Great news from GitHub! Taking a look at this new option, and considering projects like Gary Hodgson’s Githubiverse templates, it is reasonable to expect that GitHub might well be on its way to being the place where many of us develop and share our 3D printing works-in-progress, particularly for procedural and parametric design files that benefit more from Git versioning than massive meshes.
Having seen how successfully Sketchfab has been integrated into Kickstarter, this new development over at GitHub speaks to how we expect to experience our design files online.
Will this prove a benefit for the existing social/repository model sites such as GrabCAD, 3D Warehouse, and Thingiverse as code-savvy designers develop and iterate their designs within their accounts on Github before publishing more share-worthy documents to their repository of choice?
From the GitHub blog:
Here at GitHub, we’re always excited to see people using GitHub to collaborate on all sorts of things, code or non-code. Today, we’re adding a third dimension by making it easier to view some 3D models, specifically STL files, on GitHub.
You’re able to spin the model by clicking & dragging, zoom in/out by scrolling, and change the view modes with the links at the bottom. This viewer is powered by Three.js and uses WebGL when available, but will fall back to the slower canvas renderer. If you have further questions, check out the help article.
There are a bunch of awesome 3D projects on GitHub, and more every day. We hope you enjoy a new way of viewing these complex files!
And here, for those who haven’t seen it before, is a screenshot from Gary Hodgson’s Githubiverse project:
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!