Little trick to obtain a better surface

[dreamworker 1]

Hello,

today I begun to think about the problem of not good surface with holes with Cura, and I had this idea. In my CAD software I create a tiny continuos layer , 2 times my layer tickness in Cura, over my surface with holes. In picture 1 you can see the two result, at the left without layer, at the right with layer. In picture 2, without layer, we observe the typical "triangularization " of this kind of surface generate by Cura. In picture 3, after a manually reopen of the holes, we can see that the surface is free from the above problems. This method works even with the bottom surface.

I don't know if it is a trick known, but I would share it with you.

 

 

[donmilne 2]

That's quite clever, thank you.

 

[IRobertI 517]

Very cool, I like it! I don't know if you're the first to do this but it's certainly the first time I've seen it. I will have to remember this for the future, thanks.

 

[mnis 11]

Very good trick with amazing effect :shock:

Thank you :lol:

Is this perhaps a future feature for Cura?

 

Maybe a little inspiration for Daid.

Could the slicer set to automatically create an additional layer?

Markus

 

[donmilne 2]

It's essentially a "skim coat" over the last layer, to reduce surface roughness. I think it would be an excellent tweak for Cura. Mind you, this might be one of those things that's easy for a human to do - convex hull of relevant outline, ignoring internal holes - but might be harder to automate and extend to shapes significantly more complicated than a square.

I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to tackle the implied criticism of Cura's final layer pen path! E.g. try as far as possible to have a consistent fill direction.

 

[Daid 304]

Is this perhaps a future feature for Cura?

 

Maybe a little inspiration for Daid.

Could the slicer set to automatically create an additional layer?

 

No. And no.

First off, for all "top layer" suggestions. I do not know if something is the top layer. The code simply has no clue about top layers at all. It has top-skin layers, but these are multiple stacked on each other. And combined with the bottom layers.

Next, I'm not a fan of messing with peoples model topology. Suddenly people are not getting what they are seeing, and that's always confusing them (see the sometimes filled holes due to wrong normals as fine example)

EDIT:

Finally, a proper solution for those scars would be to only follow the infill direction or edge of the model. But that's quite a bit more work to implement then what it's doing now.

 

[mnis 11]

...and that's always confusing them (see the sometimes filled holes due to wrong normals as fine example)

 

This is indeed convincing.

Markus