Worried about accidentally 3D printing a gun? New software will prevent it [View all]

[DainBramaged]

A Danish company that sells 3D printer component parts and related software to 3D printer manufacturers now says it has come up with a firearm component detection algorithm.

On Tuesday, Create it Real announced that in the coming months its software would include an option to find and block gun parts. When it detects a file that contains firearm parts, the software will shut down and disallow printing. Create it Real's software will likely be licensed to 3D printer manufacturers for around "several thousand euros annually" and then bundled with a 3D printer sold to individual consumers.

This innovation is squarely aimed at efforts from Defense Distributed, the group based in Texas that has done more to advance 3D printed firearm research than any other organization worldwide. In the last several months, DefDist has made and demonstrated an AR-15 lower receiver and an entire handgun. As a result, a number of American legislators started drafting new possible regulations in the face of rapidly declining 3D printer prices.

“In Europe there are laws around manufacturing firearms—if it becomes too easy to just press print, who is responsible?” Jeremie Pierre Gay, the company’s CEO, said to Ars. “That is the concern of the manufacturer. They want to get rid of this responsibility. In general, our software works like an antivirus [program], we have a central database [where] we collect all the files that are firearms.”

“The goal is that the average user won’t be able to by mistake print a gun”

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/06/worried-about-accidentally-3d-printing-a-gun-new-software-will-prevent-it/