CuraEngine command line: use Cura .cfg

[lormar98 0]

Hi,

I'm working with Cura (2.6.1) under Windows. I have created a custom machine profile and some material/quality profiles.

Slicing with the Cura GUI is going well.

Now i want to automate things, i.e. i want to use CuraEngine to slice my STL files into gcode.

To do this i would have to use many "-s" commandline options to specify the non-default slicer options (a look into cura.log reveals that it is calling CuraEngine with about 330 "-s" options, for example).

Now the question is:

Is it possible to use the Cura(-GUI) generated profiles (.cfg files) instead of listing them one by one on the CuraEngine command line? It seems that there is no commandline option to specify Cura profiles :-(

Or is there some other way like generating a list of "-s" options from the Cura profiles?

Edited July 19, 2017 by Guest

[gr5 2,178]

@nallath should be able to answer this. But why not just cut and paste the 330 -s options into a script and be done with it?

Also I think there is a way to pass a file with parameters instead of passing them on the command line.

[nallath 1,122]

The frontend doesn't just use just one file. A single extrusion machine can have: User, quality_changes, quality, material, variant, definition changes and definition.

Settings are handled in a stack like way; If a setting is set in the user profile, that value is used. If it isn't there, the value of quality_changes is used (and on until definition is reached, at which point the default is used).

You could create a custom definition file where you set the defaults to what you want, but this is a bit tricky for multi extrusion machines.

We tend to use bat/shell files with certain settings to slice them if we don't want to use this method.

[gr5 2,178]

So the GUI takes all the profiles and turns them into many "-s" parameters?

[ahoeben 1,952]

Essentially yes, but the GUI does not use the command line interface. Instead it uses a protocol based on google protobuf to communicate with a CuraEngine process that stays running while the GUI is open.

[lormar98 0]

How can I generate a .bat file to pass at CuraEngine about 300 parameters instead of use -s option?

Can you send an example ?