[x3d-public] Fitness of X3D for 3D Printing?

[Vincent Marchetti]

Claudio

Welcome to the list! -- and to the X3D community. There are quite a few people here who are interested in using X3D with 3D printing. Seva Alekseyev has already mentioned the work being done with X3D in the Cura software. The Web3D consortium held a conference in July 2016 with sessions devoted to future developments in X3D to make it more useful to 3D Printing. There is great interest in 3D printing in both the Medical and CAD working groups; you are invited to visit the Web3D Consortium website at www.web3d.org for more information, including the presentations from the July Web3D 2016. I should also point out that some of the 3D Printing services, particularly Shapeways, accepts X3D design files for both single color and multicolor printing. I am not aware that these companies are making their software available as open-source, but they provide a "proof of concept" that you can 3D print from X3D files.

The particular problem you mention is very interesting, that of getting color effects by mixing materials in the printer. X3D does have complete coloring specification abilities, including 2D textures, colored materials with specular and diffuse reflection properties, and coloring of meshes on a per-vertex or per-face ability. You are right that the color specification in X3D is based on computer graphics implementation, with RGB defined colors and an additive coloring model (glowing pixels on a screen). I know that in document printing, based on a CMYK subtractive coloring (inks on a page), there is a mature  set of standards and workflows to get a predictable and quality printed result based on a computer design file. I don't know how sophisticated the color model appropriate to mixed extruded plastics is, but I would think it would be more similar to CMYK than to RGB. However, you can still have a first attempt at matching RGB colors available in X3D to color 3D printing, with improvements and standards to come when  the market will pay for them.

What we really need  is  3D printing software that will convert a fully colored X3D model to the correct instructions to build it in a particular printing technology. The work in bringing X3D import to the Cura slicing software is a step in this direction. The Web3D Consortium generally does not develop software, but we are very interested in gathering comments and experiences from users and software developers about using X3D in their applications, and whether there are extensions to the standard that can be added to future versions that would make it more useful for 3D printing.

Vince Marchetti

> On Sep 18, 2016, at 10:09 AM, patola at makerlinux.com.br wrote:
> 
>       Hello all, I am a new member, I was just subscribed to this list. I am a 3D printing professional in Brazil (for low-cost, mostly open-source 3D printers). I searched thoroughly through the list archives but could not really find my answer. I am looking forward to try and implement import and export plugins in Blender for a 3d-printing friendly format. I looked into the standards for both AMF and 3MF, and they do not seem really appropriate. 3MF is nice and full of stuff but does not have any kind of curves, splines or NURBS. AMF has curved triangles and also allows you to specify a formula for the curve, but this seems kind of out of hand compared to "real" NURBS. And since some artifacts - specially in the amount of material extruded - appear from the interpolation of triangles to approximate three-dimensional curves, actual NURBS support would be essential for precise 3D prints.
> 
>       Then I stumbled upon X3D, which is already implemented in Blender. The latest status of the x3d support seems that from 2015: http://www.web3d.org/news-story/improved-blender-import-x3d-scenes
> 
>       However, it was not very clear to me if X3D, and its blender import/export addon, would support something fit for material mixing. FDM 3d printer extruders with the capability to additive mix of colors are being sold right now, and support for mixing them is already being implemented in firmware too (with "virtual extruders" for the mixing). Both 3MF and AMF have proper support for this, AMF having even coordinate-dependent mixtures support. I have read in the specs that currently X3D only supports subtractive light, and also no gradient or mixing for materials, is that right?
> 
>       Does anyone else on this list deals specifically with 3D printing? I am not aware of X3D support in any slicer currently. I am curious as to the fitness of this file format for this task. Am I asking too much? Or maybe it just does not fit its intended purpose?
> 
>  
>       Best regards,
> 
>       Cláudio (Patola)
> 
>  
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Vincent Marchetti
vmarchetti at ameritech.net