Is there an easier way to get value out of Thingiverse?

[C855B]

John's thread reminded me of the minor struggle I'm having getting usable models from thingiverse.com. Yes, of course I'm fully aware that it is a co-op reliant on contributed artwork, but so, so many models are in fantasy, gaming and military genres, and there is no apparent way to exclude these from searches, or search for "models of real stuff".

My two main searches have been for realistic figures, and structures. It takes hours going through page after page of figures before finding something remotely usable. I found a couple of 3D people scans, and at that, one was obviously modern. Those were understandably promos linking to (European) commercial 3D scan sites, where the typical price for an STL file of a single figure seemed to be around €40 (!!!), and, again, these were entirely modern in dress and pose, obviously catering to ad agencies or architectural modeling.

Anyway, structures on Thingiverse are almost the same, but at least there are not hundreds of pages to rifle through, but, still, too many fantasy/gaming models, plus most "real" buildings are of European design.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. Are there other sources of printable 3D art? There are supposedly now hundreds of thousands of Photons in the wild and FDM has been around for a lot longer, so is there anybody out there designing reality models that is willing to share?

EDIT: Keyboard barf posted before I was done!

[John]

Mike .. I found a couple of designers on Thingyverse that do model railroad stuff, and I follow them ..  but it's hit and miss -- the really good stuff tends to be on some of the "pay" sites ..   I'm going to mod some of the things I've downloaded as I get a little more experience with the CAD programs, and since I respect the creative commons license, I will resubmit them on the site .. but thats going to be a while ..  Any origional work, I will make available here as well .. I'm thinking of doing some of the GaryS buildings as some test cases  but first I need to build the windows ..

[wvgca]

thingiverse does have a little bit on it, but the pay sites have less ...  any STL that you do get -may- have issues with your particular printer, depending on what you use for slicer software ...
the files on thingiverse are -usually- free, but they can be difficult to modify, editing a STL rather than the source file can be difficult to do , but not impossible ..
as usual, designers on there will cater to their layout type and era .. which may or may not match with yours ..

[John]

thingiverse does have a little bit on it, but the pay sites have less ...  any STL that you do get -may- have issues with your particular printer, depending on what you use for slicer software ...
the files on thingiverse are -usually- free, but they can be difficult to modify, editing a STL rather than the source file can be difficult to do , but not impossible ..
as usual, designers on there will cater to their layout type and era .. which may or may not match with yours ..

All true .. as I get better at the CAD stuff, I will probably just build my own files ... maybe some day I can create masterpieces like Mark W

[C855B]

Any links to the "pay" sites? As a 3D noob I'm only aware of Thingiverse. F'rinstance, I'd pay ten bucks or so for a decent DXF of a common house I could use as a basis for regional architecture tweaks. The biggest time sink I have with rolling my own is not the CAD time, it's the measurements and especially getting the proportions right.

[narrowminded]

I don't know what Cadd you are using but most have tutorials.  Do those, repeat a few times if necessary, but it will suddenly come together.    If you were to graph the learning curve it would be a near 90 degree turn.  Struggle, struggle, then BOOM!