PrusaSlicer 1.42.0-alpha1

Slic3r Prusa Edition Slic3r Prusa Edition 1.42.0-alpha1

Summary:

This is an alpha release. This release took us little a little longer than usual, as we decided to do some radical redesign of the user interface, for which we needed to rewrite the last bits and pieces of the Perl source code to C++. In this release we hope we managed to marry the simplicity of the Prusa Control's user interface with the power and configurability of Slic3r that we all love. Check this quick overview video ↗ of the new features, we believe you will be pleased.

The 3D object manipulation was improved significantly, the Project aka Factory File was made explicit at the File menu, a Simple / Advanced / Expert mode was added to lower the learning curve for the beginner, the Slic3r's power features were exposed at the plater screen, a "Color Print" feature was ported from Prusa Control, and the Slic3r's main screen has got a modern face lift. The final G-code and print time estimate is now produced by the "Slice" action, there is no need to export the G-code to get the time estimate, and the background processing is finally stable.

This release brings a preview of a masked SLA ↗ mode supporting our upcoming SL1 printer ↗. While the SLA mode is usable, there are some rough edges here and there, and the support work flow may change a bit in the final release, so please bear with us.

To let you enjoy the alpha without worries, the alpha builds now save their profiles into Slic3rPE-alpha directory, so you may use the alpha side by side with the current release without ruining your production configuration.

TL;DR Before opening new issue tickets, please read the "Missing features" and "OpenGL compatibility" sections. This Slic3r starts in a Simple mode, read the "Simple / Advanced / Expert mode" section and switch to Expert if you want the full fledged user interface.

Masked SLA Support

We added a masked SLA (MSLA) mode into Slic3r PE to support our upcoming SL1 printer ↗ product. As far as we are known, Slic3r PE is the first high quality open source MSLA slicer available. While an SLA slicer may seem similar to an FFF slicer on the surface, in reality the two technologies share just one thing: They work slice by slice. To some extent a masked SLA slicer is simpler than a fused filament slicer as it is much easier to just raster a layer image than to plan the path of an FFF print head.

There is one caveat though: The SLA technology depends on well shaped and stable tree or truss supports. A failed support will likely ruin the whole print, as a piece of object stuck to the resin vat masks the light for the remaining layers to be exposed.

The following features were implemented into Slic3r PE to support the SLA mode:

• SLA print, material and printer profiles were added. The SLA print and material profiles are stored separately from the FFF print and filament profiles, while the SLA and FFF printer profiles are stored in the same location, and they are differentiated by a new "printer_technology" field.
• Pad and truss supports are generated by Slic3r in the SLA mode to support the printed object. If not specified by the user, the pad and supports are calculated automatically. Once calculated, the user has the option to modify the placement of the support touch points, add or remove the support touch points manually.
• Layers are rasterized into .png images using the Anti-Grain Geometry ↗ library and zipped.
• After the slicing is finished, the print may be inspected layer by layer in the layer view to assert, that every island is properly supported.
• A zip archive containing the rasterized layers may be sent to the SL1 printer over network using the OctoPrint file upload protocol.

While this release is certainly able to produce quality prints on our SL1 pre-production printers, the support placement workflow in Slic3r is not optimal and it will likely change a bit in the final release.

For now, the modifier meshes, support blockers / enforcers and variable layer height are not supported in the SLA mode, and the object parameters are limited to the support and pad configuration. You may switch a print between the SLA and FDM technology as long as there are no modifier meshes, support blockers or enforcers defined in the project.

Project aka Factory File, menu restructured

While Slic3r PE supports a concept of a project aka Factory File since 1.40.0 release, it was buried behind the "Export plater as 3MF/AMF" menu. In this release we restructured the menus to better carry the intent:

• We declared the 3MF file to be the project file for Slic3r PE. The 3MF file format is modern, it is supported by Microsoft 3D Builder and Cura, while the AMF file format was only ever supported by Slic3r. Therefore the AMF files could still be imported, but we will no more support AMF for export as a Slic3r PE project file.
• "File Save" does exactly the same as the old "Export plater as 3MF/AMF" menu used to: Every active configuration, object, modifier and its parameters are saved into a 3MF file.
• "File Open" loads a project file including all the configuration, objects, modifiers and its parameters, so that re-slicing the project should produce the same G-code or SLA rasterized images as before.
• "Import STL" imports a geometry into an active project.
• "Import 3MF/AMF" imports geometries into an active project, but the configuration stored in the 3MF / AMF files is ignored.