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by deugtniet 1674 days ago
I think 3MF has some real practical benefits as outlined in the article. It may take a lot of file space, but that can be solved in a new version, specified in the header files, in the same way it was done with STL.

As with any format, the tooling needs to develop, and then C++ is not a bad idea to write a library in I think.

I guess there's space for both file formats tbh. If you are sure your STL is correct, and are sure about the dimensioning, go for it. If you want to be a little safer, go for 3MF, with the drawback of a little larger filesize.

1 comments

> that can be solved in a new version

Yeah, if in a next version they will move vertex/index buffer data from XML into binary files in the same ZIP (3MF are ZIP files), will be better already. Printing and parsing numbers is surprisingly expensive when you have a gigabyte of them.

> C++ is not a bad idea to write a library

C++ is fine by itself. Still, should the format be simpler, the official library would be optional, as people would be able to implement support in any language without FFI. It’s hard to do in practice, which leaves the official library as the only practical option, IMO. At least that’s what I did when a client asked me to support that format.