3D Printing Support with Adobe Photoshop CC

A couple of days ago, I got wind of the news that Adobe Photoshop was going to support 3D printing.

It’s really interesting Adobe decided to build this into Photoshop, instead of rolling a separate 3D software, like Autodesk’s Print Utility.

Today, I downloaded the 30 day trial, and took it for a test drive.

With Photoshop CC installed, OBJ files become associated with Photoshop CC, by default. Strangely, STLs are not.

Opening up Peppermint Butler brings up a 3D interface. This Peppermint Butler has missing faces in his arm, which seems to be automatically repaired in the export.

I also loaded up the infamous Rakdos with many invalid orientations.

Rakdos loaded super quickly, given the high number of polygons it has.

It also repaired ridiculously quickly! I’m surprised by Photoshop’s performance, compared to Autodesk Print Utility.

For a final comparison, I imported the repaired meshes into Netfabb, to see how good the repairs actually were. (Photoshop only exports in binary STLs).

For Rakdos, I was impressed!

Super quick fix without sacrificing resolution!!!

There’s still a few issues with a couple shells and holes, but nothing  Netfabb can’t handle.

Interestingly, Photoshop’s support generation seems to be causing more problems. I’m not sure if these problems will translate to actual print problems, since I don’t handle supports/physical 3D printers very much (I mostly outsource my 3D printing to services, where I provide a valid model, and they handle the support generation).

There you have it, my first impression of Adobe Photoshop’s 3D printing support. I saw features that could potentially be vertex painting of meshes, but I didn’t dive that far. Overall, I really like it. Although not as verbose as Netfabb, (which helps in diagnosing problems), it’s pretty efficient and produces quality repairs. I would definitely use it in my 3D printing pipeline, for all 30 days of my trial.