Thanks again to Private Internet Access for sponsoring the video! Check them out at www.privateinternetaccess.com/Toms3d Has this video inspired you to try Full Control GCode - and if so, what are you going to print with it?
I don't have an Office license to play with it with, but I'd love to be able to print some more workshop organizers for my modeling paints. They're functional geometric shapes, and would probably benefit a whole heck of a lot from printhead movement optimizations like the ones you mention for the battery organizers.
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UHM... Yeah but no.... It is already very hard to get good prints rights, adding "full control" to the process will make life miserable. I will just model the part better I am pretty sure the time I save there vs doing it on full control will be much more than the saved print time.
@@dinosoarskill17 The PIA/Kape merger was a few weeks shy of two years ago. It’s no longer recent, or relevant. PIA software is open-source. You’re free to verify that it contains no malware.
Yeah, python would be an excellent way of realising the code as people are already using it for GUI implementations. The only real difference would be the 3D aspect and the gCode translation.
@@古德曼-t1c It would be fairly trivial to implement in Python or any language you would care to use anyway. gcode is very simple and only a few commands are used for most of the printing. Most of it is just telling it where to move the nozzle and how much filament to extrude and then add some boilerplate at the top and bottom. Personally, I'd use Perl.
My immediate thought was "This sounds like OpenSCAD with extra steps" ... but the longer I think about it, the more I'm realizing that it's quite the opposite: OpenSCAD has a completely different model, it only cares about geometry. The steps there (add, cut, rotate, ...) are to create a final model, but they have nothing to do with actual physical production. FullControl GCODE on the other hand only really cares about nozzle movements - the geometry created is almost just a side effect. As you've shown, this can be very useful for optimizing paths.
I was thinking of OpenSCAD as well. Changing it to output GCODE directly and hopefully also include G2/G3 instead of chopping up circles/curves to facets would be nice too.
@@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842 That would be a lot of feature creep for openscad. Filaments, materials, support, bed heating, fan control, all sorts of stuff that are beyond its remit.
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OpenSCAD does solids, this does.. lines only! Theyre very different I'd say. OpenSCAD does not know how to compute extrude speeds for example.
Thinnk this would with better with something like implicitcad wich only does mathematical definitions of geometry instead of the aproximation openscad does while rendering.
Using excel is a bizarre implementation, but I will give it props for creativity. It reminds me of OpenSCAD but specifically for FDM printers, instead!
@@RonaldoMessina well yeah I figured as much.. but having it right there in scad would be pretty sweet. So you could use its display to see what you were doing. I guess you could still do that with a mix of python and scad, don't know
I bet this academic person in the course of doing their work has become very proficient at Excel and not at anything else the least bit programmatic so... here you go.
this is like writing in assembly vs writing in python you gonna have so much more control with the tradeoff of not understanding what you're writing a few days after you write it
My first reaction is that this would be super useful for small manufacturing of things that are basically simple shapes - for example, Thom's battery holders. The extra time spent setting up the gcode will pay for itself after a few dozen units. But for one-offs or very complex shapes (like, say, a miniature of R2-D2 which is what's on my printer right now) the time and plastic saved from optimizing the gcode is not going to cover the time (and wages, if a business) spent creating that gcode by hand. That said, it's still very useful to be able to get under the hood from time to time! Glad to learn this exists.
Pretty much my take away as well. This could also be huge for cosplayers or anyone else looking to save on print time & post processing while trying to a create more uniform strengths.
@@hazonku I doubt it would be useful for cosplay. Generally they are using pretty complex models made by other people and even if they are making themselves using a modeler is way easier than trying to input basic shapes into a very complex structure without any GUI. This is really only useful in extremely niche cases. If you have the budget for large projects you should be optimizing your fill the best possible ways you can within reason.
I'd be curious to see why it didn't work in libre office, it does have vba support. In any case, looks like a Python version is coming soon. This seems like it's for people who find openscad too high level.
The idea is being around for a while. Back in 2017 wrote my own program to do similar things after got inspiration from some article. And there is not much math in a whole thing: just a series of very simple and easy to grasp concepts. F.e. (in case you doing your own programming) - how much length to extrude when doing a line of x mm with some given layer's height. Definitely an interesting approach - but you should think of real problems where it may shine. In most cases regular CAD is a way to go.
Its an awful hack. Sure it was probably quite easy in the beginning, but the level of complexity where it should've been remade in a better language/framework for the task is long overdue at this point. There is a lot more potential left on the table, even such simple things like a live preview, which just cannot be added to exel, even with macros.
i think it's semi-genius. It begs to be implemented as a plugin for a cad, to allow combining the tools. Some CADs already have spreadsheets built into them.
@@victortitov1740 By the same token, many CAD programs have some scripting API that would be more efficient and flexible than trying to port it to their particular implementation of spreadsheets - which wouldn't include VBA macros anyway.
I noticed they are working on a python version. Could this be used to build an addon in Blender to optimize my drawings directly into a gcode export file?
@@cprogrck I guess he wants a simulator for the code, which is not that easy btw. We tried that years ago but decided the CAM software from somebody is better for this.
Yeah so not only does libre office support vba (it should work, not sure why he has trouble), the website quite clearly says a Python version is forthcoming.
I can see this being very useful for small parts. I recently spent multiple days trying to model cable combs for my PC. These are super simple, an array of circles. But in the slicer, I got a bunch of those infill artifacts you mentioned. So I kept tweaking the 3D model, then my slicer settings, then the model again, trying to trick it into doing what I wanted. I am going to try using this software to generate the part. Thanks for the info!
