Very sad to see that kennethjiang will be discontinuing support for this plugin. Although he states this is because the new Cura release has great support and renders this plugin obsolete...I disagree. I have been using this, albeit "outdated", plugin with great success and ease. The convenience of having a built in slicer (RPi 3) is understated.
It would be great to see someone from the community continue the development of this plugin!
Does the slicer plugin allow you to re-orient the part if it's not right? There are many times when I'll try the part in different orientations until I get the best compromise between adhesion and acceptable appearance (due to the complications of supports sometimes).
To me, it just feels like parts now have grown so much in complexity that slicer advancements are critical to the success of the part.
I will also note that simply attempting to compile the standalone Cura itself is a nightmare. Supporting the underlying engine inside a plugin may involve compiling a fair bit of code if I'm guessing correctly; the toolstack was all over the place (Fortran, really?)
It absolutely does allow you re-orient the part to get a good 3D representation of object on print bed. As well as adjust any essential parameters (temps, speeds, supports, etc). I have crossed referenced my gcode results from this plugin to the most recent Cura engine and rarely find any notable difference.
I will continue to use this plugin until it is no longer supported by OctoPrint.
I also came here to express my sorrow at the loss of this plugin. I run Octoprint via Octopi, and it's supremely convenient to be able to slice in the application without having to involve Cura, slic3r, or any other external application. I'd love it if someone else took over the plugin, but I suspect that's unlikely.
I'd also like to show my support for this plugin, it's tremendously useful and I too will continue to use it until I can't. I don't think I've started Cura in more than a year, Slicer really just does everything I need. I too hope someone takes this over (or the original developer becomes interested again) and would be happy to contribute.
Octoprint without Slicer seems empty and the day it stops working is the day I revert to a previous build of Octoprint and stop updating.
I am shocked that it will no longer have a slicer! Of all the things you would expect from a print server a slicer is probably the most basic and most essential. I found having a slicer functionality was essential, but apparently its my workflow that is wrong. I was advised that Cura on a desktop is how I should be using Octoprint and I do periodically use it that way but its not convenient because I don't have the raspberry pi constantly running so it means I cant simply upload from Cura. The way I have been using Octopi is with a pi zero and solid state relay so when I turn on the printer it loads up the pi instead and through the web interface I can power up the printer, upload a CAD file from Dropbox, tune the temperatures and settings in Octopi and print all in one web interface.
I am confused now because it seems I will have to load Cura first then switch on the pi and come back to Cura to upload the CAD then open a browser and select my settings etc and I will probably have to use Sli3er instead because the new Cura wont run on some of my laptops because it demands openGL4. What I think I am going to do is use an older version of Octopi until the newer ones come back on track.
The CuraEngine plugin was bundled with OctoPrint prior to 1.3.10. OctoPrint 1.3.11 no longer bundles the CuraEngine plugin, it was released as a standalone (CuraEngine Legacy) plugin instead. The functionality for slicing with the OctoPrint host still exists and should continue to exist as an option for people that feel passionate about it.
The OctoPrint-Slicer plugin referenced here added features to the CuraEngine plugin as well as interfacing with the OctoPrint-Slic3r plugin (a different slicer that can run on the OctoPrint host).
All of these plugins are open source with AGPLv3 licenses and all of them are, to the best of my knowledge, currently working with OctoPrint 1.3.11. If you are passionate about slicing with the OctoPrint host, then you can, in theory, become the maintainer of any of these plugins that cease to work in future versions of OctoPrint.
True the slicer plugin is gone. but you can download any of the other applications, upload your .stl and export .gcod files. I've looked at the Cura 4x "Beta" It has the profiles for both of my printers. I'm confident those .gcod files will upload to octopie "just a fine" ... IMHO JLH
I also just got Slic3r (not the Prusha modified version) .
My printers are a Monoprice Mini v.1, and an Ender3 Pro. Just haven't had time to reimage sd card & do network mods & run it. should be cake.
Something odd is going on with the legacy Cura Plugin and there is something really peculiar about its discontinuation!
