Cura 4.4 / CuraEngine - automatically save GCODE locally?

[GenerativePotiron 0]

Hi,

I've been searching for a solution for days now, with no luck, but I was wondering if it was possible to tweak some of the .py files (or others) in my Cura 4.4 folder to bypass having to manually click on "save locally"?

[gr5 2,172]

I don't understand.  Do you want it to save after every slice?  I usually slice 3 or 4 times before I have all the settings to my liking.

[GenerativePotiron 0]

 

Just now, gr5 said:

I don't understand.  Do you want it to save after every slice?  I usually slice 3 or 4 times before I have all the settings to my liking.

Sorry, it's a little random but I'm working on an art installation. I generate .ply files from openFrameworks, that get saves to a folder periodically. Every new file added is automatically sent to Cura 4.4 and sliced with a custom profile. It's generative, so it doesn't need to be perfectly sliced and clean - I just need it to slice and save, so Octoprint can take over and automatically print it or add it to the queue.

Hope it makes sense!

[gr5 2,172]

Are you using the cura engine by itself?  Or launching the full GUI of Cura?

 

Wait never mind.  if you were using the cura engine it would definitely save the gcode file.

 

So how are you telling cura to load a file and also slice the file but can't send the save command to that window automatically?

[gr5 2,172]

So you can run the curaEngine.exe directly.  It's stored in the same folder tree as cura itself.  Cura is just the gui interface to the actual slicer which is curaEngine.

 

This is not for the faint of heart.  It could easily take many hours to set this up but if you are slicing hundreds of STLs maybe it's worth it for you.  Here is some discussion explaining how to do it but I think it's a bit more complicated than they say here.  There are details of using curaengine all around this forum in a few places so you can google search "site:ultimaker.com" as well although I found a nice answer on reddit of all places:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cura/comments/kxz6li/does_cura_have_any_sort_of_cli/

 

[GenerativePotiron 0]

I'm just using the base desktop app!

 

36 minutes ago, gr5 said:

 

So how are you telling cura to load a file and also slice the file but can't send the save command to that window automatically?

Erm, well... not the most elegant workaround, but I set all .ply to be opened in Cura by default, and I enabled the automatic slicing. All I need to do is a Python "double click" on every new .ply file that arrives in the folder.

[GenerativePotiron 0]

Ah thank you - I don't think that would work as I need the Cura plug-ins to slice .ply files and a few other functionalities, which is why I was looking into adding or commenting out some of the app's files. I'll keep looking at options, thank you for your help!

[gr5 2,172]

Well this ply plugin likely converts the .ply file to stl so in theory you could grab that code out of the plugin and run that before launching cura.  Seems like a lot of work though!

[GenerativePotiron 0]

It does! For now I'll try and sneakily use TeamViewer or something to just click on the save and upload to octoprint button. Not ideal but I feel more comfortable using my usual Cura. I'll experiment after my deadlines haha!

Thank you again for your help!