As the world cooed over Apple’s new IOS release, the company aiming to replicate (pun intended) their success in the 3D printing industry, released their latest software/firmware designed to make their already brilliant printers even b̶r̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ more brilliant.
MakerWare 2.2.0 promises improvements across the board from the world’s leading desktop 3D printer manufacturers, MakerBot. There are promises of improvements to support material, new easier to detach rafts, better handling of narrow features and most importantly Cat patterns in the infill…
Yes, instead of the usual honeycombing effect inside a 3D print you can now have a cat pattern or Catfill, which honestly does not sound like a brand of cat litter. We’re exactly sure why you’d want this but the technology behind the fluffiness is still really rather impressive.
Released simultaneously as MakerWare 2.2.0 is Firmware 7.3. It is said to contain the standard ‘improvements and bug fixes’, but hidden amongst those fixes is a neat little automatic pause for changing filament colours during a print.
They’ve also released some more Digitizer images (cats again) as they continue to strive to improve their 3D scanner, in order to create a complete closed-loop MakerBot scan-to-print system.
These constant firmware and software improvements are starting to push MakerBot way out ahead of the competition. They get that there are people using their printers as expensive toys and they cater to them but they also get there are folks who use the machines for design, prototyping and other genuine needs, they cater for them too.
