Hey list,
firstly my apologies for the late reply. But do know we are interested
and committed. I've been just very busy the last few days. I'll try to
respond to all previous mails 'in order', hopefully that won't be too
confusing ;)
On 19-09-14 17:32, Michael Sweet wrote:
> Olliver,
>> Welcome!
>> Organizationally we are still very early in the process - we've had one "BOF" (Birds of a Feather) session to talk about 3D printing at a very high level and determine our next steps, and are now working on a white paper that we can circulate to get interested people involved.
I found the BOF Slides and the minutes thereof. I just wish I was
available and knew of the meeting as I would have hopefully given some
useful comments. I guess if you want my comments on the slide/minutes,
you can always poke me and I'll respond as I can :)
>> I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts and experiences WRT adapting CUPS and IPP to support your printers - that's the kind of information we need right now to start scoping out what changes are needed for 3D printing in general.
Well as I said, i had the idea and desire to go the CUPS route, as I see
so many similarities between 2D and 3D printing. On the technical side
of things, I also realize the many differences. So how detailed do you
need to know things?
Anyway, I have known and loved CUPS for many years. I do still remember
the days of lpr and pdq on trying to get my 'winmodem' printer to work.
I've used CUPS on Linux desktops and servers since I can remember. IPP
however, while I know it's the technology behind CUPS, I have much less
technical knowledge off. Just that it allows for printing over IP.
Obviously we haven't adapted or touched CUPS yet in that regard, or you
would have seen patches passing by. So here are just some random thoughts.
My idea initially was to integrate the several stages to get 3D prints
through CUPS. First I would just pass g-code through CUPS, as I consider
it something similar to PostScript. True, G-code contains some machine
specific stuff, but it would get the first proof of concept out. After
that I was looking how to get the more generic STL through CUPS using
our own slicer, CuraEngine as a printer filter. I was under the
impression that you can feed more random data (bitmaps for example) into
cups, where the printer filter would then generate the printer specific
G-code.
A quick side note is, that at the moment, CuraEngine is one of the very
few slicers that actually supports AMF, but as you said, AMF is not an
open standard, and we need it to be an OpenStandard if we want to go
this route. We already require changes to the standard (and are
violating it because of these needs).
The printer driver, would then be the bit that takes the printer
specific G-code (or maybe generic g-code and then adds printer specific
bits) and sends it via serial or whatever to the printer (usb-serial in
the case of our current printers) and receives sensor information.
All sounds obvious and expected or completely impossible :) I don't
know, I am just a CUPS user!
Now, what changes do I for see that are required to support 3D printing
over 2D printing? For one, we have to think oldskool on one hand, but
also anticipate that 3D printing is in it's early starting period (since
30 years) and many things are still evolving. For one, we treat 3D
printers like matrix printers now. Old matrix printers had to be put
'online' via a button for example, to let the system know the paper was
loaded and everything was ready. The out of paper (build platform full?)
and out of ink (no filament) are statuses not yet available. This is
where the evolving part comes in, sensors like these will happen for
sure. ;) Also, right now, the printer does not always know what filament
it has. I'm sure in the future there will be sensors in the spools
(cartridges) making it possible for the printer to know the type and
color of the filament. This is a big difference between printers then
and now though. In the old days, you had monochrome printers, but only
having black ink was common. Some hobbyist changed their inks to
different colors, but still printed everything as if it where black.
Now, we'd want to know which color of filament is currently in the
printer, not just black or color. This can be especially important when
you get 10 printers for your company, and each you have 5 colors and 2
different kind of materials. You want to be able to pick a printer based
on color and material. And that brings us to the next thing that is
different, multi-material.
Multiple materials can be used in various forms, think of a 3D printed
pen, where the handle is covered in soft rubber like material. Or water
soluble support material. Now the first case can easily be handled by
thinking of materials as different colors. How this can be done
practically of course is something to be seen, and not a huge issue now,
there's few multi-material printers right now. As for support material,
that's something the filter would add to the g-code so shouldn't matter
here.
Since this is already a pretty big wall of text, I leave these thoughts
with you for now.
>> Once we have something concrete we can actually propose formation of a PWG workgroup...
I'm looking very much forward an being a part of this.
Just for my information (and you may reply off list if you wish to keep
this information private), a year or so ago, there where rumours that
both Apple and Microsoft where working on a 3D printing 'standard'. I
know Microsoft has something basic in windows 8.1, where is Apple
herein? Or is your initial CUPS work the start of this all?
Olliver
>>> On Sep 19, 2014, at 2:23 AM, Olliver Schinagl <o.schinagl at ultimaker.com> wrote:
>>> Hey list,
>>>> Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Olliver Schinagl and I work for Ultimaker in the Netherlands. I'm a Software engineer currently working on making our printers network enabled devices. It was a great finding out there is now a working group on standardizing 3D printing! A project item for me actually for march was to investigate the possibilities of leveraging CUPS for 3D printing.
>>>> I will now go over the documents and minutes generated in the last weeks to get up to speed, just wanted to say Hi and let everybody know that we from Ultimaker are very excited this is taking off.
>>>> --
>> Met vriendelijke groeten, Kind regards, 与亲切的问候
>>>> Olliver Schinagl
>> Research & Development
>> Ultimaker B.V.
>>http://www.ultimaker.com>>>> _______________________________________________
>> 3d-printing mailing list
>>3d-printing at pwg.org>>https://www.pwg.org/mailman/listinfo/3d-printing> _________________________________________________________
> Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair
>>>>> _______________________________________________
> 3d-printing mailing list
>3d-printing at pwg.org>https://www.pwg.org/mailman/listinfo/3d-printing
--
Met vriendelijke groeten, Kind regards, 与亲切的问候
Olliver Schinagl
Research & Development
Ultimaker B.V.
http://www.ultimaker.com
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