All of a sudden after years of flawless onboard slicing we start seeing printing problems like “shredded movement” which feels a lot like (disabled acceleration) only causing problems while traversing arcs / radius geometry. There is an open issue about it here
It causes prints that have any curves to look blobby and fuzzy and this was not related to updates because I loaded up an old saved SD image backup taken way back at the end of 2017 and it also printed a really awful Benchy. I compared prints with new and old version knowing that the backup was taken at a time when prints were nice!
My theory was that maybe I had inadvertently changed some obscure setting but clearly that is not possible since the old one is doing the exact same thing! How can this be possible when my SD card backup image was an ISO file saved on HDD, there is no way anyone could have messed with those settings.
I like the built in slicer because its super convenient for quick and easy simple slicing so I continued to use it despite the “shredded moves” issue because for square objects it was fine, until today when it had changed the Z height on its own and ruined a print almost like it was possessed by some freaky crazed poltergeist!
Weird hu!
I suspect that this problem is actually deliberate sabotage to push users away from using this method of slicing for some unknown reason. Octoprint does seem to “phone home” quite a lot and I suspect it wouldn't be difficult to send malicious code (virus) while its playing ping-pong!
Active sabotage by the multinational that created OctoPrint does indeed sound like the most likely scenario. @foosel is widely known to be evil and if anyone has an interest in ruining your day and breaking the software that she wrote, it must be her. /s
…..So you think it is more likely to be poltergeist?
Personally I believe there are only three possible lines this could have come down from, if its sabotage..
1 Foosel
2 Kennethjiang
3 Cura Dev people
I am more inclined to believe that it is actually Cura Dev’s who are sabotaging it via some back door in the Cura Engine. I think it is likely because they have a motive to stop a growing number of users who prefer Cura version 15.04.x. Octoprint made Cura 15.04 great again and a lot of people believe it is better software than the new Cura!
I'd be very interested to see what you have in lines of proof of this "sabotage". Right now you're throwing around baseless accusations, and haven't offered any information to support your hypothesis. Thing is, if such information existed..... it would have been found already. What purpose would it serve for @foosel or anyone else to destroy their reputation by taking part in such activities?
So, now that I've gotten that out, I highly suggest you don't make wild accusations without proof, and I suggest even more that this be the end of this.
Proof? Are you able to install an old version of Octopi? What would it suggest to you if you found it was printing badly too? Are you saying sabotage is not possible? Sabotage is an established technique used all the time by companies everywhere in the news recently it was found that even Apple sabotage their old phones to run slower! Its not unusual, have you never encountered it before?
That something outside of OctoPi/the included OctoPrint version is the reason, maybe the line to the printer, or the printer itself. But sure, go with some ridiculous nonsensical conspiracy theory without any proof other than "Apple does it too" instead that involves me, a plugin developer and a whole team of slicer developers because... errr... profit.
Jeez... really... can't make this stuff up that you have to endure as an OSS maintainer
Well yes, Apple is evil in this way and so is Microsoft. Amazon also comes to mind. But each one of these stands to gain significantly by cheating the consumer.
Which brings me to foosel. She doesn't charge for OctoPrint. So basically, you'd be bang wrong to suggest that she could be trying to sabotage anything for monetary gains. Cura is also free software as is Marlin/reprap.
Wow! I cant believe you reported me because you didn't like what I was saying! How unprofessional. I have been suspended from this forum for a few days while my comments were reviewed! Incidentally none of my comments have actually been removed because they are totally legitimate and valid!
If you had read my comments properly you would have understood that I wasn't accusing Foosel of sabotaging her own work I was merely pointing out that there are only a few possible culprits and that the most probable was Cura Dev’s! I was trying to help you and then you all gang up and beat me up just because you don't like what I am saying! If there was sabotage in any of my work I personally would want to be informed.
You obviously know what I am talking about since there is an open ticket on Github about it and you must have looked into this problem since all the code is like you say opensource.
Slic3r 1.1.7 compiled on the PI works flawlessly using the built in Slicer GUI and via gcode upload! This alone suggests that there is a problem with Cura or modifications made to the Cura Octoprint Plugin, who could have done that?
There has been no printer firmware update on my end and many people who are complaining about the same problem have different types of printers, Delta, I3, coreXY etc.
