You may have heard the news that a new 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF) was announced recently at Microsoft Build. We’re excited to have a part in this news and wanted to come here to tell you more about it. The announcement today was in regards to the 3MF Consortium we are a part of. Seven leading companies in the global 3D printing sector have come together and will release the 3FM specification, which allows design applications to send full-fidelity 3D models to a mix of other applications, platforms, services and printers. The first version of the specification is available now for download at no charge!
We’re in great company as the other members of the 3MF Consortium are: Dassault Systemes S.A.; FIT AG/netfabb GmbH; Microsoft Corporation; HP; SLM Solutions Group AG; and Autodesk. For additional background, the 3MF Consortium is a Joint Development Foundation project. The Joint Development Foundation is an independent non-profit organization that provides the corporate and legal infrastructure to enable groups to establish and operate standards and source code development.
The mission is to deliver a 3D printing file format that is:
- Rich enough to fully describe a model, retaining internal information, color, and other details.
- Extensible so that it supports new innovations in 3D printing.
- Practical, simple to understand and easy to implement.
- Free of the issues inherent in other widely used file formats.
While modern 3D printers, including lower-cost models, are capable of printing items that are otherwise difficult to describe using existing formats it was definitely time for a change. The 3MF specification eliminates the problems associated with currently available file formats, like STL (which was originally designed in 1989!). It resolves interoperability and functionality issues, and will allow for further innovation in the industry.
Sounds great, right?
So how did this all start? It all began with a discussion among industry leaders regarding the best way to enable all of our various products to work well together. The group determined that the best approach would be to create a new 3D file format and support it through a collaborative effort with broad industry involvement. Accordingly, Microsoft donated its 3D file format work-in-progress as the starting point for the 3MF Consortium’s further development of the specification.
We’re honored to be a part of this amazing group and hope the 3D printing community is excited for what’s to come. We’ll be sure to keep the community updated as things progress and new versions of this specification are released!
Probably not the right place to discuss this, but I would appreciate a followup article with a short explanation of what sets this apart from e.g. AMF. At first glance, the spec looks like xml-ified STL with
material nodes and a 2d preview picture ? And still only (s)RGB colorspace despite current “color” printers using CMYK internally ?
“The 3MF specification eliminates the problems associated with currently available file formats, like STL” — can you elaborate more on this? what kind of problems does it solve? does it reduce file size or retain more detail?
very interested!
On the 3D graphics level the main differences to AMF are based on ease of implementation. A few significant features of AMF such as curved triangles and having its own shading language do not map well to visualization or printing needs. The main design goal of the format was to be a replacement for STL and VRML in 3d printing and keep the implementation costs as low as possible.
Thank you 🙂
(But why would one want to replace VRML/X3D ? My primitive programming skills make me want to rely on the availability of (graphics) primitives… hopefully openscad will soon pick this up if it gains any traction…)
How much will M$ charge for this new standard?
What 3D printer will you use this with, I do not see any of the current 3D printer manufacturers on this list, will Objet enable multi material with this file format? Is Shapeways going to allow multi material upload? What is the time line for implementation?
How can I buy this?
Hey Scott you can get the first version for free here http://3mf.io/what-is-3mf/3mf-specification/
Ok, I read the spec, and it stores individual mesh vertices with XML tags.
3.15656.712313.35
And, this is justify as follows:
“The variable-precision nature of ASCII encoding is a significant advantage over fixed-width binary formats, and helps make up the difference in storage efficiency.”
Anyone doing web standards knows that XML tags can eat up >60% of storage space. Just look at the above example and count the bytes used for xml tags vs useful data. And it requires more CPU time to parse. In addition, storing digits in variable-width ASCII is still longer in bytes than fixed-width double precision..
Since its open source, I make a call for consumers and users to openly reject the current 3MF spec until they fix this particular aspect. At least modify the public spec to include a binary format section for vertex / normal / index streaming.
I don’t suppose here would be the best place to speak of Microsoft’s stellar success with:
Bob
Windows ME
Windows Vista
Windows 8
Surface
Zune
Now you announce a NEW 3D manufacturing format which will no doubt
be:
cross compatible
open source
reliable
consistent
widely adopted
rigrorously supported
ALL those things we’d like to expect from a format expected
to be widely used, trusted, and applied.
Something which doesn’t rewrite the rules for everything else
as much as find a way to seamlessly integrate into existing
methods and practices – something Microsoft of course is
WELL KNOWN for.
What could possibly go wrong?
Best of luck.