ArcGIS PRO export to .stl format for 3D printing

[AmaliaPanagiotopoulou]

It would be great if ArcGIS PRO users could export directly their 3D Map content in ArcGIS PRO in .stl format used directly for 3D printing (Maybe in the Share Tab or as a conversion tool addition to the Toolbox) Since PRO is a 3D application also, it should be involved more with 3D printing. That will also save the users a lot of time and energy because they first need to convert their work to CAD and then proceed with 3d printing.

[JustinCole1]

The DEM to 3D plugin in QGIS works well, and I found that by using raster tools and functions you can create some good cartography products.  I posted this article on my personal blog on how it can work.  https://justincolegis.com/2022/04/13/creating-a-3d-printed-trail-map-for-people-who-are-visually-imp.... When I did that post, I was doing a lot using geoprocessing, but found that the raster functions and doing more in the layouts can give a better product, so I will be updating that soon.  I also met with the Accessibility team and they are going to look into some of this to help create more accessible maps.  

[Theresa_Zehentbauer]

great Work Justin 🙂

[NDGraphics]

We are working on a feature in Pro that will allow you to export the meshes and materials of any 3D symbols of your choice and terrain tile to 3D formats like glTF. The feature is in the works right now, but it should be available soon.

[JustinCole1]

@NDGraphics What other formats can you choose because glTF is not usable for 3D printing and need to be converted?  Thanks

[NDGraphics]

@JustinCole1 STL is also in the works. Right after glTF is released.

[JeremyWright]

Folks, I'm marking this "In Product Plan" because ArcGIS Pro 3.5 will expose a new SDK function that allows you to export an AOI (specific extent) of a local scene view to STL.   I'll update this thread with a link to the SDK documentation once Pro 3.5 SDK is released.

caveat: There isn't a BUTTON for this on the UI yet, and the STL export will require some post-editing to be really 3d printable, but I wanted to get this out into the hands of our users as soon as it was ready to go.  We'll work with a product team to find a place to expose this in the Pro UI in a future release.

[PeterKnoop]

@JeremyWright that's great news! 

[JeremyWright]

Hi folks, we realize this and related ideas have a good deal of interest from our user community.

We added an ArcGIS Pro SDK method that allows export of an Area of Interest of a Local Scene to an STL file at ArcGIS Pro 3.5.

Documentation on this API is available here:

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/sdk/api-reference/topic32384.html

This method creates an .STL file from the specified extent, including all compatible content in that extent.  

Since it's only available via SDK, I haven't marked the IDEA as implemented yet, we hope to have a product team build UI/UX for this in a future release, and we'll continue to expand the capabilities of this API in future releases on the backend as well.