From all of us at MakeIt, we had a great time participating in the NH Science Cafe on 3D Printing last Wednesday night. To further the knowledge exchange, we have put together a list of resources for some of the things mentioned during the discussion.
By far the best resource is Make Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing.The second resource I would suggest anyone visit is Thingiverse. There you can get a sense of all the things you could download from the web and print on day one (or at MakeIt on our Makerbot Replicator 2).
Below are some links for more information on some of the most popular printers, software, and websites to start exploring the wonderful world of 3D printing.
Hobbyist Printers
Makerbot http://www.makerbot.com/Rep-Rap http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
Ultimaker http://ultimaker.com/
Printrbot http://printrbot.com/
Commercial Printers
3D Systems http://www.3dsystems.com/Stratasys http://www.stratasys.com/
3D Printing Service Providers
Shapeways http://www.shapeways.com/Ponoko https://www.ponoko.com/
Online 3D Model Repositories
Thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/
GrabCAD http://grabcad.com/
Software
Design
SketchUp http://www.sketchup.com/Autodesk 123D http://www.123dapp.com/
Tinkercad https://tinkercad.com/
Blender http://www.blender.org/
OpenSCAD http://www.openscad.org/
3D Scanning
123D Catch http://www.123dapp.com/catchReconstructMe (uses Xbox Kinect) http://reconstructme.net/
Slicers
SkeinforgeSlic3r
KISSlicer
Printer Control
ReplicatorGPrintrun
Makerware
Cura
Stop by our open houses Monday and Thursday nights to explore 3D printing as well as the many other maker tools available in our space.