Trimble and Materialise Partner to Streamline 3D Printing Workflows

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) and Materialise (NASDAQ: MTLS) announced today that they have added support for the STL file format through a new Printables feature on Trimble's 3D Warehouse, the world's largest repository of free, high-quality, 3D content. The new feature is the result of the companies' collaboration to streamline 3D printing workflows, making it easier for "makers" and millions of other users of Trimble's SketchUp 3D modeling software to create and share Printable models in 3D Warehouse.

The announcement was made prior to Maker Faire Bay Area 2015, the maker movement's signature event, attended by over 100,000 crafters, educators, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, artists, students, commercial exhibitors and many others. 

The collaboration alleviates pitfalls commonly associated with 3D printing workflows by providing the SketchUp community with direct access to powerful technology that facilitates the process of turning their 3D models into physical objects. The companies have developed an integration between 3D Warehouse and Materialise's Cloud Services, which are capable of analyzing and fixing models to ensure printability. The integration gives 3D Warehouse users the ability to flag uploaded SketchUp models as Printable. These files are then processed by Materialise's Cloud Services to generate high-quality, printable STL files, that are then available to be downloaded from 3D Warehouse.

"Through our combined efforts, Trimble and Materialise aim to make 3D printing technology more accessible to the design community," said Mike Tadros, SketchUp Web & Mobile product manager at Trimble. "With its deep experience in providing solutions and services to the additive manufacturing sector, Materialise has substantially augmented our efforts to make 3D printing workflows more efficient, and to enable the sharing and exchange of Printable models on 3D Warehouse."

"For the past 25 years, we have been focused on developing software that empowers useful applications of 3D printing," said Stefaan Motte, director of the Software for Additive Manufacturing Unit at Materialise. "Through our new Cloud Services, we want to bring part of our industry-leading software to a broader audience, and SketchUp, and 3D Warehouse in particular, are a natural fit for achieving this. By partnering with Trimble, we hope to alleviate the question of 'will it print' and help designers, artists, makers and beyond focus on the design and creation of meaningful 3D models."

About SketchUp

SketchUp is the world's most popular 3D modeling and design platform, used by more than 30 million people around the world to design, communicate and validate in 3D. SketchUp is a core product of Trimble Buildings, a part of Trimble's Engineering and Construction segment focused on solutions to optimize the complete Design-Build-Operate (DBO) lifecycle of buildings.

3D Warehouse is a core component to the ecosystem surrounding the SketchUp platform. 3D Warehouse contains almost 2.8 million models, and serves up nearly 4 million downloads to over 700,000 visitors each week.

For more information, visit:  www.sketchup.com. 

About Materialise

With its headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, and branches worldwide, Materialise is a provider of Additive Manufacturing (AM) software solutions and sophisticated 3D printing services in a wide variety of industries, including healthcare, automotive, aerospace, art and design and consumer products. Materialise has been playing an active role in the field of AM since 1990, through its involvement in AM for industrial and medical applications, by providing biomedical and clinical solutions such as medical image processing and surgical simulations and by developing unique solutions for its customers' prototyping, production, and medical needs.

For additional information, visit: www.materialise.com.

About Trimble

Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring positioning or location, including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user in the field and to ensure communication between the field and the office. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

For more information, visit:  www.trimble.com. 

GTRMB

SOURCE Trimble

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