Introducing Ultimaker Cura 3.2 | Beta

[SandervG 1,521]

A new Ultimaker Cura is just lurking around the corner and we can’t wait to share what new features it will hold. Through this forum post I would like to share my most favorite new features with you and I’m curious to hear what you think of them!

 

For starters we have implemented Tree Support.

Tree support is an experimental support structure which shares some resemblance with the shape and roots of a tree. It seems to grow organically and multiple ‘branches’ grow towards your model and offer the necessary support.

The benefits of this is that you use less support material, costs less time, and because there are less contact points it is easier to remove and gives better surface quality.

You are able to use tree support in conjunction with other types of support material.

 

Next impressive new feature is adaptive layers.

With this functionality, Ultimaker Cura will compute a variable layer height based on the shape of the model. Meaning, on straight walls the layers will grow thicker for a faster print while maintaining a neat surface and on a curved surface the layers will be finer for high quality surface finish, all with a marginally increased print time.

As a user, you can configure maximum variation, variation step size and threshold. Sounds pretty fancy! If you want to give it a try, you can find it under the experimental category.

 

Multi build plate is another of my favorite new functionalities.

If you enable this feature, a new UI element is added to your workspace. With it you can create different build plates in one single session. Great when your project contains 20 different parts, you can slice them all in one go from now on!

Each build plate will share print settings that can be sliced and sent to a printer with for example Cura Connect. This option can be enabled in preferences.

 

View optimization is another welcome new feature.

The quick camera controls introduced in Ultimaker Cura 3.1 have been revised to create more accurate isometric, front, left and right views.

 

 

 

@ahoeben made a valuable suggestion of mentioning the improvements to manual supports as well. 

It is now much easier to load objects and mark it to be printed as supports, which is useful if Cura does not produce the support you want. You can also prevent support being added in certain places. Here's a gif that demonstrates the general idea:

 

Additionally, Per Model Settings now has a "Mesh Type" setting. It allows you to change a model from just printing as any other model to special functions. These special models don't necessarily push other models away so that it is easier to create an overlap.

 

Besides these great new functionalities, you can read our blog which goes more in-depth about other functionalities, fixed bugs and UI enhancements.

 

Curious? Give Ultimaker Cura 3.2 Beta a try!

Do note: Even though we have tested this beta version our selves and have added new interesting functionalities, we can not guarantee similar print reliability as the stable version. Therefore, if you are working on important and time-sensitive projects, we recommend to use the stable version.

 

As always, we are eager to hear from you so we can make the next version of Cura even better. Thank you for your time!

 

 

[ahoeben 1,991]

What, nothing about the improvements to manual supports and adjustment meshes?

 

It is now much easier to load objects and mark them to be printed as supports, which is useful if Cura does not produce the support you want. You can also prevent support being added in certain places. Here's a slow-to-the-tooth gif that demonstrates the idea (it has been tweaked a bit since the gif was made):

Per Model Settings now has a "Mesh Type" setting. It allows you to change a model from just printing as any other model to special functions. These special models don't necessarily push other models away, so that it is easier to create an overlap.

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2018 by ahoeben

[SandervG 1,521]

16 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

What, nothing about the improvements to manual supports and adjustment meshes?

 

They were not part of the briefing I got.. are you saying they are in there and I did not mention them, or that they are not in the Beta? This is a summary of the features I liked most, and I refer to the blog which covers more features. (But I still don't see anything about improvements to manual supports.)  

[ahoeben 1,991]

I was not complaining about your copying of the blog post here, but about the blog post ;-)

 

I have edited my post above to include a preview of what I think is a fairly nifty feature, that would have deserved attention in the blog post.

 

Something else that is in the beta and deserves a mention is multiextruder replacement patterns in start/end gcode snippets. I understand that is not very sexy for a blog post, but it is important that it is mentioned so that it actually gets tested during the beta period (that is what the beta is for, right?)

 

You can now use eg {material_print_temperature, 1} to refer explicitly to the print temperature set for the second extruder. You can also refer to an extruder more implicitly by its function, eg {material_standby_temperature, support_extruder}.

[SandervG 1,521]

11 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

(that is what the beta is for, right?)

 

It sure is! Thank you for adding these notes. If you don't mind I'll also add it my initial post, in case not everyone reads all comments. 

[megablue 0]

I am unable to launch 3.2 beta at all.

this is what i am getting

[ahoeben 1,991]

@megablue, can you zip up the folder %APPDATA%\cura\3.2 and post it somewhere so we can download it and have a peek at what is going wrong? In all likeliness something unexpected is happening upgrading your configuration. If you want to run 3.2 anyway, you can empty the %APPDATA%\cura\3.2 folder but leave the 3.2 folder in place. Then you get a fresh start for 3.2. But before you do that, please zip up the contents so the actual issue can be fixed.

Edited January 23, 2018 by ahoeben

[kmanstudios 1,120]

First time this has happened to me:

Win 8.1-Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080-latest drivers.

 

This goes for all flyout menus I have tried so far in the settings panel.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

And this is a new 'feature': Extendo Printing! For the serious printer who will stop at no borders to get the job done!! 

 

[ChrisRiddell 13]

4 hours ago, kmanstudios said:

First time this has happened to me:

Win 8.1-Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080-latest drivers.

 

This goes for all flyout menus I have tried so far in the settings panel.

 

Noticed the same thing, it also only effects the dark theme

[kmanstudios 1,120]

48 minutes ago, Skippy7 said:

 

Noticed the same thing, it also only effects the dark theme

I can confirm this on my system too.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Is there anything in the Adaptive Layers and a model that would prevent it from slicing? Well, it slices, but creates no layers with a Zero print time.

