Kanye West thinks home 3D printing is killing the shoe industry

[werdnagreb]

I would bet that consumer-grade 3D printers for the masses (when that eventually becomes a thing) will be dirt cheap, but suck balls and be designed badly. That’s when you know that a technology has finally made it, when new iterations start to suck balls.

[anon8420928]

@werdnagreb

That’s when you know that a technology has finally made it, when new iterations start to suck balls.

Nah, early adopters get plenty of ball-sucking tech as well.

[LDoBe]

Teledildonics is a rapidly growing industry in its infancy after all.

[Daemonworks]

Please stop giving him air time unless he does something actually relevant.
Then we’d never hear from him again, and the world would be a better place.

[adonai]

Now that’s a man who likes his fish sticks.

[anon8420928]

@SomeDude

Kanye has never been more cogent than in responding to this issue:

“Bitch, how you not the hobbit again?”

[DamienW]

@frauenfelder

“There will come a time where people are making the shoes at home.”

Yes, please, bring it on!
OBTW, Kanye West, STFU.

[dobby]

@japhroaig

How do you print leather? (Evilgrin, very small cows!)

I have had to print therapy boots for my little girl(she grows super slow, has 4-6 month old size feet at ~28 months, and has low muscle tone), I would post the .stl or a 3d render .png if that computer had not crapped out, I will have to rewrite the model. I use polyurethane filament for flexible parts, printed ABS inserts to stiffen the ankles, perforations in the PU boot for ventilation, and a cheap baby shoes for an inner comfort layer . She can’t quite free walk yet but she crawls/climbs up EVERYTHING/anything like a freaking monkey and is an expert ninja escape artist.

[timber_munki]

Kanye West thinks home 3D printing is killing the shoe industry

Cobblers!

(I’ll get my coat)

[jonbly]

@frauenfelder

There will come a time where people are making the shoes at home.

…just like they used to.

[Mitch_M1]

Oh, good. I can just print myself up a pair of Grenson brogues instead of waiting until I can afford to spend $300 for a pair.

[redesigned]

Yo check out these sick Kicks I just printed off of SneakerBay! Boottorrent your pirated shoes today!

[fuzzyfungus]

So, aside from Yeezus’ inimitable shutter-shaded brand of cultural commentary, the source site for this article has to be some kind of sick joke, right?

A site dedicated to nothing but hyperventilating about heavily branded sneakers? That uses the phrase ‘your rotation’ in a way suggesting that the reader obviously has dozens of pairs in reserve for various occasions? Surely this is some deadpan hoax? Please?

[ugh]

Our Lord Yeezus speaks the truth, but the shoe industry is killing children with unsafe work conditions in sweat shops.

[dobby]

looks like the end to big-shoe is already here

Footwear: A Collection by glitchpudding

[samthepea]

[LDoBe]

Come to think of it, while all the pearl clutching about shoes is pretty silly, I think what would be really stellar is if I could print new and extra insoles for my shoes. I wear orthotic inserts since I’m flat-footed, and the arch they force my foot into prevents my knees from getting blown out. But it’s like $300 a foot for the prescription custom orthotics and the thing is Dr. Scholls doesn’t do crap for my feet, while real orthotics made with a cast of my feet work. So I’d like to just get a decent resolution of my foot imprints digitized so I can run off a new pair of insoles every now and then.

[ugh]

@slybevel

Nah, early adopters get plenty of ball-sucking tech as well.

As evinced by the poor reviews for the Super Ball Sucker on Amazon: ball sucking tech sucks balls at sucking balls.

[shaddack]

As someone who hates shopping for shoes, I’d say…
Bring it on! NOW!

@LDoBe

But it’s like $300 a foot for the prescription custom orthotics and the thing is Dr. Scholls doesn’t do crap for my feet, while real orthotics made with a cast of my feet work. So I’d like to just get a decent resolution of my foot imprints digitized so I can run off a new pair of insoles every now and then.

There are quite decent 3d scanners these days out there. You could do with the “structured light” approach - project parallel lines to the object, reconstruct the 3d form.

For the imprint itself, that’s a simpler thing as it is pretty much just a relief, a 2d height-array. You could potentially use a printer that has a bed autoleveling probe on the head. Then write a script (e.g. python code) that sends g-code to the printer to position the head to a xy coordinate, then z-probe down until the switch hits, then record the z-position. Repeat until you get the whole area “felt”.

On an industrial fair I saw machines for precision measurements for quality control. Some were pretty similar to delta printers, with a feeler probe on the tip instead of a print head.

@fuzzyfungus

3d printers are unlikely to beat cheap shoes on price, or good shoes on quality; but anything that makes short run production easier and faster to tool up probably will find a role in beating shoes sold more or less entirely on trademark or copyright enforcement. Quite possibly in smallish workshops, rather than at home; but rapidly cloning whatever the ‘in’ product of the moment is, ideally in a small enough footprint to evade the authorities, is a problem fairly similar to rapid prototyping; and that’s something of a strength for 3d printers.

Bring it on. Bring it on fast. Down with overpriced crap that serves only as status symbols.

@gregmcph

The “Hey, I could make that!” syndrome.Yeah, you could, but it will cost more, be crappier, and take up your time. So go to Walmart and just buy it.

There’s the feeling of empowerment that comes with making your own.
Then there’s the issue of customization - you can get much closer to what you want.

@fuzzyfungus

I can’t say that I’ll be crying too hard for the bonfire of the vanities that will result from easier cloning of branded status goods.

I have a special booze bottle to drink from at such opportunities. Because they’re worth celebrating.

[dobby]

The technique I use in OpenSCAD is to find a few different balls in the kids collection and compare how they fit against a real foot, then use the estimate to generate spheres to z axis deform the flat x/y foot/sole shape, itself based on hulled circles.