3MF file format officially becomes ISO Additive Manufacturing standard
The 3MF Consortium’s 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF) file format is now ISO standard ISO/IEC 25422:2025. Developed to address the shortcomings and complexities of existing file formats, 3MF is intended for use as a standard across the Additive Manufacturing sector, from private to industrial use, thereby improving reliability, repeatability, and scalability across all stages of manufacture.
ISO/IEC 25422:2025 defines the 3MF file format Core Specification and extensions, including:
- Materials and properties
- Production
- Beam lattice
- Slice
- Secure Content
- Boolean Operations
Alexander Oster, Director Additive Manufacturing at Autodesk, stated, “For a decade, the members of the 3MF consortium have dedicated significant resources to standardising open source additive data pipelines with the right technical craftsmanship.
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“And its scope has expanded from a simple STL replacement to a real novel platform that serves many technologies, and includes beam lattices as well as interoperable implicit geometry.
“It is incredible that 3MF is now the standard backend format for everything from millions of desktop FDM printers to multi-million-dollar aerospace equipment. Becoming an ISO – International Organization for Standardization standard is another important milestone in this journey.”
Arvind Rangarajan, Global Head – Product and Strategy, HP, stated, “The recognition of 3MF as an ISO marks a major step forward for the Additive Manufacturing industry, providing a standard framework to securely transfer design intent, production data and process parameters.
“HP Additive Manufacturing Solutions leverages this capability to enable interoperability across hardware, software, and production workflows.”
“This milestone reflects the collaborative work of the 3MF Consortium, with contributions from the HP 3D Standards Steering Committee, Jordi Gonzalez as HP’s technical lead from the beginning, supported by Muhammed Ali’s standards team and the broader community, with HP’s role as PAS [Publicly Available Specification] mentor helping facilitate discussions,” Rangarajan concluded.
The 3MF Consortium
The 3MF Consortium was formed following several meetings by Microsoft, HP, Netfabb (later acquired by Autodesk), and Dassault Solidworks, all of which had been separately working to establish formats of 3D data optimised for Additive Manufacturing.
The first 3MF core specification was released in 2015, with the announcement of the formation of the 3MF Consortium. Just before the announcement, Autodesk, Shapeways, and SLM Solutions (now Nikon SLM Solutions) joined the consortium and became the founding members. Shortly after that, Materialise, GE, and Siemens joined.
Today, the 3MF Consortium is comprised of sixteen steering members and over twenty associate members, intended to represent the core of the Additive Manufacturing, design and 3D software industry.
www.iso.org/standard/90283.html
github.com/3MFConsortium