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prusa also has this super-annoying thing where it always, always (it is impossible to defeat afaik) tries to make near-vertical walls thicker. This is very unneccesary most of the time and it slows down prints insanely.
This looks like a really useful tool! I'm not sure yet what application I could use it for myself, as most of the parts I print are designed to be quite complex irregular components to larger projects. However I do think that being able to optimise print times for larger, more repetitive components would be very useful. Thank you so much Tom for making this great video about it all! 💙💜
For the most part, OpenSCAD can achieve much of this with far fewer keystrokes. However, OpenSCAD probably could have some new capabilities if it could be blended with this.
@@johndoner6245 true, and export the model to a splicer, when you optimize the model properly, could work better. But examples like this are great to show its possible.
Great tool. I can imagine it's not at all useful for the one-off print where you just need to get something done, but for a bulk manufacture case it makes a lot of sense to try and save every single printer minute possible. Also would make it *much* easier to automate things like knocking the part off the bed for taller parts if you're doing continuous printing.
Great video. I wonder how the speed and quality compares for you battery example if you were to use CAD and build it up the same way with thin wall circles + squares that are repeated. That would get rid of the infill weirdness that you mentioned and would be a more direct comparison.
Great - a way to make 3D printing even more complicated. My only hope is that the sort of optimisations that this can provide, can be built into regular slicing software. Better model and print move analysis seems to be the key.
Just like a Post Script printer. You don't send a Circle to the printer, you send a mathematical description of what a circle is. Quicker, and very accurate. I love the idea for a 3d printer.
As a machinist and programmer, This is gonna be a game changer for me. I often write full programs on the machine itself as it's much quicker than modeling it in a computer and post processing it to work the 5 different machines in the shop. This is gonna be awesome for making even quicker prototypes.
I feel like I am looking at the first computer generating a line of dots on a screen and within a short time the fine tuning and simplicity generally comes along. This type of tech if its developed will be a revolutionary leap for printing. Imagine doing a whole complex item such as a 3D printed plane all in 1 (or 3) easy spreadsheet tabs. Thanks for making these vids ...... love your work. stay safe and cheers from down under mate.
This looks good for simpler geometries, or geometries which can be defined with mathematical shapes, where you really want to optimise the GCode toolpaths. Its a bit of a dark art getting slicers to do what you want sometimes, having full control is cool, but far too cumbersome for complex object modelling. This could be good for production environments to produce simple objects efficiently like that battery tray. Looks like one of the only options for non-planar slicing other than GCode post processing that I know of.
I don't think it matters how much work it takes for a complex object, it will be worth it for some - it only matters if you are only making a tiny number of them so upfront optimisation costs won't be paid back... So most of us probably won't use this sort of tool for a complex object, but somewhere that makes a kit using 3d printed parts for example might well - every part they have to make takes less time to print, and uses less material than the slicer generated object would. (Though I could see the folks that like OpenScad finding this a very easy method to get exactly what they want - it appears a similar thinking process)
I cannot overstate how excited this makes me. Up until now, the only way I knew to design a propeller required me to manually discretise it’s curvature (I’m not sure if there is a way to do it continuously in F360, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.) which didn’t sit well with me. I wanted a way to define an angle wrt radius, I thought openSCAD might be the way but didn’t look too far into it. Thanks for the great video.
@@JohnDoe-rx3vn Everything approximates curves. Gcode moves in straight lines for 3d printers (unless you know of any which take the circle commands and even then you'll be limited by the steppers and the firmware).
I know I'm late to the party but this looks very useful for me. I've been using the custom non-planar slic3r for a while and love the idea of this. Definitely need to try this out
This is making me think that 3D editing software needs to have a "3D printer" mode whereby aspects of the modeled objects are tailored to being 3D printed, like you tell it you'll be using an 0.4mm nozzle with 0.2mm layer height and the snap-to-grid functionality is adjusted to work to those parameters, ending up with objects that are more "3D printer friendly", which would be especially helpful for mechanical prints.
I don't know how long it's been there but Blender does have very rudimentary and basic 3D printing visualizations. It will color highlight overhangs or intersections that can be fixed before exporting. I was thinking the same thing. 3D programs are WAY ahead as far as modeling and automated repetition when it comes to slicing. They SHOULD have this option to control and out put gcode right from the start. This "full control gcode" I think could possibly be written as a blender addon... maybe. Blender already has a slew of mathematical nodes for shading and geometry.
I set user parameters in Fusion 360 to optimize these things as you say. Any shells are multiple of my extrusion width parameter, etc. It takes more intentional planning up front with regards to how the model will be printed and used in order to set it up the right way, especially with more complex models, but it's powerful and functional all the same.
Awesome! I love seeing innovation in the 3D printing community. Hopefully this will eventually result in some optimization with the current slicers that we use. Great video.
That’s a very interesting new angle of making gcodes. Thanks !
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I've been following the guy on Twitter for a while now, some really cool prints you can do using this. Glad to see it get a bit more exposure, I hope it continues to evolve and develop.
I'd like to comapre this to assembly programming and compilers. Nowadays in 99.9% of the time a compiler will generate better machine code than a human progammer (the 0.1% being really niche stuff). But for a long time in history compilers were not that smart. We're at that point with slicers, Full Control Gcode shows us a what a really smart slicers might be able to do further down the line. Really cool stuff! Thanks for bringing attention to it.
I feel like its obligatory to say, "Nerd!" Very cool video. I have always wondered about things like this. Im constantly fighting with slicers trying to get them to stop doing certain movements and timewasting actions. This is great!
