3MF: 3D Manufacturing Format

[StBernard]

Originally made my own post but was rerouted here. Text from the post below.

For those that have not heard of 3MF, or 3D Manufacturing Format, it is an up and coming, open source file format that is used mostly for 3D printing. Developed by the the 3MF Consortium, it provides more meta data than the traditional STL file format such as material and color. It also stores texture and support structures in the file. Lots of big players are supporting it such as Autodesk, Solidworks, and Siemens. Seems like it could be the next big format for 3D printing even though I still use STLs. Does the FreeCAD community have any interest in supporting it? Is support for the format already on the radar? Or does it seem like something that will gain buzz, but ultimately remain inferior to STL and other formats? Curious to hear others' thoughts

[Bayesian]

3MF might be interesting as an export, but in general it won't make a big difference right now.

If you have a project and you want to export the parts for 3D printing, you currently have to either export every object manually as an STL or write a script/notebook that does that automatically, like a Makefile. So if you could export a complete document or multiple documents into one 3MF that would be one reason for 3MF support.

Another interesting application is to assign different materials to different Bodies/Parts, so that you can use Multimaterial slicing. But that would also require new Properties to guide the export.

As far as I understand it, the only valuable information FreeCAD can transmit to a slicer right now is the triangle mesh(es). Maybe color. I don't think FreeCAD should replicate Slicer settings or support placement and so on. All STLs exported from valid Shapes in FreeCAD are manifold and need no fixing, so that's one less reason for 3MF.

Also, Cura and PrusaSlicer support STL import and 3MF export...

[fabricator4]

I just registered to zap this months old thread back into life. I did a search and didn't find anything new on this subject.

I think it's pretty obvious that STL was a kludgy hack when it was first conceived back in 1987. Time has not been kind and currently this neophyte designer is working on changing from an STL workflow to AMF. I have to wonder how portable AMF is, but Cura seems happy enough with it though...

With people like Joe Prusa pushing the 3MF format pretty hard, is it time to start taking it seriously? I'm not sure what the advantages of 3MF would be over AMF apart from the likelihood of greater portability.

[Bayesian]

What advantages does AMF or 3MF give you over STL in your workflow?

When exporting CAD models from FreeCAD, they are already perfect watertight, manifold meshes. FreeCAD (as far as I know) currently doesn't manage information about Shapes that would be useful to export with AMF/3MF. Except maybe color, and you might want to display the Shape in a different color than you want it printed.

At the moment I think that exporting through STL to a Slicer and converting to 3MF from there, after the assignment of colors, materials, settings etc, seems to be the better way. Both Slic3r and Cura support reloading STLs that have changed on disk while keeping orientation and settings.

3MF is not useful (or designed) for exchanging models between CAD Software or between CAD and graphics software. It seems to be uniquely suited to exchange projects between slicers.

I could imagine that someone wants to make another 3D-Printing workbench, akin to the existing ones, that manages such information and exports projects as 3MF files. But that would also mean recreating functionality that Cura and Slic3r are already very good at!

[pablogil]

Here you find a brief explanation on why to choose 3MF over STL:
https://blog.prusaprinters.org/3mf-fil ... its-great/

I think it’s something that would be better to embrace now than in the future... at least for start experimenting with it.

[henkjan_nl]

I'd very much like 3MF to be supported. Here's a video from Prusa on the advantages:
https://youtu.be/BABdR9d8Cp4

[HarryGeier]

I also came across that format when playing with a full color 3d printer here.

I am a user for a different software that , well about half a million users have. Most times i ask for a feature there the answer is:

If you can prove that 5% of the users will benefit from that , we takeit into account.

I doubt, that even 0.1 % of the current users will benefit from 3MF . Currently i think, it´s only for owners of 3D FullColor devices .

In addition , to me it is more something like a new workbench ..similar to PATH , for adding new metadata like materials etc..

There is sooo much more important things to improve in FreeCAD ....


Harry

[chrisb]

I'd very much like 3MF to be supported. Here's a video from Prusa on the advantages:
https://youtu.be/BABdR9d8Cp4

Seems to be much the same as in the post right before yours.

See https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=16703 on some effort to include 3MF.

[caffeinatedinsanity]

From what I understand one of the main advantages of 3mf over AMF is that 3mf is open source while amf is a company's

[Photodraft]

Clearly I have been living under a rock as I've only just heard about 3MF and AMF files for the first time today.
This Joko video is quite lengthy, but at 23:46 they discuss the 3MF format for about five minutes and how it is advantageous for 3D printing. (Not just colour and finishes but qualities like springiness).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-EnB95-lQ0
A monochrome 3D printer could also make good use of such information; mixing properties like stiffness along the length of an object, and softness for impact resistance at the end for instance. The fact the object was the same colour throughout doesn't negate the advantages of these file formats.
I imagine newer printers are more likely to benefit from any improvements and wonder which format might better? A similar question is addressed here by Microsoft.

How does 3MF compare to AMF?

AMF inspired the foundations of 3MF, but AMF is widely held to have gone into a standards body too early, having some features not clearly defined and other features missing. The 3MF consortium was formed to bring the industry leaders together to agree on a format that would serve the industry’s needs.

https://3mf.io/resources/faq/

The concern about Microsoft making 3MF proprietory is played down here.
https://blog.grabcad.com/blog/2015/07/21/amf-vs-3mf/

A problem of having two "new" fomats trying to achieve similar ends is of course irritating, (and time consuming if they both end up getting supported).