Full color printing

[WildZBill]

There will soon be full color 3D printers available for reasonable prices, does anyone know a good free CAD program that can output good color files? And what file extension is going to be the standard?

[MysteryAlabaster]

There will soon be full color 3D printers available for reasonable prices, does anyone know a good free CAD program that can output good color files? And what file extension is going to be the standard?

Most CAD programs don't export anything with color...

The programs have always been used for solid objects milled out of one material. I don't think a program exists that can make a file that tells a printer what colors go where, in the third dimension.

[WildZBill]

Well, here's a video of a machine that can do it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X86mo6BSQlg
And here is a description of AMF, which can include materials, colors, and units:
http://3daddfab.com/blog/index.php?/...place-STL.html
There are a few other extensions also.

[WildZBill]

And I did find this CAD software, maybe I will try it out: http://openjscad.org/

[awerby]

Full-color 3D printers have been around for the last 10 years or so, starting with the Z-corp (now 3DS) machines. Now 3DS has come out with a similar machine that prints in plastic, while MCOR has developed one that uses regular typing paper as a feedstock and also prints in color. While STL files don't convey any color information, PLY files can, as well as OBJ and several others. There are plenty of software programs that let you make models and apply color to them: Cubify Sculpt is an inexpensive one. I don't know of any free ones, but I'm sure they exist.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[Donald]

MULTI-MATERIAL FULL COLOR CMYBWA 3D REPLICATOR:
PRINTING QUALITY SIMULATOR http://inventrace.com/mat120/3D.html

[raysspl]

And I did find this CAD software, maybe I will try it out: http://openjscad.org/

Any thoughts with Open JS CAD?

[Roxy]

Open JS Cad is very good. But with the recent release of an updated OpenScad many of the reasons to switch are gone now. Either one will let you do very difficult things!

[MercedesStolp]

Ok... With the help of OpenJSCad, we can do easily complex operation. We can also use dynamic arrays and store solids in variables.

[curious aardvark]

yep but you can't do multi colours.

For that you generally need to use a more complicated cad package and different file type. A lot of new machines will accept amf files.

It's pretty easy to do dual colour with openscad. But full colour, with gradients - don't think you could do it.