3D printing has reached a milestone of sorts. On Thursday, Adobe, whose software created desktop publishing, announced that its venerable Photoshop program will now support 3D printing.
Photoshop CC, part of the company’s Creative Cloud, has received an update that allows users to build, refine, preview, prepare and print 3D designs. Additionally, the 3D object can be defined from scratch or refined using common Photoshop tools, generating ready-to-print 3D models. Features include automated mesh repair and support structure generation.
Winston Hendrickson, vice president products, Creative Media Solutions at Adobe, said in a statement that the new print capabilities “take the guess work out of printing 3D models for everyone.” He added that previously, “there was a gap between the content produced by 3D-modeling tools and what 3D printers need in order to deliver high quality results.”
Sketchfab, Behance
The print command can be sent to a local 3D printer, or via built-in access to a set of online 3D print services. The company said Photoshop CC supports the most popular desktop 3D printers, including the MakerBot Replicator, and users can add their own printing device profiles.
There is also support for the ceramics, metals, full color sandstone and other materials available on the 3D printing community and marketplace, Shapeways. 3D models can also be uploaded via Photoshop to the Sketchfab 3D publishing service, and embedded in artist profiles on the creative site Behance for viewing through the Sketchfab 3D viewer. Normally, Behance only displays JPEG formats.
Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot, described the Adobe adoption of 3D printing as “huge,” and predicted that “a massive influx of people will now have access to 3D-modeling tools.” Photoshop, however, is not known for its 3D-modeling capabilities beyond some basic functions, so users will be able to upload a 3D model created in other programs and then output it in the stereolithography format known as .stl. A 3D creator could use Photoshop for finishing touches, such as adding textures.
Extension of Free Trial
An annual membership in the Creative Cloud is $ 49.99 monthly, or, alternatively, a user can sign up for one app for $ 19.99 per month. Additionally, Adobe is allowing anyone who signed up for a 30-day free trial since the Creative Cloud opened in May of 2012 to start another free trial, because of this and other recent enhancements.
3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, prints solid three-dimensional objects in a printer from a computer-generated model, with layers of material laid down successively to create the object. The technology is seeing an explosion of consumer and professional interest for such applications as equipment parts, dishes, sculptures, architectural and geographical models, and other uses.
In addition to this 3D printing addition, Adobe also announced on Thursday a new 3D Perspective Warp function, which it had originally demonstrated in May of last year. It allows a more sophisticated perspective correction of multiple assets than was available previously.
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