3MF: Now an ISO/IEC Standard 25422:2025 for the Future of Manufacturing
A common data format as 3D printing matures from prototyping to production
The 3MF Consortium is proud to share a major milestone for the additive manufacturing industry: the 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF) has been ratified as an international standard, ISO/IEC 25422:2025 while still remaining open source.
This recognition caps almost ten years of work by our Steering Committee, an alliance of leading software developers, printer and materials vendors, service bureaus, and OEMs who joined forces to refine, test, and future-proof a file format purpose-built for AM. Through thousands of engineering hours, public draft reviews, and real-world pilot programs, the team captured every detail needed for reliable, high-fidelity production, from material definitions and build parameters to support structures and metadata.
ISO status not only validates that collaborative effort; it firmly establishes 3MF as the definitive, free, and vendor-neutral language for secure, interoperable additive-manufacturing data worldwide.
I am excited to see 3MF becoming an ISO standard. 3MF file format expands the capability to transfer design and production intent in an efficient and secure way to support scaling of additive manufacturing. This should help drive wider adoption of 3MF format across the industry and HP is happy to be leading the way!
Arvind Rangarajan
Global Head Product and Strategy, HP Additive Manufacturing Solutions
What is 3MF?
The 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF) is an XML-based file specification purpose-built for additive manufacturing.
Unlike legacy formats such as STL, 3MF carries a far richer description of a part: materials, color and texture maps, lattice parameters, build orientation, support strategies, and other AM-specific details are bundled into one compact file through a growing family of extensions.
By capturing the complete digital recipe, 3MF lets a design travel from CAD to printer exactly as intended, cutting translation errors, scrap, and rework.
Why ISO status matters
Formal ISO recognition elevates 3MF from a best-practice recommendation to a globally trusted standard giving every link in the AM supply chain a common, vendor-neutral language. That consistency lowers barriers to adoption, shortens qualification cycles, and frees developers to focus on new features instead of file-conversion workarounds.
Benefits beyond mainstream manufacturing
Government & defense – Rich metadata fields (material lots, process parameters, security tags, revision history, encryption hooks) satisfy ITAR, DFARS, and NATO documentation rules while keeping the entire digital thread inside a single container.
Medical devices – Voxel, slicing, and support extensions lock down patient-specific geometries and surgeon-approved build settings, easing FDA submissions under ISO 13485 and MDR.
Aerospace & MRO – High-fidelity geometry plus embedded qualification data (powder certificates, in-situ sensor logs) simplify AS9100 and NADCAP audit trails and avoid brittle proprietary toolchains.
Because 3MF is stewarded by a cross-industry consortium of major software and hardware suppliers, engineers in these mission-critical domains can count on long-term compatibility and freedom from vendor lock-in—critical when parts may need to be reproduced or inspected decades from now.
In short, 3MF is fast becoming the lingua franca not only for rapid prototyping, but for any application where precision, compliance, and data security must travel hand-in-hand.
“For a decade, we’ve dedicated ourselves to standardizing additive data pipelines with the right craftsmanship. It’s incredible that 3MF is now the standard backend format for everything from millions of desktop FDM printers to multi-million-dollar aerospace equipment. Becoming an ISO standard is another important milestone in our journey to build a professional software ecosystem for Additive Manufacturing."”
Alexander OsterTechnical Director, 3MF Consortium
The 3MF Consortium invites every stakeholder in the additive manufacturing ecosystem, including software developers building CAD and workflow tools; hardware manufacturers advancing printers, scanners, and post-processing equipment; service bureaus delivering production at scale; and end users in industries from aerospace and medical to consumer goods, to help steer the next phase of this transformative standard.
By becoming a 3MF Consortium Member, you can contribute domain expertise to new extensions, join interoperability test beds, and ensure that 3MF continues to meet the real-world needs of designers, engineers, and manufacturers worldwide.
To learn more about the ISO designation and how you can shape the future of 3MF, contact us and explore membership opportunities today.
This is an exciting time for manufacturing, and 3MF, now an ISO standard, we look forward to seeing the incredible innovations that will emerge as a result of this standardization.
“Achieving ISO recognition for 3MF proves what’s possible when competitors join forces to clean up disparate AM workflows. Instead of every company patching its own fragile hacks to try and make arcane file formats ‘work’, we now share one rigorous, extensible standard, eliminating duplicated effort, lowering adoption barriers, and unlocking scalable growth for the entire industry.”
Duann ScottExecutive Director of the 3MF Consortium
