An update on Transreality

I have written from time to time about transreality on the Internet. This is where real life and virtual products mix and match. Where virtual products become real products and real products become virtual products.  Industry week has an interesting article about the next wave of user-generated content. This is user-generated, community-driven manufacturing. As the 3-D development tools become better and better, they lower the barriers to entry for the creation of virtual models of real products. The article focuses on 3-D development tools and how user communities are emerging to design and rapidly create real world items using these tools.  You can check out Motorola’s rapid prototyping process to see one way this is being done.

 

Techcrunch has an article that goes into more detail  “Forget Crowd-Sourced T-shirts: Print Objects In 3D”. They cover this emerging user generated content very well.

 

Some of the companies in this emerging trend are:

http://www.shapeways.com/login

Netherlands-based Shapeways is a community for consumers where they can “print” 3D objects n plastic or metal and share the items.

 

http://www.ponoko.com/

Ponoko is a marketplace for product plans. Creators and consumers use these plans to share, buy, sell and make individualized goods.

 

 

http://www.emachineshop.com/

Where you can create real metal and plastic objects in a virtual machine shop!

 

It would seem that Transreality is now here and that the wave is just now forming for the newest user communities based on a producing real products from virtual 3-D designs.

Another part that makes this possible is that information is being shared around the world. For example material from a MIT course “Toy Product Design” is now available to anyone. Not only the 3-D tools are getting better, information on how to design is improving and readily available. The barriers to entry are coming down rapidly. Transreality is now can take place almost anywhere in the world. I have already watched 3-D design community’s form in Second Life. I am now watching new 3-D collaboration communities emerge around lines of products like jewelry. The world of user-generated content is just beginning in the 3-D world. The creation of both virtual products and real world products has just begun.