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SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → The Latest in 3D Printing → 3MF File Format
Ok so as some of you may have heard, Microsoft has come out with a 3D printing API for Windows 8.1, which can convert a 3D model to a file format called 3MF. Has anyone actually implemented this in an app yet? Their examples are pretty vague, with regards as to how they actually go about converting the 3D model data.
Bonus points if you have actually used this API yourself.
I try to avoid Windows 8
this explains 3MF better...http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/extr … ained.aspx
Interesting. When I was looking for standards that supported more info than STL, I stumbled across "AMF": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_M … le_Format. I didn't get any sense that it had caught on or was widely used, but it does seem to try and address all the issues Microsoft claims they needed to invent 3MF for. I wonder how similar they are.
In any case, a new way to describe 3D models isn't all that interesting. If Microsoft wants to support out of the box 3D printing, what they really need is a new way to describe all the gazillion printer settings that need tweaking in slicers so printer manufacturers can provide those databases for their printers and any slicer will be able to understand how to drive the printer. :-).
It looks like a typical M$ response to gaining a foothold in control of a format.... take someones file format(AMF) rename it (3MF) then add features(bugs) into the file and call it new 
Bwahahahhahahah... Microsoft...
To be the Devil's advocate here, Microsoft's and HP's interest in 3d printing should be a good thing. In order for the software to become more user friendly, there needs to be a critical saturation point of general populace interest. Right now, the majority of the 3D community is made of hobbyists or engineers (feel free to disagree), so much of the software and hardware is allowed to be released with the intention that the community will figure out the bugs and fix them or find work arounds. Until the process of 3D printing becomes a 'plug and play' level commodity, it will remain in the realm of hobbyists and engineers. So having large companies such as Microsoft and HP invest time and effort into it should prove a boon to growing this community.
Well if microsoft comes up with a 'clippy' for their '3d print office' app I might just go on a hunting trip in redmond
but seriously I hear what you're saying michael 
well... except for the plug and play thing with M$....
Microsoft wasn't exactly looking for a new format. They were looking for a way to pump data from the 3D app to the printer. I doubt anyone is going to be uploading 3MF files to Thingiverse.
While I actually like AMF (and the precision) the curved triangles give many people heartburn. The facetization might have been done with a data structure like STL but we all know there are way too many problems with that too. I don't know that Microsoft had much choice here.
BTW, this really doesn't affects us. Windows is trying to make 3DPrinting usable for the non-experts so that you can plug in a USB cable and then click "Print" in your software. While there is a mechanism to find out what options can be set from the 3D printer driver and the set them from you favorite design software, I expect most drivers and apps to only provide a few (print quality, color, % fill, etc). Most of the (advanced) people on this forum would still end up using a dedicated application (like Repetier Host).
SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → The Latest in 3D Printing → 3MF File Format
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