<p>In contrast to conventional printing of planar layers, non-planar printing techniques have emerged, most notably in the field of polymer extrusion additive manufacturing. Exceptional mechanical performance has been reported for non-planar 3D-printed components, especially when the print trajectories are optimized according to the mechanical loads. To maximize mechanical load capacity, accurate numerical simulations are inevitable for optimizing both non-planar print trajectories and the component’s topology. To address this, we develop a novel numerical framework for modeling the mechanical behavior of planar and non-planar 3D-printed components based on G-code data, explicitly accounting for anisotropy. The anisotropy results from the layer-wise printing process and, in the case of fiber-reinforced filaments, from the material itself. Additionally, we validate our numerical simulations by using full-field measurements, thus employing stereocorrelation-based digital image correlation. The developed modeling approach is straightforward to implement, and the results demonstrate that anisotropic effects in the mechanical response are adequately captured. Although experimental validation of the mechanical response of non-planar geometries remains challenging due to non-flat specimen geometries, our experiments indicate reasonable agreement with the numerical results for neat PLA specimens. Furthermore, it turns out that full-field measurements using digital image correlation accurately capture the surface deformations, even under combined tension and bending loading conditions where force readings from tensile testing machines may be compromised. Consequently, digital image correlation provides a more reliable basis for validating numerical models in non-ideal loading scenarios, which inevitably result from non-flat specimen geometries in non-planar printing.</p>