PrusaSlicer 2.4.1-beta1

PrusaSlicer PrusaSlicer 2.4.1-beta1

Summary

This is a beta version of PrusaSlicer 2.4.1, a first patch release of PrusaSlicer 2.4.0 ↗. This patch release adds several small improvements and 3rd party profiles, fixes some bugs found in the 2.4.0 final and typos found in translations.

This release saves its configuration into dedicated beta configuration folder to avoid breaking production profiles. PrusaSlicer 2.4.1-beta1 will offer to copy configuration from PrusaSlicer 2.4.0 or any older release into the beta configuration folder on first invocation.

Improvements with respect to 2.4.0

G-Code substitutions

PrusaSlicer supports processing of the generated G-code with an external post-processor for a long time. Launching an external post-processor is versatile, however it is complex to setup, the post-processing scripts must be distributed with the project and the interpreter running the post-processing script (for example Python) has to be available. We collected many real world use-cases for the post-processing scripts and concluded that many of them could be covered by a simple "Find and Replace" tool with regular expression matching and substitutions.

To make life easier for everyone who only needs basic post-processing, we now integrated such a tool directly into PrusaSlicer. It is accessible from Print Settings -> Output options and allows to add a number of find and replace pairs, with optional regex matching, case sensitivity and whole word matching, similar to what common text editors offer. The G-Code is processed before it is previewed, so your changes will be visible in the G-Code preview.

image

We hope this tool will make common post-processing tasks simpler, such as adding custom annotations, adjustments of output format such as in #6996), ringing cancellation ↗, adjustments of per feature extrusion rate and similar.

Regular expression syntax of Perl is supported as described in boost Perl regular expression syntax ↗, where a "single line" modifier mimics the Perl's s/ modifier. With regular expressions active, the "Replace with" pattern supports the "extended" syntax as described in boost extended format syntax ↗.

Lookahead and lookbehind ↗ are supported by the regular expression engine, but only for fixed length patterns. With regular expression disabled, \n, \r, \t, \0 and \ placeholders are supported in both "Find" and "Replace with" patterns similarly to Notepad++'s "extended" syntax.

The G-code find/replace post-processor processes G-code in blocks, where a single G-code block is generated for each layer starting with the Z up to move to the next layer. Multiple find/replace patterns are applied one by one to one G-code block before processing the next G-code block. Matching multi-line patterns is possible, however only inside one G-code block, most likely inside a single layer.

Regular expressions are powerful but tricky, thus we recommend the regular expressions 101 ↗ online playground to get familiar with regular expressions and to test and fine tune the regular expressions modifying G-code before entering them into PrusaSlicer. Don't forget to switch the regex flavor to ECMAScript in the regular expressions 101 ↗ online playground.

An example of a quite powerful G-code modification by a reasonably complex regular expression: Increase the extrusion rate of top solid infill from the default 95 percent to 98 percent. Find: (;TYPE:Top solid infill\n)(.*?)(;TYPE:|$)(?!Top solid infill) Replace with: ${1}M221 S98\n${2}M221 S95\n${3} Modifiers: regexp, single line

Other improvements

• Seam placement was improved. In 2.4.0, seams on internal perimeters were placed close to external seams to reduce long travels between seams, with additional staggering of internal seams wrt. to the external seams, so that they do not overlap. This sometimes produced an internal seam on a straight perimeter segment, even thought there was a convenient corner nearby, producing a visible bulge on the outer surface. The internal seams are now placed close to the external seam, but not at all costs. The staggering is now disabled as it often produced unnecessary jerking of the printer. Also, there was a bug in the seam placement algorithm, which again caused excessive travels in some cases #7690 #7686 #7784.
• In Spiral Vase mode, the G-code viewer used to assign a layer to each G-code segment of a spiral producing an excessive number of layers thus making G-code inspection difficult. The G-code viewer newly assigns a layer to a single spiral turn #4440.
• A new option "Ask for unsaved changes in project" was added into Preferences to control whether the user shall be asked to save a project on closing an application or when loading a different project. The existing three options "Ask for unsaved changes when..." always referred to the changes in presets, thus they are now reworded to make it clear #7114.
• Machine limits table in Printer Settings is now available for RepRapFirmware, while until now it was only enabled for Marlin #7347 thanks @n8bot.
• Implemented new placeholders for output file name: