Adding 3D Printing to Your Favorite CAD Software with 3D-button.com

At CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, this past March, 3YOURMIND GmbH launched their 3D printing portal, 3D-button.com, which allows users to 3D print directly from popular CAD programs.  Since then, the portal has gained ground in Germany, Poland, Russia, the USA, and the UK. The Berlin-based 3D printing IT firm behind the project sees an upward trend for the portal, counting more than 10,000 quotes per week.

The 3D-button.com enables users to print 3D data directly from CAD programs, including AutoCAD, 3DS MAX, Rhino, Inventor, Blender, Sketchup and Fusion 360. By supplying users with free plugins for popular CAD software,everyone from engineers to architects can extend their software for printing preparation and automatic data correction. Users files can then be uploaded with just one mouse click on 3D-button.com. Through the portal, the user can choose the preferred material, including aluminum, resin, steel, plastic, ceramics, gold or plaster.  Naturally, they can scale the model to whatever size is needed and they’re also able to get a real time quote of 3D printing prices and services. Once the user is ready to print, the files are printed in one 3D-button’s of partner services in the US, Germany, Belgium, or France.

Stephen Kuhr, Managing Director of 3YOURMIND GmbH says, “The enormous potential of 3D printing technology can only be accessed by professionals using a combination of 3D data creation and 3D printing services. The main difficulty is the preparation of data for the manufacturing process.” Perfect 3D data is needed to build an architectural model or a machine prototype with professional 3D printers. 3D-button, however, has an analysis and repair tool that the firm believes can ease this process so that CAD models can more fluidly head to 3D printing.

Interestingly, the 3D-button plug-in helps users get around the issue of waiting for these software developers to integrate their own 3D printing plug-ins, while also allowing them to repair files for 3D printing through their closest service bureau.  3D-button.com hopes to integrate more 3D printing partners into the portal in the coming weeks and they also hope to expand their selection of CAD programs.  If you don’t see your preferred 3D modeling software on their site, you can request your own plug-in and, hopefully, see your CAD program supported in the near future.