A New Kind of Slicer

Welcome to the Cosine Additive slicer developers blog. We will be posting information and updates about the Cosine Additive slicer as we develop it. Subscribe to our social media pages to receive notification when new information is available.

3D printer, both industrial and consumer, have always had a limiting experience when it comes to printing parts. The Cosine Slicer shatters these limitations by allowing the user to customize their experience, whether they are an engineer developing a prototype or a newcomer with their first desktop printer. This post is an introduction to our slicer and will cover:

  • Slicing in Solidworks

  • Slicer overview

  • Open developer framework

Slicing in Solidworks

So what makes our slicer different from other slicers on the market? First and foremost, our slicer is not a standalone piece of software. It is a Solidworks add-in and runs completely inside the Solidworks environment. This means that you can go from design, to slicing, to exporting toolpathing directly to your printer and never leave Solidworks. Not only does this allow you to work directly with the Solidworks part files, but you can locate them inside a full rendering of your 3D printer. This also means that all of the slicer settings are tied directly to the Solidworks Assembly file that you sliced the part inside of. You can even visualize your toolpathing and simulate your printing inside Solidworks.

Slicer Overview

What we are developing here at Cosine Additive is not just another slicer, but a slicer framework within which we can slice parts. But what does this mean? Our slicer can be divided into two main parts; The slicer framework, which contains the slicing engine and interfaces with Solidworks, and the various modules that extend the functionality of the slicer. Here is a brief description of the type of modules you can import into the slicer:

  • Slicing Algorithms: Algorithms for generating toolpathing for things like shells, infill, support, 4 axis printing, etc.

  • Toolpathing Translators: Translators can take the toolpathing created by the slicer and convert it into code tailored to specific printer firmware.

  • ·Toolpath Post Processing: Our processor reads through the created toolpathing and make modifications and additions based on the modules in use. This includes minimum line segment filtering, custom rapid moves, extruder priming, coasting, etc.

  • Visualization Algorithms: The properties and functions that render gcode to screen. This include rendering toolpathing based on speed, type of operation, current tool in use, etc.

 
 

This leads into the next questions. Why structure our slicer like this? There are a couple of benefits to this setup. First, this allows the user to customize their slicer to their specific hardware and application. Do you have a 4th axis on your printer? Then load in the 4th axis toolpathing modules into the slicer. If not, then don’t clutter up the UI with settings that you don’t need. Is layer time your main concern? Add in the layer time visualization module. A new module was just released and you want to use it? No need to reinstall the slicer, just download the modules dll and plug it right in.

Open Developer Framework

This flexibility also leads into another feature that our slicer offers: 3rd party customization. Our slicing framework exposes an API to 3rd party developers that allows them to create and use custom modules. Have you got a crazy fractal infill generation algorithm? That’s great! Code it up and import it immediately. Has your company developed a proprietary algorithm for 5 axis toolpath generation? You can create a module using the API and keep the algorithm proprietary. Our slicer will only see the methods that are exposed by the API.

Coming Soon

This is a high level overview of our slicer and how it works. Stay tuned for future updates where we’ll dive into the details of specific features of our slicer and the exciting things we have planned moving forward. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get updates not only on our slicer, but also on all the other 3D printing developments.

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