Cura variable layer heigth

[RudydG 62]

I design and print a lot of functional prototypes (UM2 MK2 and UM3)

Parts are often rather big, and complex. Some parts do not need to be 0.1mm all the way, but just a part of it. At this moment i have a part printing 3 days (with support material), in .1mm. Printed in .2 it woul be a day and a half. But i have to select .1, even if only 20% of the part needs .1

Can i achive this in Cura? (S3D does it, but is not so good in changing tools / temperature.

Many thanks!!

[burtoogle 513]

That capability has recently been added (big kudos to ChrisTerBeke, it's his work) and is currently in the development version (master branch). I understand that it will be available as an experimental feature in Cura 3.2. Here's an example showing the layers coloured by height:

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I will be very happy to see this in operation.

I do dislike having to do a whole model at fine scales when just the top rounded parts require it. Lots of added time there.

It also means I wind up turning some models in strange directions to find the best lay-line to avoid the topographic effect.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Guest

[burtoogle 513]

Another example showing layers varying from 50um to 350um. Haven't actually printed this yet so I don't know how good the result would be.

[catohagen 41]

This is a nice progress

Just wondering, what logic is used to determine what layer height to use?

[burtoogle 513]

See https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues/2666 for some background info on this feature.

[ahoeben 1,948]

In the benchy, either the coloring is wrong, or the chosen layer heights are... weird.

I would expect most of the blue parts to be printed at the higher layerthickness. The parts where the arches are, I can understand why those would be lower thickness.

[burtoogle 513]

The slope of the deck and the sloping hull sides are probably what's causing the large amount of blue. Once the z gets above the bow the layer height increases (becomes green) until it nears the top of the arches where it goes blue again.

Chris has provided some settings to tweak so it is possible to alter the behaviour. I'm just showing an example, no claims as to whether it's ideal or not.

[burtoogle 513]

Well, old benchy is rather boring, what we need to test this feature are real curves!

Again, sliced using layers from 50um to 350um. Two walls, no infill, Cura reports 1h40m for the variable layer height version and 5h11m for a version with 50um fixed height layers.

I printed one in transparent blue PLA and it came out rather nice. All smooth curves!

[neotko 1,417]

The idea is an automagic tool to generate the layers height or there’s any manual control planned?

[burtoogle 513]

At the moment, it's only automagic with a few settings to control the layer height range and the step size and another setting that controls the height of the layers in relation to the slope of the surface. When people start to use the feature you would expect there to be a discussion about what settings are useful and how much manual control is desired/required.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

At the moment, it's only automagic with a few settings to control the layer height range and the step size and another setting that controls the height of the layers in relation to the slope of the surface. When people start to use the feature you would expect there to be a discussion about what settings are useful and how much manual control is desired/required.

Probably a good idea to start that way so that a consensus can be formed. You will never please everybody, but probably the best chance to please most.

[tramspotters 0]

Sounds very interesting. Where can I download the plugin?

[ahoeben 1,948]

It will be part of Cura 3.2. Expect a beta in around 1.5 week.

[DidierKlein 729]

It would be very cool to be able to change the layer height at a defined height, awesome work guys will test this for sure!

[eldrick 65]

Short-term, Slic3r will do what you want, with full control over layers. Not a great UI for the feature, but it works nicely.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

33 minutes ago, eldrick said:

Short-term, Slic3r will do what you want, with full control over layers. Not a great UI for the feature, but it works nicely.

Potatoes potAHtoes......

Edited January 15, 2018 by kmanstudios

[ctbeke 133]

Hi guys,

 

Thanks for trying out this feature, seeing some great examples already!

I head a great time building it (was part of a research sprint, aka do whatever you want but deliver something awesome/useful)!

 

As @ahoeben indicated, this will be in the 3.2 (beta) version of Cura, which is due in roughly 1 week. The stable version will go out about 2 weeks later.

 

We're very interested in hearing how we can improve this feature in the future as well!

