Is adobe Illustrator capable of 3-d printing?

[Des_19]

I notice Illustrator has 3-D viewing options, but is another software required to actually 3-d print the object?

[Bill Silbert]

What you see on the screen in preview mode in Illustrator is what will print on a 2D printer. Are you asking if it will print to a 3D printer?

[Ton Frederiks]

No, Illustrator cannot print in 3D

Illustrator has a 3D Effect, but the result is a flat vector object, that looks 3D.

Photoshop can print to 3D printers.

[jdanek]

This is a very good question.  Hate to sound old school, but what is a 3D printer?  Do they carve out the scene so you can walk around it?  Can you recreate a person with a 3D printer?  Can I clone myself?  What the heck is a 3D printer?

[Bill Silbert]

A 3D printer can actually print out 3 dimensional pieces out of materials such as plastic. I've seen it used to create components for a prototype for an invention that a friend is trying to patent. He even gave me a comb that he had printed on one. It actually worked. They have become the latest solution to many cop shows where it is discovered that the police can't trace the ballistics of a bullet because it was fired from a gun made out of plastic that was created on a 3D printer. I have no idea as to whether that last one is actually possible.

[Ton Frederiks]

The answer to all of your questions is more or less Yes (more yes than less).

[Ton Frederiks]

Print 3D objects from Photoshop |

[jdanek]

That's not a printer.  Why doesn't it just be called or referred to as a 3D modleler?

[jdanek]

A 3D modeler?

[Ton Frederiks]

Well, there are a lot of 3D printers and print services that will give you a 3D object from Photoshop, just Google it.

And yes, when you have captured yourself with a 3D camera it will print a 3D version of yourself.

[rcraighead]

Sculpteo is a service I use frequently. Highly recommend them, but not from AI files.

[Kurt Gold]

That's true. "3D printer" is a misleading term, a dictum or a vogue word.

Basically it's just computer-aided sculpturing. Tens of thousands of years ago our ancestors were able to bake bread. They were the 3D printer pioneers …

[Monika Gause]

jdanek  schrieb

That's not a printer.  Why doesn't it just be called or referred to as a 3D modleler?

Calling it Rapid prototyping wouldn't have made it such a success outside of the engineering world, I suspect.

There are different techniques avaible. Some of them actually cut sheets of paper that later get stacked. Others use a laser beam to punctually harden material in a container. Others work like inkjet printers and stack thin layers of plastic (maybe they even modified inkjet printers when developing this technology and then also came up with this name).

But calling it modelling would be kind of misleading as well. It doesn't work like pottery and the 3D modeler is the person who creates the model in my understanding, but sometimes also the software using for modeling is called 3D modeler.

[kevind82335850 · Accepted solution]

The answer to the OP is no, Illustrator cannot print to a 3D.  Those who mentioned Photoshop are correct, it can design (albeit poorly) 3d models and print to a small spectrum of 3d printers.

I print on a daily basis to a Formlabs Form 2, 3D printer.  I use a variety of tools to create actual 3D models including SolidWorks $4,000+) for complicated, engineering tasks, and TinkerCad ​(Free) for quick and dirty objects.  There are literally dozens of free and/or cheap 3d modeling programs, heck Windows 10 even has one for free built into the OS called 3D Builder.

These 3D programs save the 3D file into an OBJ or STL files.  These files are broken down into hundreds or even thousands of layers and printed on the 3D printers. Hopefully this helps a few out there

[BCE_ITdept]

I know I'm years late to the party, but while the answer of NO is technically correct, I use Adobe Illustrator as my starting point for my 3D printing. So this is just an answer for those like me who use Adobe Illustrator as my starting point. I create my 2D design in Illustrator, save it as a SVG file, import this file into TinkerCad (online 3D app) extrude my 2D design there, and if need be, modify it there and export the file for use in my 3D Printer. (In my case, I export as STL and import into FlashPrint for my Flashforge Dreamer 3D printer) I double check sizing and print. Works for me.

I understand the latest version of Illustrator supports exporting as OBJ file but I have had no success with this - yet.