I applaud you for trying something new and sharing. What I say next is not meant as a criticism but only as an alternate approach. You could have gotten rid of the tiny weird wall fills with a single setting in the slicer. Minimum extrusion length. Make that sufficiently large enough and those short BS fills go away. Also, if you pick the right line width and Union overlapping volumes, you get more weirdness that just goes away when trying to do something like this. That leads be to the tab at the bottom. That could have been a separate model that you overlap with the cylinders. Again, with the union overlapping volumes turned on and a singular isolated resize in the z axis you can make that tab at the bottom one layer thick. I could have done everything I've seen so far in the first 7 and a half minutes of your video in about 7 and a half minutes of knowing just the very basics of how to model and how to leverage the slicer settings. In fact I'm half tempted to try making this battery holder but for different size batteries. I'm not taking away the value of what you show.. the mathematical approach to being able to generate GCode is fascinating, wonderful, and really does open a whole new world. It's just that the example you gave really is much easier to do using a technical / tool based approach where the wavy shapes you demonstrated using functions really is where the mathematical approach shines. I get that you wanted to make the topic approachable. I just don't want people thinking that the battery holder couldn't be done much easier using a better understanding of the slicer and a better understanding of how to model. So what rules do we want for a challenge? 1 line width cylinders, max line width percentage, tabs at the bottom that are one layer height tall. The cylinders need to be welded together so he wall overlap will need to be carefully considered.... The thing is SmartAvionics on GitHub has a custom version of Cura that does an amazing thing with variable line widths where two wall lines need to fit within a space Yeah this is looking pretty easy to do using basic tools. I could probably use TinkerCad generated STLs and simple grouping either within TinkerCAD or within Cura to do this same thing. Both support measured movements, so you create the smallest block, group it together, duplicate it, move it by the size of that block, group that together, duplicate it, move it by the size offset again, group, duplicate. Yeah I can get that workflow down to about 7 and a half minutes.
I was trying to model a pretty complex mathematical shape in F360 a while ago, and it was essentially impossible for a hole host of reasons. Not only is F360 a big bugfest, it has really poor memory management. The few times I could actually get the model simple enough for F360 to be able to extrude a surface, it would start to hang and take up to 20 minutes to process a single modification. This would be really useful for that,
My jaw dropped at that Z hop feature. That's going to be huge for cosplayers to save on materials. If you can just work the z into the design that means free strength & less filling & sanding.
Here's an idea: What about combining your squiggly line formula into the battery holder so that every layer is 1 continuous line (like vase mode) instead of individual cylinders? Sort of like a semi-circular shaped sine wave. The resulting shape may not grab the batteries on all sides, leaving small sections of the perimeter open, but that still should be more than enough for a secure hold and would result in the fastest possible print times. For one off pieces this would be unnecessary faffing about and pointless but if you're trying to pump out tens or hundreds of these things in one go it would save so much time
"The possibilities are endless.. but it has limitations".. It has more limitations than possibilities. Very, very niche tool for something very specific.
Not really. It's just because we still not where additive manufacturing needs to go. Right know we are using a modeling program that is designed to show models in a virtual reality. Then we use an other program to disassemble it into slices and making 2d versions. When 3d printers get able to use non planar printing we need something like this..
I can see how this is useful for making interesting 3D printed art, optimizing something that you need to print a lot of and tinkering with non-planar printing (which is interesting and kinda mesmerizing).
I can only imagine a conversion tool to be made from vector files can be visually drawn on autocad or sorts and it just does the rest, honesty this is super cool
(Reposted from a reply because I'm curious what everyone thinks.) Do you think direct control operations could be added to slicers? That's what makes me most excited about this. I've been dreaming that one day slicers will add "hey printer, do this" type commands to their programs. Or at least some sort of gooey system for editing the G-Code. I mean honestly.. Why can't I just click a layer and tell the printer something like "pause for 3 minutes", "add a line here", or "insert district control spreadsheet from file". I don't want to turn slicers into fully blown CAD programs but why not have some tinkercad type functions in there?
This seems so useful to me. I can wrap my head around it fairly easily. I usually kinda suck at achieving good precision when I use graphical cad sofware. This seems so much more logical to deal with when I am trying to achieve high precision. Only little bummer is that I have libre but I am sure that I can just get office for this purpose. It is honestly worth it.
Had a friend do this with machining. He saved so much time. Instead of printing 200 brackets at a time. He machined 50 brackets on an aluminum plate at a time
Hopefully this leads to more optimized, dedicated software solutions that can run faster and work in conjunction with a Gcode visualizer of some kind. I don't know much about software development, but could it work as a Cura plugin, for example?
python can easily interface to other software too. In python it is relatively simple to read an STL file and slice it, or use it as an exclusion zone. (I have written a python script once with STL slicing and gcode generation for printing a mesh like structure.)
Indeed, Excel isn't built for this (seems my original comment stating that was removed??). Anyway, the problem is that any little mistake causes big issues, especially if you're free to edit it. This is why a programming language was invented basically. Excel is for data representation mainly and should be used as such. Matt Parker has great fun in showcasing all the cases where Excell was used as a database etc. :) Having worked in science myself, this is very likely because the researcher just used something he was familiar with.
I was learning how to program Heidenhein in high school. Compared to more modern CAM software (for example Alfacam back my days) it was slow and uncomfortable. So for me this is a way back. Slicer is basic CAM SW but it does not let you program tool path. That could be interesting for next gen slicers.
As always, great video Tom! Full Control is pretty amazing! Started messing with it the other day from your tweet. Being an Excel Wizard may now be a pre-requisite for 3d printing! Loved the information because I did find myself running into issues. Definitely some limitations, but that is fine! Will be curious to see if it gets integrated in some regards into the popular slicers.
