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burtoogle

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Posts posted by burtoogle

  1. 1 hour ago, mtnbkrrick said:

    Is there a way to "paint or draw" a line where the z seam would go? The line could be free hand or orthogonal.  This sounds difficult but figured I would ask.  Nice work!

     

    No there isn't any way to do what you ask and it would be a big job to implement that I should think. It would involve UI programming to do the drawing and then the z-seam contour would have to be passed to the slicer back end which would then work in a similar way to what I have implemented in this recent development.

     

    Personally, I would not find it a useful feature because I can't draw a nice line using a mouse so the z-seam would end up at least as wobbly as it is now.

  2. Hi,

     

    I have been working on implementing "exact" z-seams to avoid the rather ragged seams that can occur on curved surfaces.

     

    Here's an example: first is how it was before and second is what the experimental code now produces (I have enabled coasting just so that it makes the z-seam location more obvious...

     

    Screenshot_2019-10-22_10-24-49.thumb.png.2f5fe47c2a5cc49fdba10a5aaea27338.png

     

    Screenshot_2019-10-22_10-25-30.thumb.png.f60e8bb7138bc487679d1abbe53a62de.png

     

    This new implementation is only active when the Z Seam Alignment setting is "User Specified" and the Seam Corner Preference is "None".

     

    Before, when those settings were in use, for each layer, it would choose the wall vertex that was closest to the z seam X/Y position to be the location of the z-seam. Unfortunately, the vertices are not guaranteed to align vertically unless the wall has a sharp corner (i.e. with a rectangular shaped wall, you would expect the vertices at the corners for the adjacent layers to be stacked on top of each other) so the seam comes out horribly ragged. Using a finer model mesh and small resolution values help but what it really needs to do is get away from the constraint that the z-seam has to pass through the vertices of the walls.

     

    What it now does is take a vertical slice through the model using a plane that passes through the z seam X/Y position and the centre of the model's bounding box and finds where that plane cuts the model's walls and uses that as the z-seam location. Generally, the plane will cut through the model at least twice (goes in one side, comes out the other) and so it chooses the side closest to the z seam X/Y position.

     

    If the plane doesn't pass through the model at all, then it just falls back to the previous behaviour of choosing the wall vertex nearest the z seam X/Y position.

     

    Makes sense? Well, even if not, I would be grateful if those of you who are using my experimental builds could give this a try some time and let me have some feedback as to whether this is a good scheme or not.

     

    Please note that due to a recent change in the build process, if you are using Windows, you must remove any previous installations of my build before installing the current builds. Otherwise, it will not run.

     

    As always, my builds can be found at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s43vqzmi4d2bqe2/AAADdYdSu9iwcKa0Knqgurm4a?dl=0

     

    All feedback is welcome.

     

    • Like 2
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  3. Cura on Chromebook update - with recent chrome releases, it is now possible for the Linux apps to use accelerated OpenGL and so now you get the full layer view functionality rather than being forced to use compatibility mode. It's really getting quite usable now.

  4. After a bit of a struggle I can now build Cura development releases for Windows based on PyQt 5.13 (PyQt 5.10 is used for my earlier releases). Those of you having problems running the Ultimaker releases (e.g. no window appearing) may wish to try my latest (1012) build just in case the more recent PyQt fixes any of the issues. It can be installed alongside the Ultimaker releases without conflict.

     

    As always, releases are provided with no warranty, YMMV. You can find them at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s43vqzmi4d2bqe2/AAADdYdSu9iwcKa0Knqgurm4a?dl=0

     

    All feedback is welcome, please comment on this thread if you try this release.

    • Like 2
  5. Thanks for the project file. When I slice that there are definitely 4 skin layers top and bottom. I think the issue is that because you are using concentric skin, the lines all fall on top of each other and, for some reason, there are visible gaps because the skin lines don't cross like they do when using the lines or zig-zag skin patterns. Perhaps you are getting some under-extrusion and so increasing the flow by, say, 10% may be sufficient to fill the gaps?

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