Use Minecraft for Rapid Prototyping with Minecraft.Print()

I’m a sucker for Minecraft (My daughter & I play almost every day on our personal server), and thanks to the folks at the MIT Media Lab I can now placate my wife by showing her how it can be used for design and rapid prototyping.

Minecraft.Print() then outputs a standard model file for printing to either a professional 3D printer or (MakerBot or RepRap). Now that you’ve printed out your creation, it’s time to show it off. We figure you know how to do this part.

You build your creation inworld and then delineate it with a combination of rare blocks to define 2 corners, then use their python scripts to export it into a printable format.

via Minecraft.Print().

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a computer graphics programmer and news junky that's been working in the field for the last 15 years. He's responsible for visualizations generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, ytnef, mullion support in ParaView, and VizWorld.com.