I was just looking at Heidenhain controllers. It would be nice to see a proper controller on additive machines that uses conversational g-code with routines. Then you could do subtractive alongside to clean prints up.
My mind jumped to “what if G-code was generated _in real-time, as it was printing?”_ while watching this! Nothing does that yet, right? I don't know what that might be useful for - except responding to feedback, such as print errors - but it sounded cool in my head! 😹
Microsoft had a slicer in Windows, you could print an STL and it would slice and print. Never went anywhere, that idea is just not very good, given the settings needed in a slicer. It would be useful if the output was huge (not applicable) or perhaps for some dynamic control, adjusting to temperature perhaps?
I hope this gets made for google docs. I mean if the issue is copying the code then it possibly could be also possible to have a single macro(or a set of them if needed) make a file containing the GCode in a folder somewhere in the Google drive, which could be selected by the user. I'm not really sure if this is possible, and I don't know how write code even if my life depended on it 😅 But it's still an idea though :^
That scripting UI reminds me of the embedded conversational manual gcode programming on most CNC controllers I know you brought up the manual gcode, but machining center manufacturers like Hurco and Haas have wizards to do most of it
Super interesting thanks a lot! I was just trying to designate a pelton turbine and couldn't figure out how to enter the functions in a 3D drawing software. I will try with this possibility :)
That's cool. We need a slicer which can convert models into full control gcode on a 5 axis 3d printer. No supports will be necessary then for many print designs.
You can skip 3D modeling as well as you can skip designing a PDF with your favorite drawing software: technically possible, but an edge case for projects of limited size and complexity. Also, you could have done so since forever. 😉 That said: nice prints, and an interesting approach for those cases where the slicing process would introduce problems. I wouldn’t delete the slicer, though. 🙂👍
I assume that G-Code generators will be the new alternative to slicers; although I think keeping this entire project inside of an excel sheet is one of the sillies things I've ever heard. This could easily be a double view program that allows you to script and visualize at the same time.
Excel has pretty big limitations by not being able to write your own functions. I once tried to use it for prototyping a game feature but it quickly realized It cant make dynamic functions in a cell and I would have to make set patters with 3 separate calculation tables because I cant make a custom class with 2 variables or anything dependent on the color property of a cell.
Thanks again to Private Internet Access for sponsoring the video! Check them out at www.privateinternetaccess.com/Toms3d
Has this video inspired you to try Full Control GCode - and if so, what are you going to print with it?
I don't have an Office license to play with it with, but I'd love to be able to print some more workshop organizers for my modeling paints. They're functional geometric shapes, and would probably benefit a whole heck of a lot from printhead movement optimizations like the ones you mention for the battery organizers.
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UHM... Yeah but no.... It is already very hard to get good prints rights, adding "full control" to the process will make life miserable. I will just model the part better I am pretty sure the time I save there vs doing it on full control will be much more than the saved print time.
@@dinosoarskill17 The PIA/Kape merger was a few weeks shy of two years ago. It’s no longer recent, or relevant.
PIA software is open-source. You’re free to verify that it contains no malware.
@@therealmakmillion it went through finally recently, the merger talks started 2 years ago
Print time: 30 minutes
Programming time: 8 to 52 weeks depending on experience
lol yeah this definitely ain't for beginners!
Natural Language Processing models, such as GPT-3, may make this a lot more accessible.
this exactly
Someone will simplify and create a gui that makes this more accessible to the layman. Most likely in the form of a cad/slicer, no worries.
@@Iamwolf134Shove your AI where it don't shine.
This should be a python package
edit: seems like the authors agree and there will be a python version soon, yay!
Totally. The python package is screaming out loud for this.
Going to be the most handy way to use this. Yes.
VBA I guess. It should have be done in Python in the first place in my opinion.
Yeah, python would be an excellent way of realising the code as people are already using it for GUI implementations. The only real difference would be the 3D aspect and the gCode translation.
@@古德曼-t1c It would be fairly trivial to implement in Python or any language you would care to use anyway. gcode is very simple and only a few commands are used for most of the printing. Most of it is just telling it where to move the nozzle and how much filament to extrude and then add some boilerplate at the top and bottom. Personally, I'd use Perl.
My immediate thought was "This sounds like OpenSCAD with extra steps" ... but the longer I think about it, the more I'm realizing that it's quite the opposite: OpenSCAD has a completely different model, it only cares about geometry. The steps there (add, cut, rotate, ...) are to create a final model, but they have nothing to do with actual physical production. FullControl GCODE on the other hand only really cares about nozzle movements - the geometry created is almost just a side effect. As you've shown, this can be very useful for optimizing paths.
I really like openscad but I also really like how it can work with almost raw math.
I was thinking of OpenSCAD as well. Changing it to output GCODE directly and hopefully also include G2/G3 instead of chopping up circles/curves to facets would be nice too.
@@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842 That would be a lot of feature creep for openscad. Filaments, materials, support, bed heating, fan control, all sorts of stuff that are beyond its remit.
OpenSCAD does solids, this does.. lines only! Theyre very different I'd say.
OpenSCAD does not know how to compute extrude speeds for example.
Thinnk this would with better with something like implicitcad wich only does mathematical definitions of geometry instead of the aproximation openscad does while rendering.
This video just makes me appriciate slicers even more.
😆
Using excel is a bizarre implementation, but I will give it props for creativity.
It reminds me of OpenSCAD but specifically for FDM printers, instead!
Well it stands the reason that you could do this as an add-on to open scad. Let's hope some sharp bit weenie takes up the project.
Yeah, this seems like it could be very easily implemented in a scripting language. But I guess spreadsheet interface is somehow more accessible?
a python version is on its way!
