As 3D printers have become cheaper and more widely accessible, a rapidly growing community of novice makers are fabricating their own objects. To do this, many of these amateur artisans access free, open-source repositories of user-generated 3D models that they download and fabricate on their 3D printer.
But adding custom design elements to these models poses a steep challenge for many makers, since it requires the use of complex and expensive computer-aided design (CAD) software, and is especially difficult if the original representation of the model is not available online. Plus, even if a user is able to add personalized elements to an object, ensuring those customizations don’t hurt the object’s functionality requires an additional level of domain expertise that many novice makers lack.
