Announcing Materials Updates

Wondering if can share what you learned in the meeting?

I was there, most of the meeting was confidential but I'll give some generalizations, some of the materials maybe coming back at some point currently some were determined to not be ready as advanced in development as it was assumed in small production lots so when fully scaled up there were issues.
Some of the software on the site will be improving, the manual checks will be changing (and to me sounds like they are improving), the market place is going to get improvements. The renaming was about the bulk of the SW users who had issues with understanding the products vs most of us advanced users who were familiar with the names and capabilities. Unfortunately, we are the minority right now.

I'd say more but I am afraid I may have said too much already.

But can't they provide a decoder key for what the new materials vs old materials names are? Most are obvious, but I'd rather know for sure. Can they answer questions that have been raised on this forum?

It certainly looks darker, but I think that's just lighting. I happen to work in an office with a huge window so I usually take my photos in more or less direct sunlight.

Invitation didn't mention anything about that.

Actually the word used was discretion.
Maybe the point is to not get too exited about the changes and use civil language ;-)

As one of the many "uninvited" designers here, I am less than pleased with this whole secret-squirrel stuff. Especially as it comes after they took away the pricing structure info. Definitely NOT the way to build and maintain a community of the folks who made all of SW's products...

There were about 27 of us I think.

It was Greg and another on video, they gave 30 minute presentation then opened the floor to us in a question and answer session.

Lets try and be realistic here...

If you had 100-10000 of us all swamping a text based chat then it would have became an unorganized unproductive dog-eat-doggy rabble.

What was done I agree with. It ran very smoothly and orderly. Maybe you'll be invited next time as he was thinking of doing these meetings more often.

That is true, but could the presentation not have been posted somewhere after the fact or broadcast live so that other interested parties could see the information without everyone turning into an angry mob?

I understand why they probably limited the number of people who could attend, but it sucks for everyone who wasn't invited and now presumably can't access the information in the meeting even though it directly pertains to how they conduct their buisness...

It was an informative online speach mostly. Unfortunately there was no time for exchanging suggestions / ideas.

The questions as submitted by others sort of covered my own, so I only asked a more distinct question.
The outlined roadmap looks promosing - including some features I've been looking forward to for quite a while - but it's gonna be a challenge for Shapeways though.

OK Sparkshot, I'll give SW the benefit of the doubt and wait with 'bated breath for the video to be uploaded for wider consumption - after all that's what any decent "partner" would do, right? It's your "most of the meeting was confidential" statement that really irks me - are some of us designers more equal than others?

I never said it was mostly confidential. Grumpy Alison else did. That notion was implied but not directly said. Mind you the quote wasn't mine so maybe you are addressing us both.

Anyway, bottom line for me: If anyone is but hurt over not beimg in the loop have a whinge at Greg. I can't do bugger all about it!

What I can say is a lot of our collective whining and fury (me included) about pointless print cancellations and a lot of the crap we put up with he recognises and agrees the current system in that area is a dog poo so he wants to change it.

Correct, the invitation did not say that but the host opened with the statement
.

I was...

Material pricing is still missing. Not that it hasn't been mentioned before ......

Metallic plastic (alumide) has been our go-to for functional parts that need a moderate amount of stiffness and can hold a thread. The HP substitute is awful and does neither of these while somehow being more expensive and less dimensionally accurate. Unfortunately, Shapeways seems really keen to push the "premium" HP over more functional legacy materials.

Funny, I have the opposite view. With Shapeways current pricing of the "professional" materials relative to the older ones, there just isn't any demand for it except in specialized applications.

Hi,

Pls help with "Polished and Bronzed Black Steel" material image.

There is only "Steel-Matte-Black" image on materials/Steel page, but I cant find ""Polished and Bronzed Black Steel"" in https://www.shapeways.com/materials/steel?li-metal-tutorial

Thank you in advance.

Hey
First image here is what is now called "Polished and Bronzed Black Steel"
It used to be called polished grey steel, but always came out looking like a soft black, and tends to be on the smoother end.

The second image is the matt black steel.
The main difference is the texture finish, the matt black steel is often ugly and rough.

An
And that's how I decided to find someplace else to do business with !