Printing Order Of Mutiple Objects

[gr5 2,243]

I think it's pretty clear that it's not a proper solution and indeed it's useless for people in "all at once" mode.  Also typically "all at once" mode you don't care what order it prints.  But not always.  I'm going to leave it at least for a few days.  Hopefully 5.7 makes it all moot.

 

Also don't think that this means Ultimaker is off the hook to add this feature.  They are certainly still on the hook.  And it looks like they already did it and it will be in the next release.

 

I agree @rachael7 it could give people hope, only to dash it away again when they read it.

[rachael7 74]

It's not clear though, that's the point. I do very much care about print order in all-at-once mode, and as a user of this forum, when I see a "Go to solution" button, I expect it is solved. I certainly hope it is addressed in the next release, as has been suggested; but in the meantime, marking it as solved is deceptive and could result in less pressure to release an actual solution.

[Slashee_the_Cow 450]

4 hours ago, rachael7 said:

marking it as solved is deceptive and could result in less pressure to release an actual solution

The developers very rarely read the forum (which is why using the "feature request" and "bug report" forms on the Cura GitHub repo are so important) and have received more than enough requests already to know that it is a highly desired feature.

 

4 hours ago, rachael7 said:

when I see a "Go to solution" button, I expect it is solved

For the majority of people, it is a solution (even if it's only a workaround). There are many threads which have solutions marked but that solution does not work for everyone with that problem.

 

4 hours ago, rachael7 said:

I do very much care about print order in all-at-once mode

If you don't mind me asking, why? (and if you do mind me asking, you don't have to answer that)

[rachael7 74]

18 minutes ago, Slashee_the_Cow said:

If you don't mind me asking, why? (and if you do mind me asking, you don't have to answer that)

 

I have had several cases where the design of the model was such that slicer-generated supports simply would not do the job, so I built the supports as objects in CAD. I've been using Solidworks for over 20 years, so sometimes I get better results designing the supports while I'm making the part. Anyway, when I brought the models in, each support structure was a separate object, along with the actual part of course. As is normal, the supports print at the same time as the part, so all-at-once mode is necessary. The print order became important because the slicer chose illogical orders for printing the supports and the part, which not only cost a ton of print time, it degraded the part by passing the nozzle over the model many more times than was necessary (some supports were inside the hollow part and some were outside). These were transparent PMMA (acrylic) prints, so the wall defects substantially affected the quality of the finished parts. Had I been able to set the print order, I could have saved perhaps 5% on the not-insubstantial print time as well as reducing the visual defects by 75% or more. I'll grant you that it is not a common use case, but it isn't hard to think of others that would be far more common.

Edited March 8 by rachael7

[DivingDuck 105]

9 hours ago, gr5 said:

I think it's pretty clear that it's not a proper solution and indeed it's useless for people in "all at once" mode.

Guess we need a "Workaround" sign then 😉 

 

To be honest, I tend more to be with @rachael7 and her view of things in this regard. Isn't this kind of discussions why we have those discussions about a missing features since ~5+ years now? And I say this with no harm at all. Peoples who need this feature have stop long time ago to argue that, because they are using other tools these days for this task.

The point in the end is, that users are forced to user other applications / tools to solve their needs. Not a good way to design a good process as you need now at least two tools for one job. In addition it becomes more difficult to not make additional errors during those activities. It is maybe not wise too pushing

 

Anyway, this post as well will not change anything except that I'm already using Cura less than I want to use it. This discussion shows only one of a lot drops of quirks over the years that make using Cura less pleasant as it needs to be. This will hopefully change with a new version. Maybe, as I used to say for any new version.

I'm quite sure, I need to spend hours/days/weeks in understanding the new changes for having good slices. The show must go on...

 

Edited March 8 by DivingDuck
Change wrong gender...

[gr5 2,243]

2 hours ago, DivingDuck said:

I tend more to be with @rachael7 and his view of things

I think it's "her".  I'm pretty sure rachael and slashee are she/her.

 

4 hours ago, rachael7 said:

so I built the supports as objects in CAD.

Can't you then output it all as a single STL?  Would that not help?  I guess you already thought of that.

