This week has seen a number of updates to major 3D printing programs, namely Cura and Slic3r, from the open source community. Following suit, is a company that has been more and more welcomed into the upper echelons of Silicon Valley, recently establishing itself as a foundational member of the 3MF Consortium and taking a lead role in the development of Microsoft’s 3MF file format. Today, that company has released the latest version of its own powerful and professional 3D printing software with netfabb Professional 6.
With netfabb Professional 6, the company states that the new “future-proof [3MF] format has already been implemented,” making it among the first programs to feature the file format, meant to translate across various software while communicating all of the necessary data. Other features in the new software is the “2D Nesting Module”, which fits the maximum number of parts onto a given build platform, and “Automatic Mass Labeling”, a tool that adds ID codes to identical parts. Both of these are, of course, ideal for mass manufacturers producing batches of parts at once.
netfabb CEO Alexander Oster elaborates on the uses of these two tools, “A powerful packing tool is able to lower production costs, to fully exploit production capacities, and to shorten time to market. Serious volume manufacturing without a reliable packing feature is just unthinkable,” he said of the 2D Nesting Module. Referring to the mass labeling feature, he adds, “Applying one single label manually to a part takes an average minute, whereas netfabb can do this independently of any lot size in two minutes’ time. Only recently, netfabb software was used to place 32,900 components for manufacture into one single additive manufacturing machine–considering record results like this you’ll quickly get an idea of the cost saving potential of netfabb software especially for industrial production.”
Other features include the ability to hide triangles on 3D models in order to see the components within or below. A new Texture Imposing tool can add reliefs to 3D printable objects and a the software update also allows for easy, customizable .pdf reports. netfabb has additionally introduced an add-on for support structures for DLP and SLA prints. Perhaps more exciting, is an add-on tool called netfabb 3S (Selective Space Structures) for designing bionic structures.
All of these features have been developed a result of netfabb’s relationship with its parent company FIT AG, a German additive design and manufacturing specialist, which boasts its expertise in industrial 3D printing. With the new release, the company is offering a server licensing model, Enterprise 6, which is meant for businesses. And, of course, netfabb Professional 6 will also feature all of the previously loved tools that ready objects for 3D printing and more.
