3MF Consortium Releases First Standardized 3D Beam Lattice Extension

New Specification Maximizes Potential for Innovative, Efficient and
Lightweight Additive Manufacturing Design

WAKEFIELD, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The 3MF
Consortium (3MF) ratified and released its Beam
Lattice Specification Extension to its 3MF
Core Specification today. The 3MF Beam Lattice extension is a new
method for storing and transferring lattice-type geometry information.
By providing support for beam lattices, 3MF solves a significant
interoperability issue for the additive manufacturing industry and
provides an elegant solution to a problem that is not easily addressed
in other file formats. The benefits of using 3MF's Beam Lattice
Extension in additive manufacturing are significant and broad and
include improved design flexibility, lower material costs and reduced
production time.

Designers and engineers can use the extension to take full advantage of
the additive manufacturing process and design the interior of parts
creating designs that were not possible to produce only a few years ago.
As the extension inherits all the features from the 3MF
Core Specification, it retains build information, colors, materials
and technology specific characteristics like support structures – all in
one compact and well-structured file. The 3MF Beam Lattice Extension is
available to download at https://3mf.io/specification/.

"The 3MF Beam Lattice Extension simplifies creation of lattice
structures for 3D printing in additive manufacturing environments," said
Alexander Oster, chairman, 3MF Technical Working Group and director,
Additive Manufacturing, Autodesk. "The central idea of this extension is
to enrich the geometry notion of 3MF with beam lattice elements that can
represent small-scale lattices as well as larger truss structures – both
of which are quite inefficient to handle with a mesh representation,
especially in cases where the element count grows into large numbers."

This is the fourth specification extension released by 3MF furthering
its goal of providing a universal specification that serves as the
backbone of the additive manufacturing ecosystem, and allows companies
to focus on innovation, rather than on basic interoperability issues.
The consortium provides open source code free of charge to keep the
barrier of adoption to a minimum. Companies that have adopted the 3MF
Core Specification include: 3D Systems, Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes, HP,
Materialise, Microsoft, nTopology, PTC, Siemens and Ultimaker. For a
complete list of adoptions and partners: https://3mf.io/adoption/.

“Using lattice structures unlocks a key potential of additive
manufacturing,” said Adrian Lannin, executive director, 3MF Consortium.
“The 3MF Beam Lattice Extension to our core specification provides the
most efficient expression of lattice geometry and moves the industry
forward toward standardizing the software for an end-to-end 3D printing
solution.”

About the 3MF Consortium

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.
The 3MF (for 3D Manufacturing Format) specification eliminates the
widespread issues with currently available file formats.

Founding members of the 3MF Consortium are: 3D Systems; Autodesk, Inc.;
Dassault Systèmes, SA.; EOS; FIT AG; GE Global Research; HP, Inc.;
Materialise; Microsoft Corporation; nTopology Inc.; PTC; Shapeways,
Inc.; Siemens PLM Software; SLM Solutions Group AG; Stratasys, and
Ultimaker. More information about the 3MF Consortium and the 3MF
specification is available at http://www.3mf.io.

Contacts

3MF Consortium Public Relations
Mary Campbell, +1 781-876-6253
mcampbell@virtualmgmt.com
or
Bob
Olson, +1 978-872-7120
rolson@virtualmgmt.com