Microsoft 3D Design Tool Released

Earlier this year Microsoft announced that they would be supporting 3D printers as native devices in the Windows 8.1 operating system. The aim of this is to make 3D printing as easy as 2D printing is today. They’ve just released a 3D design tool, along with some rather nice 3D designs, which you can download for free from the Windows Store. Just search the store for “3d printing” to find it.

The program works with a newly released printer driver for the Makerbot printers. The program looks very good, but unfortunately at the moment I can’t use it to print with my Ultimaker yet as that printer doesn’t have driver support. I really hope that it arrives at some point, it would be a great step to making a 3D printer a proper “appliance”.