Materialise and nTop announce collaboration

Materialise and nTop have announced a collaboration to expand the capabilities of additive manufacturing (AM). By integrating nTop’s Core, an API for implicit modeling, with Materialise’s Magics 3D Print Suite and NxG Build Processor, manufacturers can accelerate the entire design-to-manufacture process and enable the production of complex parts that were previously unprintable.

This partnership solves a key problem in the production of complex, high-performance designs by enabling implicit design files to be shared between design and manufacturing teams and natively processed for production without the need for meshing or other intermediate processes. This facilitates the design of high-performance parts with more features and capabilities, while ensuring they can be produced accurately and economically.

nTop has developed a powerful new kernel for implicit modeling and a corresponding file format that can characterize highly complex, high-performance geometries at a fraction of the size of traditional CAD or mesh-based files. Previously, high-performance product designs created in nTop could not be processed natively by Magics, requiring time-consuming translations for build preparation and production. Materialise’s NxG Build Processor is a configurable software that translates large and complex 3D design files into printable instructions, optimizing and managing the 3D printing process from start to finish. By integrating nTop’s design software with Magics and the NxG Build Processor, these designs can now be easily transferred natively to Materialise Magics, enabling fast and high-quality build preparation and layering.

“At Materialise, we understand that the future of additive manufacturing hinges on the ability to efficiently process highly complex files for high-performance parts,” said Udo Eberlein, Vice President of Software at Materialise. “If our industry cannot keep pace with the growing demands for intricate designs and larger build sizes, it becomes impossible to unlock the full potential of new AM applications. Our collaboration with nTop represents a significant step forward in breaking these barriers. By combining nTop’s implicit modeling kernel with Magics and our Next Gen Build Processor, we are enabling faster, more reliable design-to-manufacture workflows, paving the way for innovations that were once deemed impossible.”

In practice, Materialise and nTop, in collaboration with Nikon SLM, produced a high-performance cylinder head for Wärtsilä, a global provider of innovative technologies and lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets. Wärtsilä, on its way to CO2-neutral shipping and energy production, explored innovative designs to optimize the cooling performance of the cylinder head and achieved a 60% weight reduction compared to the original design. This new design also enabled the integration of up to ten subsystems into the final component, reducing assembly complexity and improving cooling performance.

“At nTop, we are committed to advancing the power of computational design to production — which is why I’m so excited about our partnership with Materialise and integration of nTop implicit models into Magics for manufacturing,” said Bradley Rothenberg, Co-Founder and CEO of nTop. “This enables our mutual customers to streamline the manufacturing of their most complex designs.”

Materialise and nTop have launched an Early Access Program to accelerate the adoption of high-performance geometries in additive manufacturing. This program is designed for users to push the limits of this technology and help them improve design-to-manufacture workflows and overall performance.

“Nikon SLM Solutions is excited to be the first early access partner for the new Materialise Build Processor that natively prepares builds for our NXG XII 600 directly from nTop,” said Nicolas Lemaire, Software Product Manager at Nikon SLM Solutions. “While Nikon SLM focuses on making the NXG XII 600 the most productive AM solution with a build rate of 1000 ccm/hr, we are evaluating how the integration between nTop and Materialise can streamline the design-to-production process.”