During the last year to eighteen months, the market for 3D printing software has seen a significant uptick in commercial activity, investment and development initiatives. This activity is mostly dominated by large global entities involved in software development and SmarTech Publishing is seeing some important software trends three summarized below:
Printer OEMs developing tightly integrated,machine-specific print preparation tools
During 2016 3D Stratasys announced a significant new software product called GrabCAD Print, designed to provide a single integrated tool and interface to manage the post-CAD printing process. GrabCAD allows the import of CAD files directly from various popular CAD programs such as Solidworks or AutoCAD. Thus, the software appears to encompass elements of build preparation, build processing, and production management within the context of some Stratasys FDM printers.
