Reliable Open Source 3D Printing Software

Hi guys,


Let me announce a new IndieGoGo campaign to support development of a slicer and 3D printing software called 3DimMaker which is going to be released as open source.

Motivated by 3D printer producers needs, we started developing 3DimMaker almost 2 years ago. Our main goal was to develop a reliable 3D printing instrument for FFF printing large and complex models with thin parts and erroneous definition of the surface. Now, you can help 3DimMaker to become free of charge and open source.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/o-...pFpDT4o2vShMI9

Visit our IndieGoGo campaign for more details on our goals and what 3DimMaker and its slicer can do:

http://igg.me/at/3dimmaker/x/12489930

If you like 3DimMaker, please share this email, or link to the campaign, with your friends, colleagues and followers and help us push ahead with open source 3DimMaker development.

Thank you!


Best regards,


3DimMaker Development Team
http://www.3dimmaker.com/

3900 Euros gets you:
* printing profiles for your 3D printer bundled with 3DimMaker;
* customized version of 3DimMaker with your logos;
* binary installers of the customized version for Windows and Mac OS X every 3 months (4x);
* 15 hours of online technical support over Skype or chat;
* and of course, we'll mention you in the credits.

I doubt you get much support, especially since there are plenty free slicers available already.

a free program you pay for - it's a novelty approach, I have to say :-)

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eatured €90 EUR 3D Printing Hobbyist Change Perk
This tier is meant for 3D printing fans with limited income, but who have their own printer at home. You will get * 3DimMaker installation files as well as source codes available free of charge as thanks for your donation; * and we'll mention you in the credits.

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I 'donated' about 90 euros to simplify3d.
For that I get unlimited support and program updates and one hell of a program.

How does your slicing engine stand up to s3d's time wise ?
And will it automatically convert gcode to .x3g files like simplify3d does ?

Slic3r is Open Source. If you really need some ability to handle a special situation, wouldn't it make sense to add the code to an already existing project instead of trying to start all over? And then, everybody already using that platform would benefit.

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Originally Posted by Roxy

Slic3r is Open Source. If you really need some ability to handle a special situation, wouldn't it make sense to add the code to an already existing project instead of trying to start all over? And then, everybody already using that platform would benefit.

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For sure it is good to put effort into a single open source software not splitting the forces. On the other hand, starting a new project allows you to do things in a different way and finally the user can try and choose. Also, at the time we started development of 3DimMaker, Slic3r was written mainly in Perl and we were targetting C++ for the sake of speed and a larger code base we had...

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

a free program you pay for - it's a novelty approach, I have to say :-)

I 'donated' about 90 euros to simplify3d.
For that I get unlimited support and program updates and one hell of a program.

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We spent a lot of time developing 3DimMaker and we are willing to make all our source codes available as open source. Yes, we ask for money. This is because we need to exhange the STALGO library mentioned in the campaign story which cannot be released as OSS. Okay, we can remove the library from the code and just disable the functionality it is needed for, but we feel this would affect benefits of 3DimMaker when compare to the other slicers, e.g. robust handling of thin parts.

We would like to keep this project alive as we believe that 3DimMaker has still something to offer and we do not want to just throw all the work away. Exchanging STALGO needs a significant effort so the money we are asking for will go into this...

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

How does your slicing engine stand up to s3d's time wise ?

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When preparing the comparison we focused more on other open source slicers so I can't say much about this. But, according to this blog (http://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2014/7/...ith-simplify3d), s3d's slicing time seems to be very close to Cura and Kisslicer...

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

And will it automatically convert gcode to .x3g files like simplify3d does ?

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Sorry, there is no export of the gode to .x3d files...

given how many makerbot replicators and makerbot replicator clones there are around. Most looking for something better than makerware desktop and currently the only really viable alternative is simplify3d.

I'd work on the x3d export if I were you.

And as you are actually selling your software -regardless of why - for around the same price as simplify3d - that's what you should be realistically using for comparison.
Speed wise it does slice noticeably faster than any other slicer I've tried.