Hi all,

This is a workthread for discussing the gcode visualization tool I wrote for visualizing the toolpath of a reprap/makerbot, as I recently posted in the builders blog ( http://builders.reprap.org/2009/09/reprapmakerbot-gcode-visualzation-from.html ).

It seems like there's been a great deal of interest in the tool, so I posted the code and already people have been making improvements! That's fantastic, and I think it would be great to make the tool an open-source project so that we can have some really interesting toolpath visualizations for a variety of diagnostic, artistic, informative, and promotional endevours. Two folks have already asked for t-shirts with the visualizations printed on them.

It's my hope that this thread can serve as a discussion point for the visualization tool and code development. Ideally, it would be great if we also had a public space where we could upload progressive improvements ( perhaps a yahoo group, or google code? ).

thanks,
peter

Hi Peter,

it's an excellent Idea!

I downloaded your code too and installed Processing, but have to find some time to go into ...

Viktor

I PM'ed you. I think this should be worked on. I'll be glad to contribute. Have used Processing for several years. Like it...hate java!

Hi Arvin,

I'll also reply publically

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Hi Arvin,

Sorry for my late reply! As a grad student, things are a little crazy sometimes.

I was also thinking that standalone would be best for the start. It would also be neat to better colour-code the toolpaths as Skeinforge's SkeinView does, although I'm not entirely sure if the information required to derive this is available in the gcode?

In terms of future directions, I had had a few thoughts. I think it would be interesting to:

1) Be able to actually modify the toolpath in a few very simple but handy ways, at some point. I've noticed that sometimes Skeinforge will leave out the fill in certain parts of a model, and I think it'd be handy to develop a simple point-and-click interface to be able to manually edit the toolpath in simple ways such as this.

2) I'm not entirely sure how complicated actually talking to the Gen3 electronics from Makerbot over a serial line are, but Processing seems to have some serial communcications libraries that may make this able to happen without too much trouble. If so, at some point we could add in a 'Control Panel' for manually positioning the Reprap, and a build button to send the model to the Reprap while visualizing the progress on the screen. In this way we'd be making a plain and simple rewrite of ReplicatorG, only basing it around a fairly solid visualization tool. I'm not sure what the interest in this will be -- ReplicatorG, for all it's bugs and things, *does* work, and really one of the best visualizations of the model that you're creating is the *actual* print that the 3D printer is creating . So really, this may be redundant and only aesthetic, but if there's interest then it's a possible course.

How does that sound?


Arvin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never used google code but it looks like a
> good way to go. I will be happy to contribute what
> I can. Have it responding to mouse movement and
> zooming with the +/- key combinations. Really
> simple just 4 or 5 lines of code.
>
> What direction do you want to take this. Stand
> alone visualizer, or to use in conjunction with
> skeinforge or the reprap host software?
>
> Either or both would be good. Maybe stand alone
> first then ported over to work with the others.
>
> Let's do it.
> Arvin

> best visualizations of the model that you're creating is the *actual* print that the 3D printer is creating

Unfortunately I'm still working on the cartesian bot. 5 or 6 iteration. Looking for something doable with hand tools and minimum skills.

Downloaded the latest skeinforge and it does have a nice visualization of the print but the system I'm running is very slow. Glacier slow....

With your Processing code it just wizzes along!

Sorry but I wasn't able to find the code on the blog. Would you mind sending me a copy to bingdai9 at gmail dot com?

Many thanks!

-Bing

BingDai, [cogsci.mcmaster.ca] is the link for Peter's code.

He was going to make a location to post his code that would allow checking out but no word for a long time.

Peter, are you there?

Hi folks,

Sorry for not posting this sooner -- I had a request yesterday, and while I think I had intended to clean up the code, here it is anyway!

This is version 3b, which adds some effects that make it appear as though the object is being printed (that is, the alpha of each line is adjusted based on its position in the gcode file, and not based on its Z height as in 2a). The code also tries to give a tilted top-down view of the current Z layer, indexes the view up (smoothly) to follow the Z of the g-code, and orbits around the part to give different views. It's really quite neat to watch, and there isn't a lot of code, so it really encourages tinkering.

gcode2a forum post: [builders.reprap.org]

gcode3b forum post: [builders.reprap.org]

gcode3b youtube video (with the tin tin rocket from thingiverse): [www.youtube.com]

hope that helps! happy tinkering!
~peter

I've done some modifications to the code with the goal of making it a useful gcode inspector.

I've started a Github repo: [github.com]

Here's a video of it in action: [www.youtube.com]

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[whosawhatsis.com]

is this usable as a stand alone software ?

and how tu use it ?

thank you