Between the latest developments behind the HoloLens to the announcement of their Internet Explorer replacement product, it’s already been a busy couple of days for Microsoft at their annual Build Developer Conference, which runs from April 29th through May 1st in San Francisco.
Of course, the conference wouldn’t be complete without some updates on Windows 10, which – aside from bringing back the Start Menu – will include a bevy of new features designed for multiple devices and types of users. With this being 2015, quite a few of those users are likely to be using a 3D printer at some point or another – whether in a school, home or professional setting.
At the Microsoft Build Developer Conference earlier this morning, the Washington-based company announced that they have teamed up with Autodesk and the 3D software company’s Spark platform to “accelerate the future of digital and physical 3D creation, making 3D printing a more useful and reliable experience for businesses and individuals alike”.
Spark is an open platform for building better 3D printing software, hardware, materials and services. Additionally, it provides extensible APIs for each stage of the 3D printing workflow and is designed to enable everybody from Makers to corporations to quickly add 3D printing functionality to applications. Ultimately, the service allows any application to prepare, optimize, and deliver 3D models to any 3D printer or 3D printing service.
By pairing with Microsoft, Spark will allow Windows 10 users to directly access an optimized and reliable 3D printing experience in a cohesive experience. Additionally, the massive Microsoft developer community will have free access to Spark’s APIs and development platform to create their own 3D printing applications for the Windows platform.
“We’re approaching a tipping point with 3D printing, which means there is a huge market opportunity waiting for companies developing applications for Windows 10,” said Steve Guggenheimer, Corporate Vice President of Developer Platform & Evangelism and Chief Evangelist for Microsoft.
“By providing the 3D printing building blocks found in the Spark platform and optimizing it for Windows 10, Autodesk has empowered our global developer community to confidently enter this new world of additive manufacturing.”
Just this month, HP announced that they will also be adopting Spark to integrate with their new Multi Jet Fusion platform when it’s released in late 2016.
