3D Printing Services Search Engine 3Dprintler Adds New File Formats and Dropbox Integration

3Dprintler is a 3D printing services and resources search engine that was designed to connect companies that offer 3D printing services to customers looking for the best prices and printing options. It allows users to choose from more than 254 different materials and compare prices, printing turnaround times, quality and shipping costs. Their rapidly growing database of service providers will match up an uploaded 3D model with the best quality material options and prices as easily as using Google or Bing. Not only will they provide users with pricing from the industries largest service providers like Shapeways, Sculpteo and iMaterialise but 3Dprintler also connects them to local companies who may be able and willing to beat their prices.

The 3Dprintler search engine is a much needed service for businesses or newcomers to 3D printing who may not understand how prices are calculated, or how to recognize a good or a bad deal. Because the 3D printing industry is so new, service pricing and offers are going to vary wildly from company to company depending on their specific resources, including location, equipment and available materials. 3Dprintler allows users to make sure that they can find the best deal, and even the best material for their needs. And they have also assembled a large database of information about different technologies, processes, materials and uses for 3D printing to help new users make educated choices about using 3D printing in their business or to print products for their own personal use.

Having just launched at CES 2016 in January, 3Dprintler may still be finding its sea legs as a service, but they’re already responding to their users needs and desires. Feedback from 3D enthusiasts, hobbyists, and industrial professionals has already helped them expand the amount of service providers that they can search through. And after receiving some new investors the company has now been able to address another issue that was brought to their attention, the amount of file types that 3Dprintler supports. The company just announced that they have made a ton of new file formats available for their price comparison service.

Here is a complete list of all of the new searchable file formats that are now available:

• 3DS AutoCAD and 3D Studio Max binary mesh files;
• ASC ASC 3D points cloud files;
• ASE AutoCAD ASCII export files;
• BYU Movie.BYU surface geometry files;
• DXF AutoCAD DXF files;
• GMOD Golgotha GMOD files;
• HRC SoftImage hierarchical files;
• IV SGI Inventor files;
• OBJ WaveFront Advanced Visualizer ASCII files; a file format from Alias;
• OFF GEOMVIEW OFF files;
• POV Persistence of Vision files (output only);
• SMF Michael Garland’s format for his QSLIM program;
• STL/STLA ASCII Stereolithography files;
• STLB binary Stereolithography files;
• SWM Syndicate Wars game maps and structures file format (input only);
• SWV Syndicate Wars game vehicles primveh file format (input only);
• TEC TECPLOT files (output only);
• TRI/TRIA a simple ASCII triangle format requested by Greg Hood;
• TRIB a simple binary triangle format requested by Greg Hood;
• TXT a text dump (output only);
• UCD Advanced Visual Systems (AVS) Unstructured Cell Data (output only);
• VLA Evans and Sutherland Digistar II VLA files for planetariums;
• WRL WRL/VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) files (output only).
• XGL the XGL format, based on the XML language and OpenGl graphics (output only).

In addition to the new list of supported file formats, the 3Dprintler team has also created a Dropbox API so users can upload files directly from their Dropbox account. 3D printable files can now easily be synced with the 3Dprintler app securely via the cloud, and the integration of the Dropbox API will make the entire process of uploading files easier and faster. You can try out the 3Dprintler app here, and keep track of all the new features that are certain to be added in the coming months by visiting the 3Dprintler blog. Do these new features appeal to you? Discuss in the 3Dprintler Offers New Features for 3D Printing Enthusiasts forum over at 3DPB.com.