Details on operations available to process slice data and to generate or refine toolpath information
Depending on their function, these filters typically take only closed contours or open lines, or hatches, and using them on toolpath types they are not aimed at may produce undefined behavior. For example, it does not make sense to create intersections between open lines as open lines on their own have no enclosed area.
Jump to:
- Generate offset
- Reinforce thin walls
- Remove self-intersections
- Boolean operations
- Create intersection
- Create filling
- Filling parameters
- Trim hatches
- Extend hatches
- Convert contours/hatches
- Contour segmentation
- Flow segmentation
- Multilaser splitting
- Reduce points
- Aggregate slices
- Sort contours
- Z compensation
- Run Lua script
- EBPA calculation
Generate offset
Generates a new toolpath parallel to the original and offset by a definable distance.
Expects the offset value itself, the direction (inner or outer offset), and a roundness in degrees to generate a rounded corner with a radius of subdivisions no larger than the roundness value. A rounded corner is only generated at convex corners. Concave corners ro not. The lower the value, the higher the subdivision of the fillet curve around the corner.
Use
tag mapping to apply a different offset (a percentage of the specified offset value) along those contour segments that originate on a triangle with a different facegroup.
Reinforce thin walls
This generates additional toolpaths along narrow sections of a contour that might otherwise go unsupported by infill or internally offset contours. This operation exists in two variants that calculate the necessary toolpaths in slightly different ways. You should experiment which one is suited best to your application.
Expects values for Offset, the threshold distance up to which a wall is considered thin enough for this operation, and for Shorten Terminals, which makes the path terminate before it touches the contour at its far end.
TopRemove self-intersections
Intersections can appear when a part with two overlapping shells was sliced. This operation splits off and deletes any overlapping contours, stitches them together properly while maintaining enclosed and valid hollows.
Boolean operations
This operation has two functions: It either keeps the areas occupied by any of the selected slice stacks and merges it into one common area, or, any exclusive combination of stack areas may be subtracted from any other exclusive combination, for example: (A+C)-(B+D).
Create intersection
This keeps only those areas that all selected slice stacks have in common.
Create filling
Generates toolpaths for infill, or filling patterns.
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Simple hatching
Simple parallel lines that scan the entire fillable slice area in one single pass.
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Stripe filling
Parallel lines cover the fillable slice area in as many parallel tracks (stripes) as it takes, with the stripes going in a direction perpendicular to the lines that comprise the stripes.
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Quad islands
The fillable slice area is covered with two passes of complementary checkerboard patterns. The lines in one pattern are aligned perpendicularly to those in the complementary pattern.
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Checkerboard
The fillable slice area is covered with two passes of complementary checkerboard patterns. The lines in both patterns are parallel; however, the islands are hatched in an interleaving manner.
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Radial hatching
Hatches are oriented radially from the geometric center of the full slice stack. As hatch lines spread out and the distances become larger, new hatch lines are inserted to keep their distance within a margin, forming concentric stripes of hatchlines.
Alternatively, hatches are drawn in a continuous spiral outwards from the center.
Filling parameters
| Parameter | Simple | Stripe | Quad | Checker | Radial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Hatch distance Distance between hatchlines. For radial hatching where hatchlines cannot be parallel, this is the target median distance. |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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Radial circle center Choose between drawing radials per island (if there are multiple in a slice) or for the entire occupied area of the current slice (not the complete slice stack). In any case, the radials are drawn around the geometric center of the respective area or areas. |
Yes | ||||
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Switches between radial and spiral hatching |
Yes | ||||
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Choose between Clockwise and Anti-clockwise. |
Yes | ||||
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Stripe width Length of individual hatchlines that form the stripes |
Yes | ||||
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Stripe gap Distance between stripes. A negative value produces overlaps. |
Yes | ||||
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Quad width Size of a quad field in local X |
Yes | Yes | |||
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Quad height Size of a quad field in local Y |
Yes | Yes | |||
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Quad gap
Gap between quad fields. A negative value produces overlaps. |
Yes
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Yes | |||
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Varies width and height of alternating fields in repeating periods of 60 layers by up to this amount to minimize coincidence of field borders across layers |
Yes | ||||
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Thickness of each ring Width of a concentric stripe |
Yes | ||||
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Minimal radius Hatch lines are only drawn from this minimum radius outwards. Leaves an unexposed circular area in the center. |
Yes | ||||
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Minimal hatch length Drops any hatches shorter than this distance, drawing nothing instead |
Yes | ||||
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Angle Initial rotation of the hatching pattern. Positive values mean clockwise rotation. |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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Angle increment Additional rotation for every subsequent layer after the first. Positive values mean clockwise rotation. |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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Only every nth layer Draws only those layers that are increments of n from the first and leaves all other layers of this stack blank. |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
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Hatch origin increment Shifts the hatchlines between layers sideways by this amount so that they are not collinear between layers. Positive values only, shifting layers to local -Y. Use values larger than half the hatch distance to effectively produce a shift in local +Y. |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
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Sort type Changes the local order and direction of drawing hatches.
Important: Does not reorder the drawing of islands (separate, disconnected contours). To reorder the drawing of islands, use the
Sort contours filter before running a filling filter, or deactivate
Regionalization.
