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.

Where to find Export

In a Thing, open the arrow next to Share at the top right and choose Export. It takes you to Make → Export, where you pick the format. You can also click Make in the step bar, or press ⌘K and type export.

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.

G-code (.gcode, Bambu .gcode.3mf, Prusa .bgcode). Not a model but the finished print job: the moves your printer makes. Make it in Make → Print → Slice here (see Slice and print without a slicer). Every plan that includes 3MF 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. For sheet-metal pieces the DXF can be the flat pattern instead: the blank's outline on OUTLINE, bend lines on BEND, notes on NOTES (see Flat patterns and DXF for the laser cutter).

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 you keep exporting STL, 3MF, STEP, GLB and OBJ on the Free plan (the drawing formats need Pro). STL download always works, even while an account is read-only. 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, OBJ, 3MF and GLB, with ⌘K → Import a mesh… (or drop the file on the editor). They're repaired on the way in (holes closed, loose bits removed, flipped triangles fixed, overlapping parts merged — the card says what it did) and become a mesh body you can resize, reshape with shape sliders, hollow and split. See Working with meshes.
• 2D: SVG logos, icons and outlines, with ⌘K → Import a logo / SVG… (or drop the file on the editor). They become a sketch you can make into a plate, raise on a face, engrave or cut through. See Putting a logo on your part. DXF import is not available yet.
• Images: PNG, JPG and WebP photos and sketches (HEIC: export as JPG first). A picture of a logo can be traced into outlines in the same logo form.
• 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: holes, cuts, bosses and text work on them, and Mesh tools smooth, reshape and prepare them for printing, but they don't take the smooth-surface edits real solids do (fillets along their edges, sculpting). An imported SVG keeps its curves as real curves, and its size, position and smoothness stay editable in the Recipe; the file itself isn't stored, only the outline read from it.

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.
• Several sizes at once. If the Thing has configurations, pick one in Configuration, or choose All configurations as a zip to get one file per size (<name>-<configuration>.<ext>) plus a README with their part numbers.
• A version is saved first. Before an export, History saves a version called "Before export (STL)" (with the format), so you can always get back the design you exported. Nothing is saved if nothing changed since the latest version. See Automatic versions.

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.