You can always not use those sites and/or only print the ones that have picture and ignore the others. People are offering hours if their work for free (including a bunch of prototypes and wasted plastic you never see), including licensing them sometimes very generously, and you come complaining that there isn’t a picture? If you can’t look at a model you won’t be able to tell if the uploaded pictures are from the same version of the model uploaded.

In the same way that Printables has an option to hide AI-generated content from the search results, you could just have an option toe exclude models without print photos.

I have to agree with @paf@jlai.lu on this. I’d much rather have those models as part of the ecosystem than not. I do think part of the 3d printing hobby is learning to look at a model and recognize what can be printed on what type of printer, where supports are needed and where modifications may need to be made. For example, I recently purchased a model through TitanCraft. And the models they create are clearly designed with a resin printer in mind. they have some small features which are difficult or impossible to print on an FDM printer. While I knew that mini-figure models can be challenging on FDM, I went ahead with the purchase anyway. And the resulting min-fig’s staff was so thin my printer just couldn’t print it cleanly. I had to load the STL into Blender and spend an hour or two separating the staff out from the rest of the model and then I thickened it considerably. Sure, the haft of the shaft is a bit thick for the proportions of the model, but not too bad.

I make a similar evaluation of stuff I see on the various model sharing sites, before I try to print it. Does it need supports? Are some of the details going to be very hard or impossible for my printer to make? Should I split the model? And, while I am pretty crap at Blender, I may consider doing some simple edits to make a model easier to print and/or make changes I want. For example, I liked these ghosts but didn’t care for the spring and just wanted them hollow so I could stuff a UV LED inside them. With glow in the dark PLA, these look neat at night. So, I beat my head against Blender until I had them how I wanted them.

So, I wouldn’t want to stifle other peoples’ creativity. Let them create and enjoy the fact that people are willing to create and release this stuff for you to print. If it doesn’t work out, fix it and re-release it.

Well yes and no. I think mostly it’s up to you to determine if the model is good or not. .here is an example.

I wanted to make a model and I needed a female face. (A mask). I found one in creative commons. When I attempted to use the face/head model I realized it wasn’t symmetrical. Or level. And had weird internal geometry.

I fixed those issues before I could use it for my mask model.

I figured since I did all that work and it was a nice female head, I would upload it on thingiverse so that others wouldn’t have to do through all the same trouble.

But I don’t want to just print a female head. I didn’t need one. So I didn’t. There is no photo on that upload.

It’s not really necessary.

I did, however, print the mask I made and posted photos of it with the model.

I hope my example illustrates why enforcing the photo rule isn’t going to work in all scenarios.

Just fyi. On makerworld.com, in order to upload a profile file (a pre made print file), you are required to use a photo of the model.

I think it works as a rule for that.

And also weed out models that are clearly impossible to print.

FWIW I always make my headline image a printed instance of whatever it is. I figure nobody’s interested in anything else.

I am not going to bother taking a picture to upload with the model. Then you never get to see what I made. I understand the concern with AI slop, but this would also hurt the collaboration/sharing for non AI related posts.

Many of them actually do. Report any model that doesn’t have a printed picture with it and printables/makerworld will both take them down. I only know this because I’ve had my own models ‘limited’ in this way until I added a picture of the print I had done.