Then again, some people just don’t care as long as they get the result they want. AI models are here to stay and they do a great job at many things. If you want to go back to the “before AI”-era, do so, but you can’t expect everybody else to follow suite.
Meshy is a great tool for converting imagest to printable files, but just as Firefly is a great addition to photoshop, it just doesn’t do things for you, but rather with you. I am all for that.
Like all tools at your disposal AI has its place. A customer who I’ve done many projects from scratch, existing files for guidance or AI assisted (paid for software) I’ve been pleased with AI. A collector of action figures of one season shows, 70’s to present I was able to fully model the “Mantis” 90’s one season show action figure into a character model for his display through AI. There were no action figures ever available for the programs main character. Wonderful to see the joy on someone’s face when we have this unbelievable platform to create these works.
While I agree that a VAST majority of the use of AI is to make absolutely horrendous, ai slop models and use it to generate some BS model pics that are not at all accurate to the low quality c-rap test prints (Bambu really needs to address the use of any generated image for the model uploads I feel like, there is no need for them other than false advertisement) there IS a scenario where AI is a net positive in a part of your workflow of modeling.
I won’t ever deny the use of some AI in my models. I have spent quite some time figuring out how to prompt the different platforms for reference images, manipulation of them, creating mesh files from them, etc. These are then used in the rest of my work flow where I manipulate and clean up different bits and pieces of the models to make work with my overall design.
AI straight to Printer is just.. pointless? if you’re not touching the design in some way shape or form what’s even the point? This hobby is a creative outlet for me and if it becomes just a prompting input to a printed model than it stops being the thing that I use as the creative outlet.
Anyhow, to answer the original question, it really depends on the type of model you want to make. Bambus makerlab image to 3d is actually very powerful (and currently the cheapest available option) to generate STL files from an image.
I have tried meshy and found the results to be absolute garbage. It works for a very specific type of model prompt, and wasn’t at all what I could use. Tripo AI has been a very powerful tool for a lot of my character creation base files, but again, just depends on what type of visual you are after.
You can’t turn away from a new technology altogether.. instead you should work to understand it and see how you can embrace it and use it to your advantage while still retaining your core values.. just my .02 cents .. (and just for reference, I have been I use Fusion, Blender, Meshmixer and have been using Solidworks for the last 12 years, so I am not green to modeling raw)
AI is meaningless for DIY enthusiasts.
Hear hear!
I’m tired of seeing sloppy AI being posted as original work with no sign of post processing. Even all the AI-generated descriptions of the slop is infuriating!
I’ve started modelling some year ago and been introduced to Blender recently. The absolute joy of creating and seeing people like your creation, download it, print it. It can’t be reproduced with Meshy ■■■■.
People are just after the points, the easy $$$.
If there were no points or rewards, we’d see less of it.
agree to disagree, but I don’t think it’s meaningless. I use it as a part of my workflow and in certain instances it is absolutely useful depending on what I am designing. Things don’t have to be all or nothing, there is a happy median for most things in life.
I 100% support getting rid of any suspected AI descriptions/titles/images or image renders as main images in general.
everyone is chasing points, but 90% of these sloppy ai models don’t get any traction beyond people clicking on them for the fancy, ai rendered main image. If we got rid of any AI generated main images and only kept it to actual pictures of printed models it would stop even that small traffic they get. But I can’t imagine makerworld cares too much about what sort of traffic and volume they get as long as they have traffic and volume..
Yes, they do care, but in exactly the opposite direction, or to be precise, in the direction of AI. 
Makerlab is all about AI - with few exceptions.
Users will even be encouraged to upload AI stuff to MW by offering extra points.
That’s why they will never slow down AI in any way, but will continue to promote it.
Sure, I don’t disagree, but what I’m talking about is not completely related to the makerlab AI model creation. Again, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.. AI has it’s place for creating models. If you’re a die hard designer who has the ability to quickly model anything you want, you’re obviously on one side of the fence, however, this is giving folks that have 0 modeling ability to create something of their own (no, it’s not being used that way for the most part now, but it has potential). What I’m saying they need to care more about is getting rid of the BS AI slop models that use AI generator cover images to drive volume. That needs to go away 100%. The only place for renders and not actual images is for instruction sets. There should be 0 rendered images for cover images of any model. If people chose to make sh*t models using AI and post them for what they actually are, who cares? It won’t drive any download volume/points anyway.
