Adobe has added support for direct printing to 3D printers to its latest release of Photoshop CC. The image editing tool, used by Creative Cloud subscribers, also allows 3D models to be sent to out-sourced 3D print shops.
While Photoshop wouldn’t be the obvious tool in which to create 3D objects from scratch, objects can be imported from a 3D scanner, from a modeling tool or from a downloaded file, refined in Photoshop using the new automated mesh repair and support structure generation tools. Once the model is ready to print, it can be sent direct to any of the most popular 3D printers, including the Makerbot Replicator
Adobe also announced partnerships with Shapeways and Sketchfab to allow 3D models to be out-sourced to 3D print shops.
Supported file formats are OBJ, STL, 3DS, Collada and KMZ.
Other additions in the latest version include Perspective Warp, which allows adjusting the angle an object is seen from without affecting the rest of the image, and Linked Smart Objects, which takes care of making sure that an object used in multiple projects will be automatically updated in any document it is used in if edits are performed to the object.
Video demos of 3D printing, Perspective Warp and Linked Smart Objects are available on the Adobe website.