@@RonaldoMessina well yeah I figured as much.. but having it right there in scad would be pretty sweet. So you could use its display to see what you were doing. I guess you could still do that with a mix of python and scad, don't know
I bet this academic person in the course of doing their work has become very proficient at Excel and not at anything else the least bit programmatic so... here you go.
this is like writing in assembly vs writing in python
you gonna have so much more control with the tradeoff of not understanding what you're writing a few days after you write it
And then it gets released in Python: mind blown. =)
My first reaction is that this would be super useful for small manufacturing of things that are basically simple shapes - for example, Thom's battery holders. The extra time spent setting up the gcode will pay for itself after a few dozen units. But for one-offs or very complex shapes (like, say, a miniature of R2-D2 which is what's on my printer right now) the time and plastic saved from optimizing the gcode is not going to cover the time (and wages, if a business) spent creating that gcode by hand. That said, it's still very useful to be able to get under the hood from time to time! Glad to learn this exists.
Pretty much my take away as well. This could also be huge for cosplayers or anyone else looking to save on print time & post processing while trying to a create more uniform strengths.
@@hazonku I doubt it would be useful for cosplay. Generally they are using pretty complex models made by other people and even if they are making themselves using a modeler is way easier than trying to input basic shapes into a very complex structure without any GUI.
This is really only useful in extremely niche cases.
If you have the budget for large projects you should be optimizing your fill the best possible ways you can within reason.
Super cool, very much like structure synth but straight to Gcode. Maths hurts my head but might have to suck it up!
ugh but forced msoffice is cancer
@@natalieisagirlnow it's a shame, I refuse to pay for office but 30day trial lets us play a little at least.
I'd be curious to see why it didn't work in libre office, it does have vba support. In any case, looks like a Python version is coming soon. This seems like it's for people who find openscad too high level.
The idea is being around for a while. Back in 2017 wrote my own program to do similar things after got inspiration from some article.
And there is not much math in a whole thing: just a series of very simple and easy to grasp concepts. F.e. (in case you doing your own programming) - how much length to extrude when doing a line of x mm with some given layer's height.
Definitely an interesting approach - but you should think of real problems where it may shine. In most cases regular CAD is a way to go.
Drugs are bad, m'kay? Don't do drugs! :D
i cant decide if implementing this in excel is genius or an awful hack :D
its a neat idea though, if a bit niche :)
Its an awful hack. Sure it was probably quite easy in the beginning, but the level of complexity where it should've been remade in a better language/framework for the task is long overdue at this point. There is a lot more potential left on the table, even such simple things like a live preview, which just cannot be added to exel, even with macros.
Well, they seem to think it was an awful hack and are re-doing it in python, according to their website
maybe it's just... both
i think it's semi-genius. It begs to be implemented as a plugin for a cad, to allow combining the tools. Some CADs already have spreadsheets built into them.
@@victortitov1740 By the same token, many CAD programs have some scripting API that would be more efficient and flexible than trying to port it to their particular implementation of spreadsheets - which wouldn't include VBA macros anyway.
I've been playing around with non planner printing recently.. this will certainly come in handy.. thanks allot Tom
I can imagine Josef Prusa drooling over this and planing an implementation in PrusaSlic3r, Josef… your move.
I noticed they are working on a python version. Could this be used to build an addon in Blender to optimize my drawings directly into a gcode export file?
Maybe but it misses the point.
@@cprogrck I guess he wants a simulator for the code, which is not that easy btw. We tried that years ago but decided the CAM software from somebody is better for this.
This is fascinating! I really hope to find some time to get a trial of MSOffice and try this out.
Or better yet someone should refactor the VB to a real language so the performance isn’t so awful an you don’t have to use Excep
VBA macros work in libre office.
@@MatthewSmithx yeah i don’t really like using excel
Yeah so not only does libre office support vba (it should work, not sure why he has trouble), the website quite clearly says a Python version is forthcoming.
You can get a Microsoft dev account and use Office for free for 90 days. As long as you use the account you should be able to extend it indefinitely.
It's like hand optimized assembly but for 3D printers.
My thoughts exactly.
I can see this being very useful for small parts. I recently spent multiple days trying to model cable combs for my PC. These are super simple, an array of circles. But in the slicer, I got a bunch of those infill artifacts you mentioned. So I kept tweaking the 3D model, then my slicer settings, then the model again, trying to trick it into doing what I wanted. I am going to try using this software to generate the part. Thanks for the info!
prusa also has this super-annoying thing where it always, always (it is impossible to defeat afaik) tries to make near-vertical walls thicker. This is very unneccesary most of the time and it slows down prints insanely.
This looks like a really useful tool! I'm not sure yet what application I could use it for myself, as most of the parts I print are designed to be quite complex irregular components to larger projects. However I do think that being able to optimise print times for larger, more repetitive components would be very useful. Thank you so much Tom for making this great video about it all! 💙💜
I am surprised this didn't exist all these years already
This would be an amazing openscad add-on
For the most part, OpenSCAD can achieve much of this with far fewer keystrokes. However, OpenSCAD probably could have some new capabilities if it could be blended with this.
@@johndoner6245 true, and export the model to a splicer, when you optimize the model properly, could work better. But examples like this are great to show its possible.
Or even cadquery
Great tool. I can imagine it's not at all useful for the one-off print where you just need to get something done, but for a bulk manufacture case it makes a lot of sense to try and save every single printer minute possible. Also would make it *much* easier to automate things like knocking the part off the bed for taller parts if you're doing continuous printing.
I appreciate how you always come up with those rather uncommon things! It makes your channel really outstanding!
