Materialise and Trimble Team Up for Database of 2.7 Mio. 3D Printable Models

At the Materialise World Conference last week, the 3D software and printing company announced their cooperation with Trimble to connect the 3D Warehouse database with their new cloud service for 3D printing.

Trimble’s 3D Warehouse database currently contains over 2.7 million 3D models, created with their intuitive and popular 3D modelling and design software SketchUp. With over 700.000 weekly visitors, the database counts nearly 4 million downloads per week. Through the collaboration, Materialise’s new cloud service will power 3D Warehouse’s Printables feature by analysing and repairing models before generating high-quality STL files.

“The belief that design tools should be as simple and intuitive as possible is deeply rooted in the philosophy behind SketchUp. Trimble’s collaboration with Materialise is aimed at eliminating the most common pitfalls and annoyances related to 3D Printing workflows,” said Mike Tadros, Product Manager for 3D Warehouse. “There are a number exciting possibilities that can surely arise from our users being able to share and reliably access print-ready files directly from 3D Warehouse.”

Materialise, a company with over two decades of experience in developing powerful software solutions, is already using its cloud service for the company’s platform IdeasWorthMaking.com.

“For the past 25 years, we at Materialise have been developing software to empower useful applications of 3D Printing, both medical and industrial, and help users of 3D Printers to get the most out of their machines. Through this collaboration, which links our new cloud service to 3D Warehouse, our goal is to now deliver an enhanced user experience to a much broader 3D printing community as well,” stated Stefaan Motte, Director of the Software for Additive Manufacturing unit at Materialise. “My hope is that the Printables feature enables this community of designers, artists, makers, and more, to focus even more on the design and creation of meaningful 3D Printing applications, while leaving the question of “Will it print?” to our software.”

Materialise and 3D Warehouse are currently testing the new features in beta. The full launch is planned in the near future.