3MF 3D Printing Format Adopted By 17 Companies

Thirty-two products from 17 companies have adopted the 3MF Consortium’s  (3MF) 3D printing format including companies like Autodesk, HP, Microsoft and Siemens in products such as SolidWorks, Windows, 3D Manage and Magics.

“Wide adoption of 3MF is occurring because 3MF is a modern 3D printing file format designed with manufacturing in mind,” says Adrian Lannin, executive director, 3MF.  “For additive manufacturing, 3MF completely replaces STL, OBJ and VRML file formats, eliminating many interoperability issues.”

The 3MF 3D printing file format specification is free to download.  For a complete list of adoptions and partners, visit this site.  

“We use 3MF natively in the HP Jet Fusion 3D Printing portfolio to improve interoperability with design and printing applications,” says Luis Baldez, head of 3D Print Software Business, HP. “Specifically for the HP Jet Fusion 300/500 color 3D printers, 3MF proved to be more reliable than other alternatives, ensuring customers get the color they want where they want it.”

The 3MF 3D printing format allows design applications to send full-fidelity 3D models to a mix of other applications, platforms, services and printers. The specification eliminates issues with other available file formats, and allows companies to focus on innovation, rather than on basic interoperability issues. 3MF was particularly designed for the additive manufacturing process.

The 3MF 3D printing file format includes a number of extensions including: 3MF Material and Properties Extension; 3MF Production Extension; 3MF Beam Lattice Extension and 3MF Slice Extension. 3MF can also be found on GitHub: https://github.com/3mfconsortium.

Launched in 2015, the 3MF Consortium is a Joint Development Foundation project with the goal to define a 3D printing format that will allow design applications to send full-fidelity 3D models to a mix of other applications, platforms, services and printers.  Founding members of the 3MF Consortium are: 3D Systems; Autodesk, Inc.; Dassault Systèmes, SA.; FIT AG; GE Global Research; HP, Inc.; Materialise; Microsoft Corporation; Shapeways, Inc.; Siemens PLM Software; SLM Solutions Group AG; Stratasys and Ultimaker. 

Sources: Press materials received from the company.

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