Adobe Photoshop CC
Adobe has announced a major new 3D printing venture by launching a new feature on its flagship Photoshop program.
Andy Lauta, Product Manager at Photoshop, explained that the new system is set to compliment the 3D design process, ensuring CAD designs are watertight for printing, with the system optimised for sending files to be produced on MakerBot 3D printers or by Shapeways.
The company unveiled its new 3D printing capabilities in Adobe Photoshop CC today (January 16th). Available immediately as part of a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, the new 3D printing capabilities integrated in Photoshop CC enable Creative Cloud members to easily and reliably build, refine, preview, prepare and print 3D designs, setting the stage for explosive growth in the 3D printing market.
"We are very excited about the new capability. It represents the first time 3D printing will be represented through a mainstream tool," Lauta said. "This is a really exciting development for our customer base and we believe it will make a big impact on the 3D printing industry. We view 3D printing as a content market."
"In order to enable the 'inflection point' [of that market] we have to enable creative," he continued. "The goal of this inflection is to engage our core creative base in 3D printing.
"The problem today is there's a gap between the models that are out there and the printers that produce results. The models produced through the different channels are not always 100 per cent successful. Many models are subsequently rejected by Shapeways or fail on 3D printers. It may take creative many hours to fix models and get them ready to print. Photoshop is trying to fill this gap by making it easy for creative to create.
"We are trying to take 3D printing to the creative mainstream."
Lauta explained that the new Photoshop feature - which will be an extension to the current Photoshop interface and not a product in its own right - has been designed as a finishing tool that will compliment the current design-to-print system and make the entire process less glitch-prone and more efficient, transforming it into an .stl or .obj file or similar allowing the designer to 3D print their model direct rom the Photoshop interface.
"Creatives don't want to know how printers print," he noted. "They want to focus on implementing their 3D model and hit print."
Lauta said that Photoshop's mission is to assist these professionals in producing "high quality renderings as they are working on them in Photoshop".
He stated: "The process of turning an image into a printable thing is hugely complicated. Turning what is essentially a voxel and reproducing it in plastic is even more complicated than 2D printing."
Jewellery, animated film production, toys and product prototyping for quick turnaround to market were listed as just some of the applications Photoshop's new 3D printing feature is best placed for.
In addition to helping creatives produce 3D designs that will work, they can also find out roughly how much their model will cost to print via Shapeways as they work.
Photoshop CC supports the most popular desktop 3D printers, such as the MakerBot Replicator and also supports the full range of high quality materials available on Shapeways, including ceramics, metals and full colour sandstone.
In addition, Photoshop users can directly upload their 3D models to the Sketchfab 3D publishing service and embed them in their Behance profile using Sketchfab's interactive 3D viewer.
Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO and Co-Founder of Shapeways, commented: "We're thrilled to partner with Adobe to help kick-start the delivery of 3D content to their highly creative users. We’re focused on making 3D printing accessible and affordable for people all over the world. By teaming up with Adobe, we're making it easy for designers and creatives to turn ideas into reality, using Shapeway's highest quality 3D printing technologies."
Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot, added: "With the huge adoption of Adobe Photoshop CC, this announcement means that a massive influx of people will now have access to 3D modelling tools. I can't wait to see what they design with Photoshop CC and create with their MakerBot Replicator 3D printer!"