I understand what you mean, and my response to that was that it won’t happen because Bambu supports AI. This has been requested for a long time. Believe me, others, including myself, have been demanding this forever.
Oh, you’re new to the forum? No problem, of course you wouldn’t know that, no problem. 
I’m happy to give a quick refresher on the topic:
Oct 2024
Dec 2025
Aug 2025
Sep 2025
Yea I don’t know how I never found the forum in the last 15 months of printing haha. That is frustrating indeed… and no, I don’t expect they do anything about it, because again, volume is volume for them.. they don’t care. Nothing will be done until they start losing creators because.
Also, if I may.. the recent website updates with the image selection during upload is absolutely attrociously executed. anyhow.. I guess all we can do is hope
hm…
for me, i prefer renderings as main picture of a design. i believe that it can show more details of the design it self, no matter what the actual possibilities are… dont matter the equipment and its possibilities, of peoples in their times…
but i also want to point out that real pictures of your designs are realy important!! its simply a part of the process, of creating… of the joy that you can have or had on the way to express your imaginations… hm… its hard to explain how i realy feel about this…
the use of ai, for making things, that people normaly like and enjoy to do, as being creativ…! its strange to me…
i dont trust in this technology… it could be something wonderful too and it is maybe in many chases! overall i see this more as a modern weapon against humanity on its own… i dont know…? right now.. i dont want to have something to do with it because right now, its more an enemy to me… there is simply no real plan how this should ever fit into our future time (“the future”) and our still actual global system… it makes no sence for me…?? i simply can not see the place for this replacement…? hm… its hard to explain myself…
hmm…
pleasant evening,
i go to sleep
I have only seen two good scenarios for using AI so far. The first is with my security cameras outside my house. The AI built into the software determines it’s an animal, a bird, a person, or a car. I tell it what image type I want, and it does the rest. My wife just found something for her Quilting. It actually lays out the quilt with colors that match in eye-pleasing patterns. Now that’s cool.
By a quick show of hands… your degree in Terminators from Skynet University is what?
AI has been around since the 1950s when John McCarthy came up with the term, and it’s about time we stopped treating it like a sudden alien invasion or a magical shortcut for the lazy. Whether it’s the symbolic logic of the McCarthy era or the statistical pattern-matching of today, it remains a tool… no different from the CNC algorithms or slicing engines we already trust.
To fear “AI” whilst using a modern 3D printer is like cursing the internal combustion engine while driving to work (horse power but no horses); you’re just gatekeeping the level of automation that makes you personally uncomfortable. If a model has structural integrity and engineering merit, the “soul” of the manual labor behind it is irrelevant… unless, of course, your Skynet University thesis was on why tinkering is more sacred than topology optimization.
Since it seems everyone is willy-nilly about the term “AI,” you’d do good by looking up the philosophical divide between McCarthy and Hinton or even “Project Match” from the 60s to see that we already had Tinder 60 years ago. The field has gone through at least two AI winters, periods of dashed expectations and funding cuts because of this exact kind of hype cycle and confusion over what the tech actually is.
For a foundational understanding, you can’t go wrong with Peter Norvig and Stuart Russell’s definitive textbook, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, before you decide to comment on what qualifies as “intelligence” again. (NB: 1st edition 1995)
In the meantime, enjoy some 1968 “cutting edge” tech. And, if you don’t speak German, don’t worry… the auto-translate captions were brought to you by “AI.” (Direct response to the aforementioned Project Match.)
France Gall - Der Computer Nr. 3 (1968)
Good question, I would also like to know this
DIY enthusiasts have their own ideas, rather than simply dumping them onto AI and letting it generate the results.
Do it yourself, not do it with AI.
and what’s keeping a DYI enthusiast from having a part of their vision created via AI? Your statement makes it seem like the ONLY use of AI generated base files is to have it create some random, off the wall, AI generated piece of slop that is not at all the vision of the creator.
There are too many AI models. I’m not saying all AI models are garbage,
because anyone can generate them using AI; it’s very simple. I think the AI models on websites should be clearly labeled, or they should be grouped into a separate section.
