SVG generator

[taskman 0]

Hi

I have been looking around for a slicer to use for my DLP printer. I think I would like to use CuraEngine. Any chance of adding SVG export to it? CuraEngine seems to be extremely fast. I actually had to open the gcode file to make sure it actually did something. It only took 5 seconds to do what SkeinForge takes 15 minutes to do

 

[Daid 306]

No plans for it. But, if you play around in the engine code, there are debug options to export HTML files with embedded SVG. Pretty sure those could be adapted to export proper SVG.

I'm surprised nobody made some good software for DLP printers yet. I have some code laying around that generates slice bitmaps from 3D files using your 3D card, extremely quick. In the end it did not work for FFF printers, but it should work for DLP. Highly experimental code, but willing to share it so someone who wants to develop it.

 

[taskman 0]

Cool. I will have a look. Maybe I can just read the gcode and create an image from that like what I did for the milling software I wrote. I want to have the ability to have less than 100% infill like with FDM printers so this is where CuraEngine is going to shine.

This guy wrote something, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:40778, but I think it is in C# so it reduces the market. He also created his own basic slicer.

 

[Daid 306]

Ah, if you want the print paths as SVG you just need to change the final step the GCode export. Instead of GCode you could export SVG files.

 

[taskman 0]

Do I need to make a code change or just a setting on the engine? My C/C++ skills are non-existent. Closest I have to C skills are to develop on the Teensy 3

When I run the engine with -help I get this

C:\Program Files (x86)\Cura_13.12>CuraEngine.exe -help

Cura_SteamEngine version 13.12

usage: CuraEngine [-h] [-v] [-m 3x3matrix] [-s <settingkey>=<value>] -o <output.gcode> <model.stl>

 

I tried this in the hopes that it would see I want an SVG output, but I see it generated gcode

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Cura_13.12\CuraEngine.exe" -o test.svg "herringbone 25.stl"

 

[Daid 306]

It would require C++ hacking.

Or, you could post-process the GCode into an SVG with a python script.

 

[taskman 0]

Do you have documentation for the command line options somewhere?

Does the engine use a config file by default to slice? I see when I ran the engine in a command prompt without key/values it still sliced without a problem. I assume it is looking for a config file somewhere by default

 

[rohitkrishna92 0]

Hello Daid,

Could you please help me how I can post process the gcodes into an SVG using Python scripting?

[gr5 2,268]

Why do people want SVG output? Is this for visualization? There are already 3 or 4 fantastic, free gcode visualization tools. Is anyone interested in more details about that? Or is there some printer out there that only takes SVG?

[jkao 0]

It's for use in DLP/LCD resin printers that project images layer by layer to cure photopolymer resin. The desire is to share as much code in the STL and layer slicing engine so that the resin printer toolchain doesn't need to re-invent all of the STL and slice handling behavior completely independently.

[MohEDU 0]

Any new news regarding this ? Does anyone have a code to transfer from GCode to SVG file format ?