1011600 - Firefox doesn't have native 3D object viewing and printing support

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Printing, defect)

Description

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

STR:
1. Go to http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:315516
2. Select File -> Print

Actual results:
- Thing prints in 2D

Expected results:
- Firefox detects 3D printer and prints thing in 3D


... yeah, I know this is a little out there but I think we can all agree that 3D printing is here to stay. It's no longer some "experimental technology" that we take a risk investing our limited resources in. And I think being able to view and print 3D objects directly from the browser as easily as any other 2D content would be huge.

Apart from the obvious benefits of this, I also think it's pretty important to get in on this space sooner rather than later, so that we have a stronger position and have a better chance to deflect DRM-esque approaches to lock things down. Given the current DRM hate we're getting I think a positive step in this direction could help bring back some of the users we've lost - I imagine there's a large overlap between people who are passionate about DRM and people who are passionate about 3D printing.

Comment 1

[Kyle Machulis [:qdot] [:kmachulis] (INACTIVE)]

Why does this need to be "native"? What doesn't JS support already?

Comment 2

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

By "native" I mean that Firefox should be able to do this without add-ons and that it should work for all 3D object model files (at least common 3D model file types). Similar to how we deal with PDFs using PDF.js.

AIUI currently individual websites can build/use 3D model viewers in JS, but if websites don't do it themselves then we don't do anything with the file. And we don't provide any printing support at all, as far as I know. The webserial implementation would allow websites to do this directly.