Unlike its predecessor STL format, AMF has native support for color, materials, lattices, and constellations.

The unit system can also be specified (millimeter, inch, feet, meter or micrometer).

Only a single object element is required for a fully functional AMF file.

The transparency channel specifies to what degree the color from the lower level is blended in.

The data can be represented as either a 2D or a 3D array, depending on whether the color or material need to be mapped to a surface or a volume.

More complex coordinate-dependent proportions can lead to nonlinear material gradients as well as periodic and non-periodic substructure.

The element specifies the displacement and rotation an existing object needs to undergo to arrive into its position in the constellation.

The element can optionally be used to specify additional information about the objects, geometries and materials being defined.

In order to improve geometric fidelity, the format allows curving the triangle patches.

The curvature is specified using the tangent direction vectors at the beginning and end of that edge.

], a survey of stakeholders[4] revealed that the key priority for the new standard was the requirement for a non-proprietary format.

Units and buildability issues were a concern lingering from problems with the STL format.

Other key requirements were the ability to specify geometry with high fidelity and small file sizes, multiple materials, color, and microstructures.

In order to be successful across the field of additive manufacturing, this file format was designed to address the following concerns Since the mid-1980s, the STL file format has been the de facto industry standard for transferring information between design programs and additive manufacturing equipment.

The STL format only contained information about a surface mesh, and had no provisions for representing color, texture, material, substructure, and other properties of the fabricated target object.

As additive manufacturing technology evolved from producing primarily single-material, homogenous shapes to producing multi-material geometries in full color with functionally graded materials and microstructures, there was a growing need for a standard interchange file format that could support these features.

A second factor that ushered the development of the standard was the improving resolution of additive manufacturing technologies.

As the fidelity of printing processes approached micron scale resolution, the number of triangles required to describe smooth curved surfaces resulted in unacceptably large file sizes.

In 2006, Jonathan D. Hiller and Hod Lipson presented an initial version of AMF dubbed "STL 2.0".

[3] In January 2009, a new ASTM Committee F42 on Additive Manufacturing Technologies was established, and a design subcommittee was formed to develop a new standard.

[5] During the July 2013 meetings of ASTM's F42 and ISO's TC261 in Nottingham (UK), the Joint Plan for Additive Manufacturing Standards Development was approved.