Profiles with intent for custom materials

[Nosybottle 1]

Hello,

 

I've created some custom materials in Cura (woodfill, 80A TPU, ASA...) and would like to create profiles with intent for them. I'd rather go this way over regular custom profiles as this would be easier to use and, more importantly, they work great with UM Material Station (I've uploaded these materials to the printer as well).

 

I realise this isn't possible directly from Cura, so I've tried having a look through the various files in various locations but nothing I cobbled together ended up working. Going through the source code I quickly realised that in project of this scope it is beyond my meager programming ability to figure out how intent profiles are loaded and created.

 

Would it be possible to create these profiles by hand? It's a great functionality of Cura and I'd really really like to use it fully. If it can be done, I'd greatly appreciate any advice or help on how to do so.

[nallath 930]

It's possible, but it will be a bit tedious. Cura makes the assumption that the intent profiles don't need to be upgraded, so every upgrade of CUra, you would need to check yourself what you need to change.

You can find some more info about how the profile system works here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/wiki/Profiles-&-Settings

[Nosybottle 1]

Thanks for the link to the wiki, it did help me.

 

So I've managed to create custom quality and intent profiles. It is, as you say, a bit tedious, but I think it should survive future updates. All my configuration files live in appdata, not in the installation directory. Appdata is where materials downloaded from the Marketplace are saved as well, so since they do survive updates I'm hopeful my materials and settings will as well. Only time will tell.

 

Thanks once again for pointing me to the wiki. It's rather embarrassing too, that I didn't find that on my own.

[nallath 930]

Do note that the profiles have setting versions. The upgrader scripts that we have ignore the intents, since we don't provide a GUI to create them. You will need to increase the number on updates. It's a bit tedious to do, but not very hard.

I'd also recommend looking at using the built-in backup system of Cura (Just in case...)

[Nosybottle 1]

Ah, that's very good to know. When working with Quality profiles, I did notice the version number being automatically increased at times when I launched Cura. I'll keep an eye on things when updating in the future. And yes, I'll back everything up once I get it all nice and done.

 

Again, thank you for your time and help.