Hybrid Software, together with its industry partners, recently concluded a successful inaugural Fusion Packaging Summit in Amsterdam. The event brought together 180 attendees from 23 countries, along with 14 sponsor partners, for four days of innovation, collaboration and major announcements.

The Fusion Packaging Summit featured 22 technical sessions, as well as informative factory visits to three local customer partners, AV Flexologic, Geostick, and Intergrafipak.

The summit was sponsored by a strong group of industry leaders, including ABG, Arden Software, AV Flexologic, Bobst, CERM, Conics, Eco3/Agfa, Global Vision, HELL Gravure, HP, Infigo, Koenig & Bauer, XSYS, and Zünd.

A highlight of the event was the unveiling of a new standard to extend the CF2 file format for folding carton packaging. 

CF2 is a venerable industry standard for exchanging structural design data between CAD systems and prepress software, but it does not contain certain features needed for automated packaging production. 

Jointly developed by Hybrid Software and Arden Software, and supported by partners Zünd, Kongsberg, and EngView Systems, the extended CF2 format will contain folding angles for crease lines and folding order for 3D viewing while retaining backward compatibility for software that cannot support the new extended CF2 features. 

Future extensions to embed substrate information, grain direction, and other features are planned, while sticking to our open systems philosophy that industry standards should be open to all customers and vendors who want to participate.

“With a long gap between Drupa and Labelexpo Europe, 2025 was the perfect year to introduce the Fusion Packaging Summit – a real ‘fusion’ of global brands, trade shops, packaging converters, a large group of partners who serve them, and our own product experts from Hybrid Software,” Hybrid Software Group CEO Mike Rottenborn said.

“The results far exceeded my expectations, and we will make Fusion an annual event, alternating between Europe and North America. I look forward to next year’s event.”