Print Optimisation software - is there one?

[blissiictrl]

Hey guys,

I've been printing for a while now, and I have to say, I'm disappointed by the lack of a print optimisation software. I would love to see something that can take the model you've uploaded, or loaded into it, for example, and test it for the least required support/best final quality print alignment. I know this would be something that's definitely calculation intensive, even if you go every degree in X/Y/Z that's 46.66 million calculations alone, that number effectively goes much higher if you start going down to 0.5 of a degree or 0.1 of a degree, but it would definitely be a way to optimise printing. Hell, if I was able to program, this would definitely be something I'd be aiming to produce! I print a lot of detailed objects from Eve Online, such as ships and turrets (i'm building myself a tabletop game to play lol) and the amount of prints I've had to throw out (mind you, at a 25mm scale I definitely expected to) is not even calculable! Printing 5-6 versions of the same ship, just in the off chance that it works once!

Anybody have an opinion on this? Or know of a software that would basically do something along these lines?

Questions/Comments appreciated!

[Jeremia_Munchkins]

You know, this is really a great idea. I'm surprised no companies have come out with something like this yet. It's only a matter of time I assume (unless someone has, and neither of us have heard of it).

[Placebo]

Have you tried KISSLICER yet? I'm still learning how to use it effectively but it is quite versatile. Another open source developer has written a post processing program called "cubeit" that couples with KISSLICER and works well. Check out the forums here: http://kisslicer.com/forum/index.php

[dave21740]

MeshMixer has a feature intended to orient the object so that support is minimized. I've tried it and, honestly, I can't make heads or tails out of the result. It's probably cockpit error, but I've never been able to get it to work properly, and I end up doing it by feel so the support blemishes will be out of view as much as possible. It's very likely I'm not doing something right, but I haven't felt a need to dig into it. It's worth checking out. It has a lot more uses than just print orientation. http://www.meshmixer.com/index.html