 

Here the model slices well:

Please not this file has been 'sliced' and ready to send to print over network.

 

Here I have introduced a model to try to create a void for weights. Adaptive on, and it will not slice:

Please not this file has been 'sliced' and ready to send to print over network with no information.

 

 

Same model setup with adaptive off and it slices just fine. Please note that the cylindrical model that is selected has no special features applied to it.

Please not this file has been 'sliced' and ready to send to print over network.

 

 

Here is a model that is made of parts and each part only has horizontal expansions applied and it has no slice information.

Please not this file has been 'sliced' and ready to send to print over network with no information.

 

 

As soon as I turn off Adaptive, it works just fine.

Please not this file has been 'sliced' and ready to send to print over network.

 

 

Also, I used to use the 'infill mesh' with no infill to create a void. What method has replaced it as everything I have tried does not allow the model to slice. Again, it slices, but creates no layers with a Zero print time.

 

I have not been able to replicate the above. The above image was from 3.1. All others above that one is from 3.2 beta.

 

The crane model is something I cannot post publicly, but here is the Mandelbrot project file with all parts. The cylindrical object was going to  be a void space as above. The Mandlebrot is made of two versions of the same file, one smoothed, one not. Both stacked to create sharp and smooth layers. The cylindrical part going inside the main cardiod to create a void to put weights into as it prints.

UM3E_MandelBrotRaisedExample_PLA-PVA-04mmNoz_02Lay.curaproject.3mf

Edited January 24, 2018 by kmanstudios
Clarification

[megablue 0]

6 hours ago, ahoeben said:

@megablue, can you zip up the folder %APPDATA%\cura\3.2 and post it somewhere so we can download it and have a peek at what is going wrong? In all likeliness something unexpected is happening upgrading your configuration. If you want to run 3.2 anyway, you can empty the %APPDATA%\cura\3.2 folder but leave the 3.2 folder in place. Then you get a fresh start for 3.2. But before you do that, please zip up the contents so the actual issue can be fixed.

there you go, the 3.2 config files
https://mega.nz/#!0g9HwDZJ!LlNGNr6WQu31OWwU5AiWoHEfQpRSExrUIprVhdRi2es

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Also getting leftover bounding shadows even when scene is empty.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Solved earlier query, re: Voids for weights.

Settings 1:

Here you can see that the walls of each object are respected and 'trimmed to a unified object.'

 

 

 

Settings 2:

Here you can see that the interior walls are trimmed to a unified surface, but the interior object's walls do not bend around the borders of the unified surface.

 

In both cases, the interior of the cylindrical object has no infill and can be used to put weights or other things into the void during printing.

[itslow 5]

How about ditching the perspective view and switching to an axonometric projection, or at least allowing the users to select one or the other?  Engineering CAD is rarely, if ever, done in a perspective view, and such a view is not really appropriate for many situations in a slicer application.  The distortion that occurs in the viewport because of the perspective is a hindrance to accurate positioning and nesting of parts on the build plate.

 

Additionally, allow the 6 (not just 4) primary side views to be viewed without any perspective.  Sometimes it's helpful to see the back and bottom views of a build area.

[peggyb 171]

I understood that some fixing was done for the 'pause at height' setting?

Would expect to see a travel movement to the 190,190 position, but still nothing to see...

How do you check where the pause takes place? Also because the height is specified in millimeters and must be recalculated in amount layers..

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I find the newly setup selection of everything clicked when you first click on an input field annoying. Most people are already trained to double click to select all values and it makes it a pain to select one digit out of several.

 

With the tendency to click and drag that has been instilled since day one of the mouse for selection of all things and single clicks and click/drags make this an oddball feature.

 

If you want something that can be functional is when you make an input and hit enter to set the property, you can have it reselected to help with the fat finger type of typos. 2 instead of 5, etc.

 

But, the new way is counter to every other program I can think of and requires a lot of retraining just for one function in just one program and presents a lot of agida just to input.

 

Edit: Oh...and I just saw that its implementation is not uniform across the interface.

Edited January 24, 2018 by kmanstudios

[peggyb 171]

minor detail: the arrow of the mesh fixes is pointing the wrong way.

Edited January 24, 2018 by peggyb

[ManuelW 2]

I tested today and have to say, Cura 3.2 is a very big step forward in speed on my Mac.

It started very fast and changes in the Settings going very fast also. I like it a much

[hoegge 6]

The explanation of the threshold for adaptive layers is a bit unclear."This number is compared to the tan of the steepest slope in a layer". Does "tan" mean the trigonometric function "TAN()" or? Is "the number" a slope value or? The steepest slope in a layer? Isn't a "low" slope what usually needs higher resolution? Could be a nice feature, but unclear how it works

[hoegge 6]

Tree support, seems to have a bug when you choose "Touching build plate". Then they stop in mid air:

[hoegge 6]

Tree support, seems to have a bug when you choose "Touching build plate". Then they stop in mid air:

[kmanstudios 1,120]

22 minutes ago, hoegge said:

The explanation of the threshold for adaptive layers is a bit unclear."This number is compared to the tan of the steepest slope in a layer". Does "tan" mean the trigonometric function "TAN()" or? Is "the number" a slope value or? The steepest slope in a layer? Isn't a "low" slope what usually needs higher resolution? Could be a nice feature, but unclear how it works

Explanation and implementation can be difficult. See this thread to see if it helps. The last messages are about playing with the numbers. Sometimes, ya just gotta fiddle around a bit.

[hoegge 6]

Does not help much, since there is no explanation there

53 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

Explanation and implementation can be difficult. See this thread to see if it helps. The last messages are about playing with the numbers. Sometimes, ya just gotta fiddle around a bit.