Hark! Another way to print Minecraft worlds:
The ways to print your minecraft creations are getting easier and easier! The latest (and seemingly the best) is Mineways.
Mineways is a free (as in beer) program that allows you to select a model and then 3D print via Shapeways.
Of course there have been others like this one and this one, but Mineways seems more mature.
Did I say full colour prints?
The latest version of Mineways runs on Windows (or Wine) - sorry no Mac version yet – and allows you to output Minecraft models in full color! (this is via Shapeways Sandstone printing) Check out Eric’s Mineways Shapeways Shop for examples or the Mineways Flickr group he has set up.
There are already over 1900 Minecraft tagged items for sale or download in the Shapeways gallery and we are expecting to see many, many more as the game engine makes 3D modelling fun and accessible to thousands of people.
Video of 3D Printing via Mineways
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
It’s in C++ (not in Python – sob!)
The (C/C++) code is available open source and based on minutor written by Sean Kasun, Mineways is a superset of his mapper, with a model exporter and other additional features. Take a look at the Mineways page for all of the documentation.. A big thanks to Eric for all his work in making this happen, we are super excited to see so much Minecraft coolness in the Shapeways galleries.
Gamers will love this
Well, being able to model a world is very exciting. I see tabletop gamers creating a world or a battleground in Minecraft (in creative mode) and then printing it for use later. This sort of thing has not been done before.
Being able to print in full colour is really exciting – no more painting required!
My suggestion is that if you use these full colour sandstone models for printing, perhaps get some spray laquer and spray the model once received.
I have definitely put this little project in “the bag” for some research a little later!
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