model their own.
Image left, my cameraphone shot at the 
A nice article from 