There’s always some form of eulogising happening in additive manufacturing at any given time – companies, dreams, the industry itself. But, arguably, it’s a ubiquitous yet derided file format that has been marked for death the longest.
The ‘why’ is perhaps best summarised by a comment from a recent conversation I had with Egwin Bovyn, Product Line Manager for the Magics 3D Print Suite at Materialise: “Everybody hates STLs, but everybody keeps using STLs.”
STL was widely adopted during 3D printing’s infancy in the 1990s. Developed initially for the stereolithography (SLA) process by SLA inventor Chuck Hull in 1988, it became the standard for rapid prototyping and continues to be widely used today. Yet opinions like the one shared by Anthony Graves, VP Sales at Dyndrite at this year’s Develop3D Live Conference, that “STLs are horrible”, are not uncommon, particularly as AM continues its ascent out of the prototyping realm and into production.
So, I asked three software experts to help explain the contempt, contenders and why STL continues to be used today.
