Slic3r – software that generates the required G-code for 3D printing — has recently had an upgrade with improvements and new features added to ‘enhance the printing experience.’
The primary added feature offers new distinct settings for support material speed as well as gap-fill speed. The settings for gap-fill speed in particular have been added to eliminate resonance issues when printing along a zigzag path at high speeds to fill thin regions.
Other improvements include better filling for solid fills and bridges; a reduction of zigzag fills to avoide shaking; the ability to set top-solid-layers and bottow-solid-layers independently; a new algorithm for simplifying the output G-code without changing the shape of the resulting object; and the ability to avoid over-extrusion of support material, even if support spacing (user defined) is too low.
The developers also report that numerous bugs have been fixed in this latest version of the software that further improves user experience.
About Slic3r
Slic3r is publicly licensed, open-source software that converts a digital 3D model into printing instructions for your 3D printer. As its name suggests, it slices the digital model into horizontal layers and generates toolpaths to fill them, while calculating the amount of material to be extruded.
The project was started in 2011 from scratch: the code and the algorithms are not based on any other previous work. Readability and maintainability of the code are among the design goals.
Slic3r is bundled with the most important host software packages: Pronterface, Repetier-Host, ReplicatorG and has been supported/funded by donations.
There’s serious ongoing work on this software to keep it up-to-date and implement all the necessary features to get a flawless and high-quality printing experience for everyone.