Great video. I wonder how the speed and quality compares for you battery example if you were to use CAD and build it up the same way with thin wall circles + squares that are repeated. That would get rid of the infill weirdness that you mentioned and would be a more direct comparison.
It's like the parametric control of gocode. Super interesting
Great - a way to make 3D printing even more complicated. My only hope is that the sort of optimisations that this can provide, can be built into regular slicing software. Better model and print move analysis seems to be the key.
Just like a Post Script printer. You don't send a Circle to the printer, you send a mathematical description of what a circle is. Quicker, and very accurate. I love the idea for a 3d printer.
As a machinist and programmer, This is gonna be a game changer for me. I often write full programs on the machine itself as it's much quicker than modeling it in a computer and post processing it to work the 5 different machines in the shop. This is gonna be awesome for making even quicker prototypes.
It seems to me it doesn't do anything you couldn't do yourself. Gcode is crazy simple.
I feel like I am looking at the first computer generating a line of dots on a screen and within a short time the fine tuning and simplicity generally comes along. This type of tech if its developed will be a revolutionary leap for printing. Imagine doing a whole complex item such as a 3D printed plane all in 1 (or 3) easy spreadsheet tabs. Thanks for making these vids ...... love your work. stay safe and cheers from down under mate.
Thanks for bringing cool stuff like this to our attention!
This looks good for simpler geometries, or geometries which can be defined with mathematical shapes, where you really want to optimise the GCode toolpaths. Its a bit of a dark art getting slicers to do what you want sometimes, having full control is cool, but far too cumbersome for complex object modelling. This could be good for production environments to produce simple objects efficiently like that battery tray. Looks like one of the only options for non-planar slicing other than GCode post processing that I know of.
Besides, that battery tray could have been done using a repeating squiggle line going in a mesh pattern, batteries dont care about uniform support.
I don't think it matters how much work it takes for a complex object, it will be worth it for some - it only matters if you are only making a tiny number of them so upfront optimisation costs won't be paid back...
So most of us probably won't use this sort of tool for a complex object, but somewhere that makes a kit using 3d printed parts for example might well - every part they have to make takes less time to print, and uses less material than the slicer generated object would. (Though I could see the folks that like OpenScad finding this a very easy method to get exactly what they want - it appears a similar thinking process)
I cannot overstate how excited this makes me. Up until now, the only way I knew to design a propeller required me to manually discretise it’s curvature (I’m not sure if there is a way to do it continuously in F360, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.) which didn’t sit well with me. I wanted a way to define an angle wrt radius, I thought openSCAD might be the way but didn’t look too far into it. Thanks for the great video.
Openscad is awesome, but it approximates curves
@@JohnDoe-rx3vn Everything approximates curves. Gcode moves in straight lines for 3d printers (unless you know of any which take the circle commands and even then you'll be limited by the steppers and the firmware).
Finally a step closer to Designing / Editing right in the Slicer's Project plate.
About time.
Seems like something useful for making airfoils with smooth surfaces for wings and fanblades. Maybe racks and gears too.
I know I'm late to the party but this looks very useful for me. I've been using the custom non-planar slic3r for a while and love the idea of this. Definitely need to try this out
This is making me think that 3D editing software needs to have a "3D printer" mode whereby aspects of the modeled objects are tailored to being 3D printed, like you tell it you'll be using an 0.4mm nozzle with 0.2mm layer height and the snap-to-grid functionality is adjusted to work to those parameters, ending up with objects that are more "3D printer friendly", which would be especially helpful for mechanical prints.
makes me think it openSCAD could be modded to something like this? instead of using uh excel...
or etch a sketch mode, with a 3rd z dial
I don't know how long it's been there but Blender does have very rudimentary and basic 3D printing visualizations. It will color highlight overhangs or intersections that can be fixed before exporting.
I was thinking the same thing. 3D programs are WAY ahead as far as modeling and automated repetition when it comes to slicing. They SHOULD have this option to control and out put gcode right from the start. This "full control gcode" I think could possibly be written as a blender addon... maybe. Blender already has a slew of mathematical nodes for shading and geometry.
I set user parameters in Fusion 360 to optimize these things as you say. Any shells are multiple of my extrusion width parameter, etc. It takes more intentional planning up front with regards to how the model will be printed and used in order to set it up the right way, especially with more complex models, but it's powerful and functional all the same.
This is like vector vs bitmap. Legit.
Thanks!
Thank you!
Awesome! I love seeing innovation in the 3D printing community. Hopefully this will eventually result in some optimization with the current slicers that we use. Great video.
except it's based on the worst closed source cancer
This reminds me of when I used to make cool designs on a graphing calculator during math class.
I 100% know that I've made the shape at 4:34 on my ti-84 before in class
I appreciate having my horizons expanded. Great Video.
You are always pushing the limits man! Good stuff!
Thanks for this, it addresses a lot of things I want to do with my printer.
I've now subscribed to your channel on the back of this ;)
That’s a very interesting new angle of making gcodes. Thanks !
I've been following the guy on Twitter for a while now, some really cool prints you can do using this. Glad to see it get a bit more exposure, I hope it continues to evolve and develop.
This is why I am subscribed to this channel!
Wow!! I have started learning it and it feels so good to be a student of Proff Andy and get supervised by him for my major project 😃
I'd like to comapre this to assembly programming and compilers. Nowadays in 99.9% of the time a compiler will generate better machine code than a human progammer (the 0.1% being really niche stuff). But for a long time in history compilers were not that smart. We're at that point with slicers, Full Control Gcode shows us a what a really smart slicers might be able to do further down the line.
Really cool stuff! Thanks for bringing attention to it.
I feel like its obligatory to say, "Nerd!"
