Shapeway & DIY Metal Work
I found this site: Shapeway.com, a site that will transform a Maya rendering into plastics, metal, etc.
The idea is fantastic, and I wonder how the ability to create some, although not directly and immediately, changes the process of design and creation. Do people create things differently in Maya, when they are designing for real-world fabrication vs. when they are designing for online, virtual spaces? How does the process of creating metal via metal work and Maya and uploading change the process? What do these two different populations think about? How do they think about things differently? How do the changes change the practice of metalwork? Will applications like Maya have the same implications in metalworking as Illustrator did for typesetting?