 

- Chris

[RudydG 62]

Just changed to beta 3.2.

Will test this. But to be honest, the mark2 hardware upgrade is wonderfull!! Works like a charm!

But on the (cura) software side, it just sucks in my opinion. The fact that you can't use profiles in Cura, like with my UM2, and UM3, just makes it so difficult to change something (and remember all these settings)

Isn't it possible to use the um3 profile so we can keep all the advantages of the Cura software? The only diffence i see between the mk2 and the 3 is the way it changes heads / nozzles?

 

[tinkergnome 927]

2 hours ago, RudydG said:

The fact that you can't use profiles in Cura

 

What's the problem with the profiles? Are you talking about the printing profiles (Fine, draft, Coarse...) and why can't you use them?

Creating (and update) of custom profiles works fine for me too in Cura 3.1 and 3.2 BETA.

Or did i missed something different?

 

[RudydG 62]

2 hours ago, tinkergnome said:

 

What's the problem with the profiles? Are you talking about the printing profiles (Fine, draft, Coarse...) and why can't you use them?

Creating (and update) of custom profiles works fine for me too in Cura 3.1 and 3.2 BETA.

Or did i missed something different?

 

Sorry, i was't clear! It is the combination of the MK2 with Cura wich does not work with profiles. With my UM2 and UM3 no problems.

 

[tinkergnome 927]

9 hours ago, RudydG said:

Sorry, i was't clear! It is the combination of the MK2 with Cura wich does not work with profiles. With my UM2 and UM3 no problems.

 

 

Ok, but I use the Mark2 printer definition together with the printing profiles in Cura without problems. I was not sure, if we are speaking about the same things, that's why i ask....
Can you shine some light on what precisely does not work?

(perhaps better in a new thread)

 

@RudydG

Edit: I think, i know now what i made different, the root cause seems to be the link to the quality profiles of the UM2+. I made a new version for Cura 3.2.

Can you try the following printer definition with Cura 3.2 BETA?

 

Mark2_for_Ultimaker2.def.json

 

(right click and "Save target as...")

Edited February 3, 2018 by tinkergnome

[RudydG 62]

On 2/3/2018 at 3:51 PM, tinkergnome said:

 

Ok, but I use the Mark2 printer definition together with the printing profiles in Cura without problems. I was not sure, if we are speaking about the same things, that's why i ask....
Can you shine some light on what precisely does not work?

(perhaps better in a new thread)

 

@RudydG

Edit: I think, i know now what i made different, the root cause seems to be the link to the quality profiles of the UM2+. I made a new version for Cura 3.2.

Can you try the following printer definition with Cura 3.2 BETA?

 

Mark2_for_Ultimaker2.def.json

 

(right click and "Save target as...")

Wonderfull

Just tested it, it works!!!

3.2 beta with mk2, now i can choose profiles and materials.

This gives so much more "ease of work"

 

Many thanks, and hope support will continue as the next Cura versions are on the way ;-)

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by RudydG

[RudydG 62]

Hoi, can you do this trick again for the 3.3.1 Cura? have the same problem again...

Thanks,

R

[davidtriune 0]

the new adaptive layers feature is pretty awesome, and I have a few suggestions. 

-I noticed different layer heights have different shininess. so some parts of the model will look shinier and some less shiny. This can be compensated for by varying temperature for different layers. But I donno if that's possible

-Sometimes I want to make the top layer heights smaller so they don't appear contoured. If there's an option to just change the top skin layer heights that'd be awesome. example: I print a woman's body in .1mm, looks smooth all around, but her shoulders look very "stepped" and would benefit from JUST reducing that layer to like .05mm. actually you can probably put that in the "shell" section.

-minimum and maximum layer heights (you can only set the max variation from base layer). example: making layer heights below 0.1mm drastically increases the print time, so sometimes I'd like to keep it above 0.1mm

-the "threshold" option could use more intuitive numbers instead of the "tangent of the steepest slope"