ANNOUNCEMENT: reprap-host-0.8.zip package is released!

Zach just released my reprap-host-0.8.zip package on SourceForge. [sourceforge.net] . It includes a (very short!) README file, do please read it :-)

This is just a very first packaged release of the host software. Do *not* expect perfection! However, you can reasonably expect that it actually runs the Reprap host software on Windows XP, Mac and Linux :-)

If you do not want to actually develop the host software, just to run it, you now do *not* have to install Eclipse and Subclipse, etc. and you do not have to check anything out of Subversion or CVS, deal with Makefiles, etc. etc.

We have not yet packaged up the required additional Java libraries, so you will need to install a working JDK or JRE (Sun Java 1.5.0 is the suggested one, on all 3 platforms), and then follow the installation info at www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/RepRapLinuxSoftware [www.reprap.org] for the libraries.

The corresponding Windows and Mac pages on the Wiki may not yet be updated for this simplified installation approach. If you try to install this package and get stuck, please ask questions here in the forums -- make sure you say what package you are installing and what OS you are running on, as well as whatever error messages or issues you are seeing!

Many thanks to Zach for testing this stuff for me over the last few days, and for releasing it. Thanks to everyone who tries this package out and reports how well (or badly) it works for them! Your feedback is vital to improving this package.

Jonathan

I downloaded the software, read the README, installed Java3d (1.5.0), and started the software. I get an "Exception in thread "RepRap" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/j3d/renderer/java3d/loaders/STLLoader". Did some research, it seems the STLLoader isn't part of the Java3d package. furthermore I cannot find the package on the internet. Can you update the README file with a link to the STLLoader package? Thanks.

--Blerik

(I use Java build 1.6.0-beta2-b86 on Windows XP)

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2007 03:59AM by blerik.

Good catch!

We are currently trying to find the official source for that .jar file. Right now it is in our Subversion tree, so you can grab it from [reprap.svn.sourceforge.net]

Put it with RXTXcomm.jar and the Java3D .jar files under jre/lib/ext/ and things should go more smoothly for you :-)

[ I know that .jar contains code from [www.j3d.org] but I don't know how to download that .jar file or the sources for it... any help on this from any knowledgeable person out there would be very much appreciated! ]

Jonathan

Got the file from SourceForge. There is something wrong with the mime-type. Firefox gives me a screen of gunk, Internet Explorer gives me a .zip file (recognizes the format, but messes up the extension) Renaming to .jar works. Maybe you need to specify it's a binary file somewhere in SourceForge, I don't know.

After some messing with my machine (OpenGL too old, Java3d needs 1.2 or higher), I can confirm the software is working perfectly on WinXP, Java 1.6.0. Maybe you can add the .stl for the shotglasses, so people have something to look at after testing the default install.

I dont have a RepRap, so I didn't test the serial connections. But I can tell you that the software doesn't need the rxtx .jar, works fine without it. Maybe you can update the README with a remark about only needing the rxtx if you actually have a RepRap. Makes the installation process a lot simpler.

--Blerik

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2007 04:52AM by blerik.

Thanks for the ideas! It's 2:43am here in California ... I need some sleep!

The README is updated in svn ready for next release, and the RepRapLinuxSoftware page also describes the j3d.org .jar file requirement now.

I don't think I have the power to change the MIME type of .jar files on SourceForge :-) In Windows I can use Firefox and right click on the link in my earlier post and choose "Save link as..." to save the file no matter what it's MIME type is. Firefox in Linux works the same way on that, too. Looks like a strange IE bug that it switches to .zip!

Maybe a pointer to the set of .STLs released at [sourceforge.net] in the README would help provide newcomers some objects to load.

I'll have to explore the "RXTX only needed when you really open a serial port" idea further -- I have no Reprap hardware here either (yet), but I need the RXTX libs to compile the host software... so it didn't occur to me you might not need them to *run* it, if you are just printing to good old "null cartesian"! Dynamic loading at its best, it would seem.

Jonathan

Hey Jonathan,

I did some searching on the j3d site, and found that the j3d-org-java3d-all.jar can be found on this page [code.j3d.org] I do not recall which version was used, but for example this zip [ftp.j3d.org] contain the jar. Would it maybe be possible to distribute this jar *inside* the reprap-host-0.X.zip package, since it only is a jar (and no .DLL/.SO files are needed) and is under a LGPL license?

As far as the rxtx is concerned, maybe it would be possible to do a check if the lib is available, and if it is, enable the cartesian assembly. If not, only the null cartesian can be used and some of the other features (ie stepper exerciser) that require serial communication are either disabled or a check is done before that feature is executed to prevent the program goes down.

Joost

@Joost:

Currently all operations that require rxtx return an exception. And the exception is caught somewhere and the result is either a little pop-up dialog with an error, or a stack trace on console. But the RepRap software keeps running. I agree that it would be nice to disable menu-items, but it isn't really necessary right now.

@Everyone:

There seems to be a bug in the preview pane (and maybe in the actual RepRapping as well, but I cannot check that). It sometimes forgets to draw a segment from the outline of a part. When you produce the part again, the missing segments are somewhere else again. But the hatching is always spot on. There is an example of what I mean here: [blerrik.googlepages.com]. It is a picture from the test piece, but the same problem happens with other pieces as well, and only on the outlines. Oh, one more thing, the missing segments appear random, and change places when you reprint the piece, but they appear on exactly the same spot when you restart the software. So it seems to be related to Java's random function with a fixed randseed at startup.

And there is a bug in the mouse panning, zooming and rotating as well. Panning isn't proportional to zoom level, so that when you are zoomed in, panning becomes very fast and imprecise. Rotation is centered on the origin, which makes rotating when zoomed in on a piece on the far edges quite frustrating. It should be centered on the viewport.

--Blerik

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2007 09:39AM by blerik.

Blerik,

Good bug reports! The random segment one is almost certainly a side effect of a very recent change to the code, comitted two days ago in svn revision #620, by Adrian. The svn log says:

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> r620 | adrian-bowyer | 2007-06-04 12:59:28 -0700 (Mon, 04 Jun 2007) | 5 lines
>
> Polygon outlining changed to start each layer at a random vertex
> of the polygon(s). That way the start and stop point don't
> build up splongy bits in the same place later after layer
> on the boundary.

This is the only Java code in the Reprap host software that uses randomness (that I can find).

BTW, if you submit bug reports at the project SourgeForge Bug Tracker at [sourceforge.net] that would be even better -- that helps avoid them getting lost or forgotten. It's fine to then post here in the forums about them with a pointer to the SF Bug Tracker entry, for extra visibility, but (at least in theory) the Bug Tracker is the primary location for bug reports.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Added the bug reports to sf.net, id's 1732608 and 1732603.

Added 1732622 as well.

--Blerik

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2007 04:10AM by blerik.