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Tools for 3D (printing)

A tiny 3D slicer written from scratch, featuring:

• A commandline interface
• Slicing bad/messy meshes more robustly
• Detect and enlarge features/perimeters too small to print
• "Accentuate" outlines to make details stand out more
• Optimized toolpath to reduce need for retraction
• From mesh or voxels to gcode
• Wirtten in C99 with no dependencies

_{▲Test models sliced using t43 and printed on Ender 3 v1 with Overture Matte PLA light pink. 0.2mm layer height, 0.4mm nozzle, 220/60°C. US dime for size.}

This toolkit consists of several standalone commandline programs. Each program can be compiled from a corresponding C file, independent of others. To compile all the programs withgcc, type

make

Or see theMakefile for the commands to compile each program separately.

Each of the program is responsible for a single task in the 3D slicing pipeline. For example, thegenerate_support command generates structural supports for a voxel model, and does not need to be executed if the model does not require supports.

Example usage, slicing an OBJ file and generating gcode:

# convert the mesh to voxels./mesh_to_voxels dragon.obj -o dragon.bin --inv_flood 3 --fit_z 68 --swap_yz# (optional) make details on the surface stand out more./accentuate_voxels dragon.bin -o dragon-acc.bin --rate 7 --zero_sum# (optional) generate supports./generate_support dragon-acc.bin -o dragon-acc-sup.bin --sink 8 --hang 5 --ero_xy 5# (optional) visual inspection (uses OpenGL)./voxel_viewer dragon-acc-sup.bin# output gcode from voxels, ready for 3D printing./voxels_to_gcode dragon-acc-sup.bin -o dragon-acc-sup.gcode --config profiles/ender3.ini --step 3 --sink 18

Use--help option for each of the commands to see what each of the arguments does.

The Makefile inexample/ folder lists a lot more examples, both for slicing meshes (automated .obj download) as well as voxels (procedurally generated). To build all examples (will take a while):

cd examplesmake all

To build one particular example, e.g.bunny,dragon, etc.:

cd examplesmake bunny

(Work in progress)online gcode viewer

Work in progress...

Explanatory blogpost coming soon...

More test prints coming soon...

• Slow
• Few error messages
• Tested on few hardware (Ender 3, Ender 3 V2)