Welcome, NPS Navy and Marine Makers!

Welcome to the NPS X3D Model Exchange

Additive Manufacturing (AM) will have major impacts on future Navy and Marine operations. The goal of the X3D Model Exchange is to help Navy and Marine Makers at NPS learn how to find, produce, share and print 3D models. The X3D Graphics International Standard enables archival publishing of geometric data with corresponding metadata for long-term use and re-use.

NPS NRP Poster: X3D Model Exchange for Navy/Marine Makers NPS NRP Poster: Additive Manufacturing at NPS NPS NRP Poster: Sadagic Large-Scale Adoption

Acknowledgements. Big thanks and grateful appreciation go to:

Web3D Consortium Web3D Consortium members build Open Standards for Real-Time 3D Communication.
X3D Graphics International Standard X3D Graphics is the International Standard for royalty-free viewing and printing of 3D models.  Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics is an ISO-ratified, royalty-free open standards file format and run-time architecture to represent and communicate 3D scenes and objects. X3D provides a system for the storage, retrieval and playback of real time 3D scenes in multiple applications, all within an open architecture to support a wide array of domains and user scenarios.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) 3D Print Exchange National Institutes of Health (NIH) 3D Print Exchange shared open-source software that shows how all these many capabilities can work together. Makers can find many medical models there.

Current Status: hot standby. Despite multiple team efforts, we were unable to correct lingering administrative configuration problems associated with the Drupal portal software.  The experience has been disappointing. The entire design and user-centric workflow remains sound.  Through direct experience with the Web3D 2020 Conference implementation, we have determined that WordPress portal software provides a more robust and secure hosting solution. We are now looking for a sponsor to support the one-time transition of this site to a form that is maintainable over the long term.  Once refactored and reestablished, we are looking to support multiple NPS teaching and research projects.

Future Work: significant plans.  A properly maintained Model Exchange portal can support many NPS teaching and research efforts, such as Center for Additive Manufacturing (CAM) courses/theses and Robodojo projects.  Additional possibilities have been identified in the SPIDERS3D Virtual Sand Table (VST) project (README).

Past Status 2018-2019:

  • Soft Launch Testing continues with our first 100 Navy/Marine Makers.  Welcome!
  • Current work includes learning help, community forums, and metadata vocabularies.
  • Drupal 8 portal upgrade is complete. 3D model upload/download testing in progress.
  • Please send a CAC request or simply Contact Us if you want to join!  Here we go...