Imagine if you could cut down on the amount of wasted filament when your 3D printer goes wrong during a print job
Imagine if you could cut down on the amount of wasted filament when your 3D printer goes wrong during a print job PrintedSolid, Epic 3D Printing Fail

Authentise, the firm behind the licensing platform that helps secure original 3D printing design files for their creators and paved the way for 3D printing bureaus around the world, has a new software program that can cut down on failed print jobs.

3D printers are great fun and are slowly but surely bringing manufacturing to the masses but it is often difficult to get an object to print out correctly the first time round.

Even if you do not need to adjust the calibrations in the 3D printer or the data in the CAD file, 3D printers can still mess up the project when they malfunction, spewing out reams of melted filament all over the place.

This makes it very difficult to decide to take a break if you are not using a big industrial 3D printer (and even if you are).

So Authentise has come up with Computer Vision, a software program that can work with almost any off-the-shelf web cam to monitor the 3D print job being carried out.

The user turns the software on before stepping away from the area where the 3D printer is and the software compares the 3D model file to the object that is being printed out.

If the printer deviates in any way from the model, the software will send an SMS text message alert or an email to the user's phone immediately, and the user can reply back and ask the software to "pause" the 3D printer until the user can get back to the vicinity of the 3D printer.

Authentise estimates the failure rate of 3D printers can be between 25-70% of the time – just imagine if you did not have to deal with all that hassle.

Interested users can sign up to receive a private beta invite. The company hopes to release the software for general distribution by the end of March, according to 3DPrint.com.