Hello everyone,
I’ve noticed that MakerWorld profiles were initially created for designers to indicate the best “print profiles” for printing their models. However, it seems that most designers are using these profiles to show variations in their designs, such as Small, Medium, and Large.
Some of my designs have configurable options. Including these options inside the STL files can be confusing, but extracting them as “print profiles” is also messy and appears to place them in the wrong category. Alternatively, should I extract them further and upload it as a different STL upload?
What do you think about this issue?
Until the Handy app offers users the ability to scale prints, I don’t see the harm in having a couple extra print profiles.
@JJTechPrints exactly my bugbear and the ability to merge an X/P series print onto a Mini would win hearts too. I deliberately upload in Mini at minimum and only have X1 if its not feasible for that reason.
But they’re are different “models” not different “profiles”.
I think that was aimed at me? Multiple profiles inside a model can be helpful if done right, the main reason I think there are multiple scaled models is to bypass the download/print restrictions within the one model. I try to keep things together in one place personally unless it gets too crowded, if a variation can be ran alone without the rest I’ll run it as a solo model.
I am in favor of having print profiles for variants and consider it the best UX for users right now for models that have variants. It groups variants of a model neatly, shows print time and filament requirements in most cases more accurately and helps to avoid cluttering the platform. This is especially helpful if users are going to print more than 1 variant. It also opens up space for more variations. If you search for something, you will see different models in the results and you can pick the one you like and don`t have to scroll through dozens of variations of the same model.
As @GenericUser pointed out, the only downside is that creators trying to declutter the platform receive less points in contrast to model spammers that upload a separate model for each variant due to restrictions introduced.
Then shouldn’t it be renamed as “variants”, or “component” etc, a name that better reflects the usage. Because I agree that that’s how most people are using it. There are very few pure “print profile” out there.
For example if I design a box with 3 different options for covers, they can be listed as “parts” or “ components” instead of “print profiles”.
One can edit the names of the print profiles. In your example, one way to do it is to have 3 print profiles. The first profile has the box with one of the covers. Name it box (or the name of the box) with cover 1 (or give the name of the cover). The 2nd and the 3rd profiles contain the 2nd and the 3rd cover option (without the box) respectively and named accordingly.
@DWdesigns I try to utilise that as a feature often, the settings default is a little redundant as most people breeze over it. It would be good if there was a standardised Naming Convention to go by, we are all different and as usual it looks like a pigs breakfast.