3D printing is gaining more and more momentum to build
customized product in a wide variety of fields. We con-
duct an exploratory study of Thingiverse, the most popular
Website for sharing user-created 3D design les, in order to
establish a possible connection with software product line
(SPL) engineering. We report on the socio-technical aspects
and current practices for modeling variability, implementing
variability, configuring and deriving products, and reusing
artefacts. We provide hints that SPL-alike techniques are
practically used in 3D printing and thus relevant. Finally,
we discuss why the customization in the 3D printing eld
represents a challenging playground for SPL engineering.