Exporting and file formats: which one do I need?

Choosing an export format is really choosing who or what will use the file next: a slicer, another CAD program, a machine shop, a website, or a person with a PDF reader.

What to export, by goal

Formats in detail

STL. The oldest and simplest 3D printing format: a surface made of triangles, with no units, color or settings. Curved surfaces are approximated with many small flat facets. Every plan includes it, even after the trial ends.

3MF. A modern successor to STL. It carries units and can carry print settings and multiple objects. Prusa, Bambu and Cura-family slicers read it. Every plan includes it.

STEP. The universal exchange format for solid models. It keeps exact surfaces and edges, so another CAD program can select faces and add features. It is the best choice for sending a design to a machine shop or a colleague using other CAD. It does not carry the Recipe. See STEP workflows.

OBJ and GLB (glTF). Mesh formats for visualization, games, AR and the web. GLB bundles geometry and materials in one compact file.

DXF and DWG. 2D drawings and flat profiles. DXF is open and simple. DWG is the native format of the most popular 2D CAD, produced by conversion.

PDF. Drawing sheets for people to read and print, with views, dimensions, tolerances, notes and a title block.

PNG and MP4. Renders and turntable videos from Render Studio.

Which plan includes what

Render Studio's output size follows your plan separately: 1080p on the trial, 2K on Maker, and 4K with turntable videos on Pro.

After the trial ends and before you subscribe, your account becomes read-only, but you can still view your Things and download STL. Nothing is deleted.

Plans, limits and prices are managed by the Solid Vibes team and can change. Your Billing page always shows what applies to you.

What you can bring in

Solid Vibes can import:

• Solid models: STEP and IGES
• Meshes: STL, 3MF, OBJ
• 2D: DXF and SVG
• Images: PNG, JPG and HEIC photos and sketches
• Drawings: PDF drawings, whose dimensions can be read into Parameters

Imported solids are placed as bodies you can build on. Imported meshes are triangle surfaces. They work well as references and for boolean operations, but they do not support the smooth-surface edits that real solids do.

Practical details

• Units are millimetres. Slicers should read STL files as millimetres. 3MF and STEP carry units explicitly.
• Z is up. The print bed is the XY plane at Z = 0, matching how slicers think.
• One Thing, many pieces. If your Thing has several pieces, export what you need. Pieces may keep their assembled positions in a combined export, so for printing it is usually best to export each piece to be printed on its own and arrange them in your slicer.
• Check before you send. Confirm the bounding box and scale in your receiving program. A model that shows up 25.4 times too big or too small means the program assumed a different unit.

Try it

Ask the agent to prepare a print:

Export the lid and the box as separate 3MF files, each oriented for printing in the way you recommend, and tell me the orientation you chose for each.

Then open them in your slicer and check the size matches what you expect.