Perspective : 3D printing for WPF

3D printing is a burgeoning technology that produces real objects from 3D models.

These 3D models are usually done manually using a CAD software. The communication between the computer and the 3D printer is usually done by file, the STL (STereoLithography) format being the most common.

WPF allows you to make 3D models. Perspective is a library that facilitates 3D development with WPF. The impression of 3D models from WPF and Perspective has an advantage compared to manual operation of CAD software: programming enables building dynamic models.

So I expanded the Perspective library with an export functionality of 3D models in STL file. 3D printing tests were conducted during july 2013 at Cambridge (England), with the help of the makespace community.

Implementation

The implementation is very simple. The definition of the model to be printed is done by means of a Perspective class, here House3D. The model to be printed must be identified by an x:Name attribute.

...
<p:House3D x:Name="house" Material="{StaticResource GlossyRedMaterial}"/>
...