 

For me the "solution" issue is not so much that it doesn't work for "all at once" but that it's a workaround and only lets you choose the order if you want to print in one direction (left to right, right to left, front to back, back to front).  And on top of that it doesn't help so much if you are printing a "grid" of objects as you can only say "row" order.  Not part order.

 

Still, it's pretty damn simple, easy to understand, and even has a visual reminder of which way it will print based on the shadows.  It's a pretty cool hack. I think it could help a lot of people.

 

Hopefully this will all be moot soon!

[DivingDuck 105]

Ups. Thanks for the hint, @gr5. Guess, my fingers was too fast w/o really think about that. Apologize , @rachael7.

[rachael7 74]

1 hour ago, gr5 said:

I think it's "her".  I'm pretty sure rachael and slashee are she/her.

 

Can't you then output it all as a single STL?  Would that not help?  I guess you already thought of that.

 

For me the "solution" issue is not so much that it doesn't work for "all at once" but that it's a workaround and only lets you choose the order if you want to print in one direction (left to right, right to left, front to back, back to front).  And on top of that it doesn't help so much if you are printing a "grid" of objects as you can only say "row" order.  Not part order.

 

Still, it's pretty damn simple, easy to understand, and even has a visual reminder of which way it will print based on the shadows.  It's a pretty cool hack. I think it could help a lot of people.

 

Hopefully this will all be moot soon!

 

Yes, she/her, thank you. And yes, I have output the model as a single STL, but that still doesn't give any sort of control about what portions of the model print in what order since in that scenario it is all one object. There may be something I didn't try, but like you, this was one of many little annoyances that has led me to use Cura less these days, so it hasn't come up in a while. I'll play a bit more next time it comes up. Also, the workaround is for sure helpful and I might even use it myself for certain things. I didn't mean to imply it didn't have worth, only that it isn't really a "solution" per se.

[Slashee_the_Cow 450]

9 hours ago, rachael7 said:

There may be something I didn't try, but like you, this was one of many little annoyances that has led me to use Cura less these days, so it hasn't come up in a while.

I may regret saying this because of the existence of the "put up or shut up" concept, but in theory it might be possible to make a post-processing script which controls what order things print in all at once mode (if they're separate models). It's an idea I've been toying with in my head (for a completely different purpose, but same concept) but have yet to put finger to keyboard.

[rachael7 74]

49 minutes ago, Slashee_the_Cow said:

I may regret saying this because of the existence of the "put up or shut up" concept, but in theory it might be possible to make a post-processing script which controls what order things print in all at once mode (if they're separate models). It's an idea I've been toying with in my head (for a completely different purpose, but same concept) but have yet to put finger to keyboard.

 

In theory, it certainly is. I feel like it is probably one of those "devil is in the details" situations though. Moving blocks around isn't too tough, particularly if they are commented and separated; but there are so many opportunities for issues, such as the final and preparatory rapid moves pointing to the wrong place. I'll spare you the "put up or shut up", but if you get something up to a beta stage, let me know and I'll be happy to help test and debug it with you.

[gr5 2,243]

When the print order feature comes out, I'm curious if it only applies to "one at a time mode" or also "all at once mode".  I'd wait for that before writing a plugin but if it only applies to "one at a time mode", then it sounds like you would have at least one customer for said script. 🙂

[DivingDuck 105]

Yea, I hope for both. And in addition I would like having the possibility to tell Cura a specific order of print and/or rearrange the models if needed. How was that with giving a little finger...? So many ways things to manipulate. 🙂

[DivingDuck 105]

There is one in addition for future development:

Printing one at a time should not be restricted to the use of one extruder in printer definition. I had forgot about this already and it is still irritating me - because when I forgot to switch the printer profile I search all the time the not longer visible setting for printing one at a time.

[PartySausage 22]

I had a little play with the feature in the latest windows nightly build on the github.

The options to change/reorder the object print order only seems to be available when one at a time is selected 

[Slashee_the_Cow 450]

2 hours ago, PartySausage said:

I had a little play with the feature in the latest windows nightly build on the github.

The options to change/reorder the object print order only seems to be available when one at a time is selected 

To coding!

