About 3MF
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 →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
A suite of published extensions that cater to every aspect of additive manufacturing — far beyond simple geometry.
v2.0
Base geometry, mesh, transforms, and metadata. The foundation all extensions build upon. Defines the container format, units, and coordinate systems.
v1.2
Full-fidelity color, multi-material composition, and texture definitions. Defines material compositions, color gradients, and per-triangle property overrides.
v1.1
High-volume and production-oriented workflows. Adds UUIDs for traceability, build-plate assembly, and multi-part job management at scale.
v1.0
Parametric lightweight lattice structure definitions. More efficient than mesh approximation — ideal for optimized, topology-driven designs.
v1.1
Layer-by-layer slice-based data representation. Enables direct, lossless transmission of sliced geometry to AM hardware without re-slicing.
v1.0
IP protection and encrypted geometry for secure distribution. Protects intellectual property while still enabling authorized manufacturing.
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.
v1.1.1
Boolean operations for shape modification — union, difference, and intersection of 3MF objects within the format itself.
under review
Machine toolpath data representation for direct AM hardware control — currently under consortium review for publication.
Steering Members
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.
Associate Members
For developers
The full specification, reference libraries, and implementation examples are freely available on GitHub. No licensing fees. Contributions welcome.