Very cool video. I have always wondered about things like this. Im constantly fighting with slicers trying to get them to stop doing certain movements and timewasting actions. This is great!
I applaud you for trying something new and sharing. What I say next is not meant as a criticism but only as an alternate approach.
You could have gotten rid of the tiny weird wall fills with a single setting in the slicer. Minimum extrusion length. Make that sufficiently large enough and those short BS fills go away. Also, if you pick the right line width and Union overlapping volumes, you get more weirdness that just goes away when trying to do something like this.
That leads be to the tab at the bottom. That could have been a separate model that you overlap with the cylinders. Again, with the union overlapping volumes turned on and a singular isolated resize in the z axis you can make that tab at the bottom one layer thick.
I could have done everything I've seen so far in the first 7 and a half minutes of your video in about 7 and a half minutes of knowing just the very basics of how to model and how to leverage the slicer settings. In fact I'm half tempted to try making this battery holder but for different size batteries.
I'm not taking away the value of what you show.. the mathematical approach to being able to generate GCode is fascinating, wonderful, and really does open a whole new world. It's just that the example you gave really is much easier to do using a technical / tool based approach where the wavy shapes you demonstrated using functions really is where the mathematical approach shines. I get that you wanted to make the topic approachable. I just don't want people thinking that the battery holder couldn't be done much easier using a better understanding of the slicer and a better understanding of how to model.
So what rules do we want for a challenge? 1 line width cylinders, max line width percentage, tabs at the bottom that are one layer height tall. The cylinders need to be welded together so he wall overlap will need to be carefully considered.... The thing is SmartAvionics on GitHub has a custom version of Cura that does an amazing thing with variable line widths where two wall lines need to fit within a space
Yeah this is looking pretty easy to do using basic tools. I could probably use TinkerCad generated STLs and simple grouping either within TinkerCAD or within Cura to do this same thing. Both support measured movements, so you create the smallest block, group it together, duplicate it, move it by the size of that block, group that together, duplicate it, move it by the size offset again, group, duplicate.
Yeah I can get that workflow down to about 7 and a half minutes.
I was trying to model a pretty complex mathematical shape in F360 a while ago, and it was essentially impossible for a hole host of reasons. Not only is F360 a big bugfest, it has really poor memory management. The few times I could actually get the model simple enough for F360 to be able to extrude a surface, it would start to hang and take up to 20 minutes to process a single modification.
This would be really useful for that,
My jaw dropped at that Z hop feature. That's going to be huge for cosplayers to save on materials. If you can just work the z into the design that means free strength & less filling & sanding.
Wow can't believe you're covering this here! This is made at my university!
Here's an idea: What about combining your squiggly line formula into the battery holder so that every layer is 1 continuous line (like vase mode) instead of individual cylinders? Sort of like a semi-circular shaped sine wave.
The resulting shape may not grab the batteries on all sides, leaving small sections of the perimeter open, but that still should be more than enough for a secure hold and would result in the fastest possible print times.
For one off pieces this would be unnecessary faffing about and pointless but if you're trying to pump out tens or hundreds of these things in one go it would save so much time
"The possibilities are endless.. but it has limitations".. It has more limitations than possibilities. Very, very niche tool for something very specific.
Not really. It's just because we still not where additive manufacturing needs to go. Right know we are using a modeling program that is designed to show models in a virtual reality. Then we use an other program to disassemble it into slices and making 2d versions.
When 3d printers get able to use non planar printing we need something like this..
It just needs to be remade in a better programming language
When mass producing, this would save thousands of dollars
Danke!
ich sag Danke!
Cura 5 came in rescue, except for the non-planar part.
I'm thankful I didn't went back to Windows for that.
Gawd dayum! That"s a fresh looking hoodie.
This software seems to have some overlap with the features of Arc Welder. Would it be possible to compare them with an assortment of printers?
Ah man! You always get me with those sliding focal plane shots!
I can see how this is useful for making interesting 3D printed art, optimizing something that you need to print a lot of and tinkering with non-planar printing (which is interesting and kinda mesmerizing).
I can only imagine a conversion tool to be made from vector files can be visually drawn on autocad or sorts and it just does the rest, honesty this is super cool
(Reposted from a reply because I'm curious what everyone thinks.)
Do you think direct control operations could be added to slicers?
That's what makes me most excited about this. I've been dreaming that one day slicers will add "hey printer, do this" type commands to their programs. Or at least some sort of gooey system for editing the G-Code. I mean honestly.. Why can't I just click a layer and tell the printer something like "pause for 3 minutes", "add a line here", or "insert district control spreadsheet from file". I don't want to turn slicers into fully blown CAD programs but why not have some tinkercad type functions in there?
7:21 amazingly done and super smooth
This seems so useful to me. I can wrap my head around it fairly easily. I usually kinda suck at achieving good precision when I use graphical cad sofware. This seems so much more logical to deal with when I am trying to achieve high precision. Only little bummer is that I have libre but I am sure that I can just get office for this purpose. It is honestly worth it.
That transition at 7:21 Holy god damn! Clean!😎
Wow it requires a scary level of pain tolerance to build something like that on top of Excel :-)
Seems like feats like this is common in academia.
@@mtenkawa and in business. The increase to the maximum row count was cheered by many accounting firms.
Had a friend do this with machining. He saved so much time. Instead of printing 200 brackets at a time. He machined 50 brackets on an aluminum plate at a time
For hobbyists, this is probably a bit complicated. But as an engineer i can see, how this could help me some day. Thanks.
That shot with the focus slowly going down the side of the part was an awesome shot. Very nice.
