Feature Request - Tower printing algorithm

[johnoly99]

Alessandro,

Loving the 099 release so far. I have been thinking, as another add-on to working better and better with bowden based extruders, the really big thing that makes print quality go down is the number of retracts/repositioning of the hotend etc...

I remember there was a feature way back in the skein days, something like 'tower' i believe, where if it was above an isolated part of the print, it would stay on that part of the print for x number of layers, then go back to the other features. This would greatly eliminate the number of retracts/crossing of perimeters, if there was some function in slic3r. You have the "complete individual objects" already looking at the hotend for collision, could it pull in those dimensions, and then print towers up until that collision dimension, then jump to the next tower? It could vastly eliminate retracts/perimeter crossings, and make for WAY nicer looking/cleaner gcode? Look at the frog print in reprapmagazine.com where they compare slicers, and you'll see the feet, on most machines, could be printed with only one perimeter crossing once the build reached the height it would normally start jumping around.

Just a thought, not sure how hard that would be to implement, but man would it help a ton!

John Oly

[alranel]

Oh - I thought that feature wouldn't be needed anymore but well, it does make a lof of sense with Bowden extruders...

[johnoly99]

Yeah, it's a throwback to the old skool, but, it's a logical way to eliminate travel moves and retracts. Thought I'd post up and see if it's a checkbox you could add somewhere :-)

[alranel]

One tricky issue is oozing while going down to the base of the next "tower", but I guess the vertical speed of a Rostock might make this a non-issue...

[johnoly99]

Yes, hopefully the vertical speed, and landing in the infill area of the part, will make that a non-issue?