I’ve got a few problem with 3D printer file websites…
I’m kind of tired of finding a cool 3D print I’d like to make and putting it in my “saved” list on the website, only to forget which of the 50 sites it was that I found it at when I finally get around to printing it. Also, each of these sites is changing and features are added/removed/broken and folks complain about them all the time. (lookin’ at you Thingiverse…)
I’m also tired of not being able to preview the STL files in windows as icons, etc since the downloads often have useless names. I think I’ve come up with an idea for a good solution.
It’d be a Chrome webApp (no installing extra software on the computer like a server or docker image or anything stupid like that since everything we need is built into Chrome) that will:
- Allow you to scrape any 3D printer project from the file hosting site (thingiverse, cults, etc.) with the click of a button, hotkey, or right-click option. This would allow you to get description, images, license, and files from whatever website and save them locally. It also embeds a link to the original source into the description. I’d be able to have differently labeled categories or tags and I can add the object to more than one tag. Extra points if it adds a note if the editable source files are in the file download and what program’s can edit them (STEP, SCAD, etc).
- Store this data in indexedDB.
- Host a webpage interface which previews the STL files using javascript, categorized, all the text and data form the original source with a link to the original source if you want to check for updates (could possibly add this as an automatic feature later), comments, etc. Most importantly, you can search through all your saved files and see them previewed.—all local!~
- Can launch the slicer of your choice for any particular STL file with the click of a button a’la External Application Button
- Until Persistent data is implemented, you can export the indexedDB data.
Thoughts? Anyone else see the need for this type of thing?