So finally we came full circle with CAM programming ;-)
Amazing & informative, Tom! Still left with couple of questions, but I'll wait on those until I watch the tutorial videos.
Amazing video! Thank you Thomas, you just helped me a problem i've been working on for months!
Tom what are you drawing @4:34?
I just found that channel not too long ago. It's interesting stuff! Especially the non-planar and superwide stuff.
Very cool and you still have more speed in the battery holder algorithm by alternating the start position of each row for less travel time
Good PoC. Hopefully someone will bring it to more usable environment.
This would be amazing with like, python or something, instead of excel.
CADquery is probably the closest but yeah python would have been nice here too.
Hopefully this leads to more optimized, dedicated software solutions that can run faster and work in conjunction with a Gcode visualizer of some kind. I don't know much about software development, but could it work as a Cura plugin, for example?
I was thinking the same thing. I despise excel and their convoluted functions... Syntax is a nightmare
python can easily interface to other software too.
In python it is relatively simple to read an STL file and slice it, or use it as an exclusion zone.
(I have written a python script once with STL slicing and gcode generation for printing a mesh like structure.)
Indeed, Excel isn't built for this (seems my original comment stating that was removed??). Anyway, the problem is that any little mistake causes big issues, especially if you're free to edit it. This is why a programming language was invented basically. Excel is for data representation mainly and should be used as such. Matt Parker has great fun in showcasing all the cases where Excell was used as a database etc. :) Having worked in science myself, this is very likely because the researcher just used something he was familiar with.
I was learning how to program Heidenhein in high school. Compared to more modern CAM software (for example Alfacam back my days) it was slow and uncomfortable. So for me this is a way back. Slicer is basic CAM SW but it does not let you program tool path. That could be interesting for next gen slicers.
Very cool! There's some seemingly simple shapes like these I've done many a time in CAD that take a surprisingly long time to actually model
As always, great video Tom! Full Control is pretty amazing! Started messing with it the other day from your tweet. Being an Excel Wizard may now be a pre-requisite for 3d printing! Loved the information because I did find myself running into issues. Definitely some limitations, but that is fine! Will be curious to see if it gets integrated in some regards into the popular slicers.
I was just looking at Heidenhain controllers. It would be nice to see a proper controller on additive machines that uses conversational g-code with routines. Then you could do subtractive alongside to clean prints up.
My mind jumped to “what if G-code was generated _in real-time, as it was printing?”_ while watching this! Nothing does that yet, right?
I don't know what that might be useful for - except responding to feedback, such as print errors - but it sounded cool in my head! 😹
Manual controlled printing, that's genius
Microsoft had a slicer in Windows, you could print an STL and it would slice and print. Never went anywhere, that idea is just not very good, given the settings needed in a slicer.
It would be useful if the output was huge (not applicable) or perhaps for some dynamic control, adjusting to temperature perhaps?
Awesome tool for mass production 3d printing!!! shortening the time = printing more = earning more at the same amount of time.
Doing nonplanar is fun too, I've been messing around with this and a couple of other slicers, but boy it's a learning curve XD
I hope this gets made for google docs.
I mean if the issue is copying the code then it possibly could be also possible to have a single macro(or a set of them if needed) make a file containing the GCode in a folder somewhere in the Google drive, which could be selected by the user.
I'm not really sure if this is possible, and I don't know how write code even if my life depended on it 😅
But it's still an idea though :^
Blender 2.79 and later updates can make shapes with math equations too(possibly earlier versions, but I'm still using 2.79)
really promising program. i tried the non planar cylinder and 3 more toolpaths . It has amazing potential
Awesome Video. It is amazing to see what you can do in Excel and VBA.
That's awesome!
For a better comparison you should printed the second model with only one perimeter.
@Thomas, can you please share the cells holder configuration? I've been trying to create a "simple" 8 by 7, but I have problems with the infill.
This and the speeds achieved with Voron printers is the real future of 3D printing.
That scripting UI reminds me of the embedded conversational manual gcode programming on most CNC controllers
I know you brought up the manual gcode, but machining center manufacturers like Hurco and Haas have wizards to do most of it
Super interesting thanks a lot! I was just trying to designate a pelton turbine and couldn't figure out how to enter the functions in a 3D drawing software. I will try with this possibility :)
Would love to see a link to your finished code for the 18650 holder. It's something many people, including myself, would find very useful!
That's cool. We need a slicer which can convert models into full control gcode on a 5 axis 3d printer. No supports will be necessary then for many print designs.
You can skip 3D modeling as well as you can skip designing a PDF with your favorite drawing software: technically possible, but an edge case for projects of limited size and complexity. Also, you could have done so since forever. 😉
That said: nice prints, and an interesting approach for those cases where the slicing process would introduce problems. I wouldn’t delete the slicer, though. 🙂👍
I assume that G-Code generators will be the new alternative to slicers; although I think keeping this entire project inside of an excel sheet is one of the sillies things I've ever heard. This could easily be a double view program that allows you to script and visualize at the same time.
The next version of FullControl Gcode is coming out soon written in Python, so a lot more versatile and efficient than VBA
I mean, it's literally "write header to file, repeatedly calculate coordinates and write to file, write footer to file". Not brain surgery.
7 months later and it is still coming soon
i love that Your print beads are dirty of glue it make me feel i use my printer correctly :D
Excel has pretty big limitations by not being able to write your own functions. I once tried to use it for prototyping a game feature but it quickly realized It cant make dynamic functions in a cell and I would have to make set patters with 3 separate calculation tables because I cant make a custom class with 2 variables or anything dependent on the color property of a cell.
Would you save more time if you offset each other row (like a honeycomb) so you had a better packing ratio?