3MF full colour part. (Image: 3D Systems)
The 3MF Consortium has announced its latest extension to address payload protection and production control requirements for 3D printed parts.
The new Secure Content specification establishes an underlying mechanism for payload encryption of sensitive 3D printed data based on modern web standards, allowing industrial 3D printing applications with diverse part geometries to be carried out in distributed environments with extensive supply chains. The technology is also said to allow third parties to build ecosystems that mitigate privacy risks, obey governmental regulations or provide protection from data corruption. The Consortium has released a version of the 3MF Secure Content specification and an implementation on GitHub under a permissive BSD license.
The 3MF Consortium was created in 2015 to establish a universal, full-fidelity specification for 3D printing and counts 3D Systems, Autodesk, Dassault Systemes, HP, Materialise and Stratasys amongst its 30+ founding members. After initially focusing its efforts on colour, Adrian Lannin, Executive Director for 3MF gave TCT an update last year on how the consortium had "focused on highlighting the real-world applications of 3MF in additive manufacturing environments," as it aimed to deliver the dominant 3D file format for AM.
This latest specification was developed with contribution from Viaccess-Orca (VO), a leading provider of digital content protection and advanced data solutions, which now joins the Consortium as a founding member. Alongside the announcement, VO also launched the general availability of its Secure Manufacturing Platform (SMP), which ensures digital assets are secure and traceable across digitally distributed supply chains in compliance with new 3MF specification.
"With AM's coming of age, the need to resolve interoperability issues through standardized formats and interfaces on the one hand, and the requirement for digital content security to prevent data corruption or commercial misuse of data on the other hand, are growing more acute," said Alain Nochimowski, EVP Innovation at Viaccess-Orca. "We are excited to join the membership ranks of the 3MF consortium and look forward to helping address the digital asset security aspects within the broader digital manufacturing industry."
Scott White, Software Distinguished Technologist at HP Inc. commented: "We are thrilled that Viaccess-Orca joined the consortium and contributed their decades-long expertise to the design of the 3MF Secure Content extension. The final specification defines the payload encryption based on industry standards, and allows third parties to build their own key management ecosystems upon it. We believe this will allow it to be used to address a broad range of critical use cases simply and seamlessly."
Next month, VO will present together with Autodesk and HP a free webinar via TCT Magazine entitled "Additive Manufacturing's coming of age: the essential role of data security and standards". Register now and join in live on July 2 at 3 pm BST.
