HP has developed a texture library for 3D printed parts, allowing textures to be applied quickly to selected surfaces with greater accuracy than an STL export, using CoreTechnologie 4D Additive software.
The textures module of 4D Additive works with the exact surfaces of the CAD models and allows new design options for component surfaces as well as simple and cost-effective customisation of products.
Over 100 surface patterns are available for customisation and can be used directly after downloading the textures from the HP website.
Thanks to the exact description of the surfaces and boundary curves in the CAD model, the method means that textures can be added easier and more precisely than with an STL model. The user sets the size, alignment and height of the HP texture individually. Once the model is created, it can be sent to the HP 3D printer without having to use any other software.
The HP textures and a guide to the suggested application of the pattern can be downloaded free of charge from the HP website and easily imported into the 4D Additive textures module.
CoreTechnologie is best known for its CAD conversion and viewer softwares. 4D Additive allows for 3D models from all common CAD formats to be read and prepared for additive manufacturing processes directly as light B-Rep geometry.
4D Additive reads CAD data from 24 different formats such as Catia, NX, Solidworks, Creo, Inventor, STEP and JT as exact B-Rep geometry including all product manufacturing information, attributes and design history. In addition also triangulated formats such as stl, obj and 3mf can be read in and processed.