It’s becoming impossible to know what a model actually looks like without downloading it because so many people are trying to game the system and submitting hundreds of AI models that they have never printed. Their AI generated pictures are always higher-resolution than the model, and sometimes differ in significant ways.
I looked at a model last night where the picture looked great, but the text on the model itself was gibberish. It was obvious that both the pictures and the model were just automatically generated from an image, and that there were no actual pictures of the model because the submitter has probably never printed it.
Items like this are NOT hard to find. If I go through the new list, I find one on practically every page. This slop degrades the value of MakerWorld and makes it impossible to trust.
If the site would just do some due diligence and reject images that are 95%+ likely to have been AI generated, it would go a LONG way to reduce the ever-increasing garbage filling the site.
Preaching to the choir but we agree with you. Lots of discussions here about the misuse of AI.
Bambu really needs to decide what kind of model repository they want - one with realistic models people can actually make, or one that disappoints users who get hoodwinked by flashy images but terrible models that don’t print.
All the anger at AI models spills onto Bambu. You’d think that would help incentivize getting rid of them.
Unfortunately many don’t know what to look for and that preview tends to crash out on tablets/phones with big dataset models (like AI figures). Just not enough memory in most tablets.
The target for all the AI slop are generally newbies who don’t realize the model may be nothing like the AI image. And preview doesn’t show how support is to be added. It only shows the ideal model.
For those who know what to look for, absolutely - preview can reveal a lot.
It’s likely not an AI generated preview since it is just visualizing the model data. It’s more rendering than AI generation I think.
But viewing the rendered model is very useful if you know what to look for. It doesn’t show support but if there is for example a billowing cape on a figurine, you know that lots of support will likely be needed, etc. Very thin areas a slicer might omit, and so on. If you spot details below printer resolution you know those will turn into smeared blobs, etc. If models are improperly oriented, etc.
It’s not an ai preview, it’s the actual model geometry that’s being displayed.
So instead of downloading the model, you press the preview button which allows you to look at it before the actual download. If you don’t like what you see: you don’t download it.
The surface geometry is just what’s on the screen. Anything can exist in CAD, but especially in the situation the OP is alluding to, a lot of the detail and geometry coming out of generative tools is incredibly complex and doesn’t show up in the actual printed part, or may not be printable at all.
There’s a world of difference between something that’s designed from the ground up to be 3D printed and the slop an average AI puts out, and that’s the problem with AI generated images; they’re misleading.
The requirement needs to be “images must be of the actual printed object”, period.
I just went and tried it a bit, it does help some I agree, and I will start using it some, but it doesn’t show what a model looks like printed, and it just add more work and time to what should really be a simple task. My frustration is the amount of time I spend looking at models trying to figure out how the will look printed, then tossing it because it just doesn’t look good once its printed. Because I can successfully print it doesn’t mean it looks good printed.
The preview mode actually quite easy to avoid. For some reason, MakerWorld allows files larger than 100 MB, but the preview can’t load them because it runs out of memory. Someone can simply remesh the model a couple of times to inflate the file size, making it impossible to inspect in Preview Mode. I’ve also seen people paint the entire model black, which makes it very difficult to see any of the details, even when you inspect it.
Providing a “printed preview” isn’t straightforward because it would require slicing the model first. That means MakerWorld would have to load the model and then generate G-code or a .obj preview (similar to what Slice Plate does), which requires significantly more computation.
In my opinion, the only truly reliable solution is human judgment. Even then, it can be difficult to tell when someone has used tools like Decimate, Remesh/Smooth or other mesh processing operations.
As for AI generated images and the AI checker, I believe MakerWorld already has some kind of implementation. That’s probably why newly/edited models stay in the “Verifying” state for a while. However, image generation has advanced to the point where it can easily outperform most detection systems. Just look at what you can create with Nano Banana 3 and other recent models.
Google tried to address this with SynthID, a watermark designed to survive cropping and noise, but it often fails in practice. I also doubt MakerWorld uses it for validation, considering how many uploads include Gemini logo.
Personally, I think MakerWorld has made some odd design decisions. For example, you can mark a model as “Exclusive” (which supposedly disallows AI or AI assistance) while also categorizing it as a “Generative 3D Model” I also don’t know how expensive it would be to implement an AI flag like Printables has. That would at least allow users to filter or completely hide AI generated content with a single click, so you can stay in a category (e.g. “animals”) and choose whether to see AI or non AI models
Better than expected and it looks like its real view not the 3mf embedded screenshot. The sloppers can waste everyone’s time equally now, not just the plastic.
Even when you report the models, Bambu doesn’t do anything about and takes no action against it. I routinely find items in violation of uploading guidelines, report them, and weeks go by with no resolution nor action. It’s a shame really.
Same goes for painted models. Looks great, but it’s not how it comes out of the printer. I see many models like that too.
Not everybody has the skill or patience (or equipment) to post process a model with a paint brush or air brush. Show us what the printer produces, not what it looks like after painting.
