.3MF

3D Manufacturing Format

Introduction

3MF is an open format for 3D printing, published by the 3MF Consortium, which Microsoft and other companies founded in 2015. Where STL holds only triangles, a 3MF file also records the units, colours and materials, several objects with their positions on the build plate, and a thumbnail. Slicers use it to save a whole print job, including their own settings.

Software

Structure

A 3MF file is a ZIP package following the Open Packaging Conventions, the same container used by Office documents. [Content_Types].xml lists the types of the parts and _rels/.rels points to the model. The model, 3D/3dmodel.model, is XML: a resources element holds objects, each a mesh of vertex and triangle elements, and a build element lists the items to print with their transforms. The unit attribute on the root element sets the units, millimetres by default.

  1. zip[Content_Types].xml the media type of each partXML
  2. zip_rels/.rels points to the 3D modelXML
  3. zip3D/3dmodel.model objects, meshes and the build listXML
  4. zipMetadata/ thumbnails and slicer settingsoptional
The main parts inside a 3MF package.