(Maybe)

[Cuq 206]

The added function "simply" changes the order of the pieces in One at time mode. So that's what you could already do by adding parts in a specific order. The function is there to change the order in the item list. So don't expect a big automatic option. In future, it shouldn't be too difficult to add sorting by part height or position of parts on the print plate, for example.

 

 

 

EDIT Note : If you just have 2 or 3 parts to print it's a good solution. If you need to set the order for more than 5 parts it's not an easy process.

Edited March 11 by Cuq

[rimbo 0]

@Cuq

The way it's implemented is close to useless. I find manual process still more convenient:

1. Slice the models

2. Use the layer pos slider to determine the order and

3. Find model you need to print at location XY and just drag it there

4. Reslice and go to step 2

[stepmuel 0]

The current ordering feature would be a lot more useful if the options were "print first" and "print last" instead of just moving them one step up or down. That way I could just choose "print last" for each object in the order I want to print them.

 

I want to print 16 copies of an object in a 4 x 4 grid, one by one. I have a low gantry on my x axis, so I want to print them in a scan line pattern (first x then y) to prevent finished objects from being knocked over. Multiply an object by 15 and arranging them in a grid will print the in random order, and fixing the order using the current method would take hours.

 

I personally also dislike the naming "Print Before/After X". The standard for this operation in design application is something like "Bring to Front", "Bring Forward", "Send Backwards" and "Send to Back" inside an "Arrange" menu. I would prefer either this, or something similar like "Print Earlier/later" and "Print First/Last". Including the name can be very confusing with auto generated names and duplicated objects.

[Slashee_the_Cow 450]

1 hour ago, stepmuel said:

The current ordering feature would be a lot more useful if the options were "print first" and "print last" instead of just moving them one step up or down. That way I could just choose "print last" for each object in the order I want to print them.

You can submit a feature request here. Although obviously (as you get to later) it would need to be in addition to the existing options.

 

1 hour ago, stepmuel said:

I personally also dislike the naming "Print Before/After X". The standard for this operation in design application is something like "Bring to Front", "Bring Forward", "Send Backwards" and "Send to Back" inside an "Arrange" menu. I would prefer either this, or something similar like "Print Earlier/later" and "Print First/Last". Including the name can be very confusing with auto generated names and duplicated objects.

This is a vastly different use case to ordering layers in a design application. I'm all for having first/last options but I think the name is important for when you don't have duplicate objects (like when I've printed an alphabet). With auto generated names or duplicated objects you can just ignore the names and the function still works the same.

 

1 hour ago, stepmuel said:

want to print 16 copies of an object in a 4 x 4 grid, one by one. I have a low gantry on my x axis, so I want to print them in a scan line pattern (first x then y) to prevent finished objects from being knocked over.

Don't forget that you need enough room on the Y axis between them to allow for the print head. If a printer definition is set up properly (*hard stare at whoever is responsible for Creality definitions*) it'll automatically reduce the maximum height of objects to account for the gantry (which you could just override by changing the machine settings).

[GregValiant 1,364]

"...and fixing the order using the current method would take hours."

C'mon man, I just checked and it took me 2 minutes to multiply a model 15 times, drag and drop the 16 pieces on the build plate to acceptable locations, and to change the print order to a zig-zag from front to back.

When changing the print order, the PgUp and PgDn buttons are shortcut keys.  Just pick a part and move it in the order.

[Slashee_the_Cow 450]

Hey @GregValiant, you either need to quote someone or tag them for them to get a notification of your post if they don't automatically subscribe to the topic (or manually unsubscribe).

 

Hey @stepmuel, please read Greg's post 🙂 

[GregValiant 1,364]

Yes.

Often I do.

This time I didn't.

Maybe that was a message in and of itself.

[Silvano_95 3]

Hello all,

I recently had the same problem while trying to print an all-at-once print.

There are a lot of small parts on my bed and I put some lines in between them to purge some material after every 10 parts and avoid filament grinding because of the retractions.

Cura always skipped the 2nd line and 4th line and printed them after.

What solved my problem was changing "Z seam alignment" to shortest and "Seam corner preference" to none.

I hope that this helps someone. 😀