Up!’s Software Advantage

From the beginning, PP3DP’s Up! 3D printer produced wonderful prints, largely because of its sophisticated software. The software accepts a digital 3D model (in STL format) and converts it into instructions for the machine to actually build the physical model. 

 

While most personal 3D printers use the open source Skeinforge utility in some way, Up! somehow avoided Skeinforge and managed to produce great output. Other printer manufacturers were more or less forced to use Skeinforge as it would be very challenging to create an equivalent to Skeinforge on their own, even if most of them would prefer not to use Skeinforge at all. 

 

So how did PP3DP manage to create their own working equivalent of Skeinforge?

 

We found this out at Rapid 2012 when their Director of International Marketing, Joseph Guo, informed us that PP3DP / Delta Micro Factory is actually part of a very large Chinese conglomerate called Tiertime. It turns out that the parent company produces manufacturing machinery and had software available that did the job with some modifications. 

 

PP3DP had a big advantage over most other printer manufacturers. Who knew?