About 3MF
What is the 3MF Consortium?
The 3MF Consortium is an industry association formed to develop and promote a full-fidelity file format for 3D printing and additive manufacturing. The consortium came together to rectify the limitations of existing file formats — providing a standardized, more capable format that handles the full range of AM technologies from prototyping to production.
In 2025, the .3MF format was officially recognized as an international standard under ISO/IEC 25422:2025, jointly published by ISO and IEC.
About the consortium →Why use .3MF?
Watertight by spec — defined unit of scale and fully closed geometry. No more repair before printing.
Full manufacturing metadata — materials, color, print settings, and more inside a single file.
Extensible — a suite of published extensions handles every AM workflow and data type.
Reliable & scalable — repeatable processes from prototype to production, across every platform.
Specification Extensions
More Than Just a Mesh
A suite of published extensions that cater to every aspect of additive manufacturing — far beyond simple geometry.
Core Specification
v2.0
Base geometry, mesh, transforms, and metadata. The foundation all extensions build upon. Defines the container format, units, and coordinate systems.
Materials & Properties
v1.2
Full-fidelity color, multi-material composition, and texture definitions. Defines material compositions, color gradients, and per-triangle property overrides.
Production
v1.1
High-volume and production-oriented workflows. Adds UUIDs for traceability, build-plate assembly, and multi-part job management at scale.
Beam Lattice
v1.0
Parametric lightweight lattice structure definitions. More efficient than mesh approximation — ideal for optimized, topology-driven designs.
Slice
v1.1
Layer-by-layer slice-based data representation. Enables direct, lossless transmission of sliced geometry to AM hardware without re-slicing.
Secure Content
v1.0
IP protection and encrypted geometry for secure distribution. Protects intellectual property while still enabling authorized manufacturing.
Volumetric
v1.0
Voxel-based and implicit (Signed Distance Function) representations for volumetric additive manufacturing data. Handles any volumetric data including density maps, microstructure fields, and implicit surface definitions.
Boolean Operations
v1.1.1
Boolean operations for shape modification — union, difference, and intersection of 3MF objects within the format itself.
Toolpath
under review
Machine toolpath data representation for direct AM hardware control — currently under consortium review for publication.
Steering Members
Industry Leaders Behind 3MF
The steering committee guides development, adoption, and promotion of the 3MF standard — led by representatives of the major software and hardware companies in design and additive manufacturing.
Autodesk
nTopology
Prusa Research
HP
Dassault Systèmes
PTC
Materialise
Siemens
VAO
3D Systems
Microsoft
SLM Solutions
EOS
Stratasys
AltairAssociate Members
Tailored Alloys
Mimaki
AI Build
AMIS
Vistory
Panopt
AM-Flow
Imaginarium
TechSoft 3D
Cognitive DS
Mira3D
Synera
Smart Research
Rapidshape
CoreTechnologie
Adaxis
Additive Flow
Zortrax
Oqton
1000KelvinFor developers
Implement 3MF in your software or hardware
The full specification, reference libraries, and implementation examples are freely available on GitHub. No licensing fees. Contributions welcome.
Spherene Joins the 3MF Consortium to Bring Intelligent Internal Structures to Additive Manufacturing