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Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
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Rotation cone angle Clamps the layer rotation to this arc, otherwise hatch draw direction may turn into same direction as the gas flow's. Effectively: [current layer rotation] = ([previous layer rotation] + [Angle increment]) modulo [Rotation cone angle]) Positive values only. |
Yes | Yes | |||
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Rotation cone offset Shifts the rotation clamping arc by this angle. Positive angles mean clockwise shift. |
Yes | Yes | |||
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Stripe shift per layer Shifts stripes sideways. |
Yes | ||||
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Overlap Define an overlap between concentric hatch stripes. Positive values result in an overlap, negative values result in an unexposed gap between stripes. |
Yes | ||||
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Alternating hatch direction Alternates the draw direction of consecutive hatchlines, zig-zagging them |
Yes | Yes | |||
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Alternating hatch cycles Draws hatchlines in an interleaved fashion. Default 0#, interleaving starts at 2#. Effectively a built-in Hatch permutation filter. |
Yes
|
Yes | |||
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Unidirectional hatching Enforces drawing in only one direction. This is the inverse of Alternating hatch direction. |
Yes
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Yes | |||
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Alternate Alternates the draw direction of consecutive hatchlines, zig-zagging them |
Yes | ||||
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Regionalization Fills disconnected contours in the same stack's layer either separately or as if they were all connected as one. Has no effect when there is only one closed contour to fill. |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
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Dynamically adjust min and max radius When set to yes, and if a ring cannot be drawn in its full width as specified by Thickness of each ring, not even partially, its hatching is calculated from the maximum possible width instead, possibly resulting in a slightly lower hatch count for those rings as the hatch distance won't fit quite that many times into the remaining circumference. Other rings remain unaffected. |
Yes | ||||
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Includes a trace of the original contour in the hatch output as well |
Yes | ||||
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Keep original slice Keeps the slice stack in the project that was used to generate the the filling |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Extend hatches
Experimental filter to increase the length of contour or hatch lines beyond their original start and end points. This is used to compensate for rise and fall times of laser switching and galvo acceleration ("skywriting") and is typically only needed for older machines that do not perform such compensation on their own or do not understand different methods of compensation like premark, postmark, and other delays. Accepts values for a linear, a quadratic, and a cubic term.
TopConvert contours/hatches
Provides a number of tools to convert or tweak hatches and contours.
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Convert contours to hatches
To prevent a printer from generating infill hatching, change the type of the path from a contour to hatching. As hatching is usually A) not closed, and B) taken as filling in the first place, embedded slicing software usually foregoes generating hatches themselves, leaving you with a contour that you can fill yourself.
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Convert hatches to contours
This tries to connect hatch lines into a closed contour. This should only be used on hatches which had been generated by converting contours and may lead to unexpected results otherwise.
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Filter contours
If a slice stack's data is composed of multiple types of toolpaths, use this to keep only one or more of hatches, closed contours, or open contours.
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Connect contours
When multiple contours are present in a slice layer, a connection is generated between the start and end points of them, even for closed contours where start and end are at identical coordinates. Does not connect the last end to the first start, though.
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Filter small contours
Removes any contours that enclose an area up to a specifiable area.
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Revert direction
Flips the toolpath direction.
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Randomize seam
Moves the start and end points of contour lines around to avoid accumulating artifacts from always starting and ending in the same location.
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Hatch permutation
Reorders the hatches so that they are drawn in interleaving passes. For example, draw the even ones first, then the odd ones.
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Layer filter
Forwards toolpath data only for layers of a stack that pass the filter; toolpath data of all other layers is discarded.
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Extract contour tags
Splits contour segments that originated on triangles of different facegroups into separate slice stacks
Contour segmentation
Modify the toolpath such that contours are exposed in interleaving segments.
TopFlow segmentation
Modify the toolpath to ensure the laser is always moving upstream of the purging gas flow.
Splitting by gas flow, specify the gas flow angle, the direction tolerance, and decide whether to overwrite any previous changes of toolpath direction, and whether to apply the splitting to hatching as well, not just to contours.
The gas flow angle specifies the bearing where gas flow approaches head-on. 0 degrees of gas flow is equivalent to the -X direction, and positive angles go anti-clockwise. In turn, contours are be split at the points farthest away and be directed towards the specified flow bearing.
The direction tolerance is a threshold to allow for small sections in the toolpath to go with the direction of gas flow for up to this distance without causing another contour split.
TopMultilaser splitting
This experimental function generates hatching for concurrent exposure buy multiple laser emitters capable of reaching the entire buildroom each. The area is segmented into variable blocks that aim to cover the available maximum slice area in equal shares, and the blocks are assigned lasers for exposure. Gas flow is observed and laser distribution minimizes obstruction by smoke.
This function brings its own hatching, so you should apply it to contours only.
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Laser count
How many concurrent lasers are available over the entire maximum area of the part slice stack
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Default distance
Length of blocks in the direction against the gas flow
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Shift per layer
Moves the start and end points of hatch segments to avoid accumulating artifacts from always starting and ending in the same location.
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Gas flow angle
Specifies the direction of the purging gas flow. 0 ° is equivalent to -Y, and positive angles indicate clockwise rotation.
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Overlap in flow direction
(not used)
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Overlap against flow
(not used)
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Accuracy
All distance calculation results are rounded to increments of this value.
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Max. block size
Determines the block size used to subdivide the slice area. Larger blocks follow the hatching less accurately but take less to calculate.
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Hatch mode
Controls whether the generated contours should get a filling in the same step, and what kind of filling.
The controls for the actual hatching patterns are identical with the regular Create Filling dialog.
Reduce points
During import, more points than needed may be saved in a toolpath. For example, every time slicing traces across a triangle node edge, a new point is inserted in the path even when the path itself would be perfectly straight. This operation reduces the amount of points needed to maintain the original shape while adhering to a specifiable tolerance of deformation.
TopAggregate slices
Sum slice contours downwards and keep the generated "shadow slice". Does nothing on hatches.
TopSort contours
To reduce the "off" time of lasers during which beam deflection is repositioned, contours of a stack layer are sorted into a better order. Does not work on hatches, they are discarded by this filter.
TopEBPA calculation
This applies slice processing as saved in an Encrypted Buildstyle Processor Archive file.
Top