Looking and/or Building GCode Editor software. Please Advice.

i'm currently building one as i searched google few days back with no luck. i saw some request from others as well (somewhere 3-10 years back post) but i guess it should not in the "workflow"?. well, hope is still not diminished to find the good one. objective.... to final touch up gcode generated file from 3d printing software such as slic3r et al. capable of points edit move/delete/insert. interactive visualization and editing etc. and to rectify faulty generating slicer software. if it has no such capability please advice the "BEST" or the closest gcode editor you know, thanks for suggestions.

also attached is the gcode editor i'm currently working on. features is somewhere as stated above, select G1 points/coordinates/vertexes, visualization of range or single layer(s) of gcode much like repetier host but only 2D (top) view... interactive visualization and points selection proc are 90%. editing/moving/delete/inserting vertices/points are in progress to come. please cnc (critics and comments) thanks.

no answer? or is it very few people lurk in software/experimental section? shall i report in another section?

Post in the General section with a pointer to this posting.

Or maybe here, in the Developers forum: [forums.reprap.org]

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

for the completion, i've found/made the software...
download link = [www.soasystem.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2014 02:27AM by shafri.

Hello shafri

I'm...quite amazed about the lack of response to your software.
In my oppinion, I've reached a point where it is obvious for me that I need a "visual gcode editor".
I don't know if yours is the one but I'll sure give it a try.

First of all, I'll start with my problem, in search for a solution.

Please see attached file, inside a gcode with a problem.
Somewhere at layer21, layer height 7.7mm, I have some nasty artefacts that I cannot remove.
They do not exist in the STL file, they appeared during slicing.
This has to be cleaned.

Till now, I used "gcode.ws" site for gcode visualisation.
Now, I'm using the integrated features of kisslicer, "Models+path" mode.
However, none of the both tools gives me the opportunity to identify where those rogue lines are so I can delete them manually.

I will further test it and come back with some feedback... two years after your post :-)

yes its been nearly a year.. less respond is a blessing actually so i dont have to please everybody with requests to make this sw can do all the things, i got different task to do i'm not full programmer. lack of interest maybe due to its windows closed source only, not linux compatible, and i dont expect quick interest from many people, so very few requests from anybody that really in need for it is more comfortable and about right i think. so...

i downloaded your file and analyze... 1st you need to understand that this sw will separate layer when it detects z-axis traversal, even if z-axis goes back down, it will add another layer, regardless. thats how it works we have to deal with it sorry i havent much time making it robust for everybody. furthermore, i see this behaviour as a "feature", where i can make really refined or detailed editing since this sw will read/record/layer for each z-traversal individually. if the sw lumped all the same z-axis in the same layer, it will be difficult to edit and visualize sequentially. hence my gcode editor will not read your problematic layer as a single layer 21, instead its in layer L3492 - L3535 (if the height is 7.7mm as you stated and i read correctly), i have to find it manually. L3492-L3535 consist/include several of z traversals for printing layer 7.7mm, i'm not sure what slicer or setting you used but thats not the way i do in repertier host. my method is for each layer, the extruder head will maintain z position even though for traversal (not printing) purpose, but you mileage may vary.

so attached is the view of layer 7.7mm from here, the problem is, i dont know where to fix, everything just look right. once you spotted the problematic vertices, you can go to that particular layer that prints them, select them and delete. think i've written in help menu but here again for your convinience.

1) left click and drag on empty space to select, if you click on an already selected vertex/vertices and drag, thats "move vertex" mode. you dont want to do that unintentionally since there is no undo function. if you make that accident, you have to repair manually by moving them back again.

2) left click and drag: normal selection: whats in the box will be selected, whats outside will be deselected
3) left click and drag + shift: additive selection: you keep adding vertices into selection. already selected data (vertices) will not be deselected
4) left click and drag + ctrl: inverse selection: selected data will be deselected, unselected data will be selected
5) left click and drag + alt: subtractive selection: whats in the box will be deselected, whats outside will not affected

6) to view multiple layers at once, enable menu settings->layer range scroll (F5) and scroll bottom most scrollbar. or click and shift click listbox on leftmost (standard windows gui way). but you cant edit dimmed layers at once, you only can edit currently active layer (bright blue) one layer at a time

hope that help, if you need further help, just ask... fwiw.

It looks pretty nice, but I do all of my 3D printing and it's associated tasks on a Linux machine. Windows specificity is an issue for me.

Quote
jbernardis
It looks pretty nice, but I do all of my 3D printing and it's associated tasks on a Linux machine. Windows specificity is an issue for me.

thanks, and i understand linux users difficulty, but thats just as difficult for me for linux as i dont have linux platform to test and no linux ide experience or knowledge. thanks. anyway what interest me is how you get to see the bump of years old thread? did you subscribe? or you clicked any button to see unread or new thread/post? i have been looking for this button for so long to no success in this forum gui, i'm new here. i know how to subscribe a thread but thats tedious. how to see latest/new/unread thread/post? any button to click? thanks.

Hello Shafri,

First of all, thanks for the quick reply.

I'll start with the end: yes, the easyest way to follow a thread, to see a bump even if it's years old, is to tick the "notify me by e-mail".
If you want to see if there are any new posts, this works for small forums.
For examply, my country forum has a small population and it's easy to see the red numbers, showing that there is a new post in that thread.
http://forums.reprap.org/index.php?383

But on the mother forum...this not realistic (for example, in the General forum I have 3,732 new topics and 32.729 new posts.)

BUT, and this is the last but: login into the site, go to "control center" (upper right part of the screen) and you'll see YOUR control center.
There, on the left, go to "Show followed topics".
I think it's enough to check for the red flag, a sign that there are some new posts.

Yes, I need the Z hopping due to the bowden extruder.
Otherwise, it'll squirt all over the place.
But indeed, it's hard for sw to decode if z hopping was due to layer change or due to retraction purposes.



Now, back to your software: fortunatelly for me, I'm not using Linux so I'm fine with your Windows version.

Your software is a tool and I have to spend some time using it till I'll get used to it.
The fact that your sw detects also my retractions now explains a lot.


In terms of editing/ features, I noticed that when I edit a certain line, I don't actually edit it but I only can change the values.
This looks safe.
However, I was thinking that text editing would allow me to add a personal tag so I know where I messed with the gcode. But... I think I can live without it. It's not so important...


I'll come back with more feedback after more testing.

thanks a lot
Alex

Quote
alexella
In terms of editing/ features, I noticed that when I edit a certain line, I don't actually edit it but I only can change the values.
This looks safe.
However, I was thinking that text editing would allow me to add a personal tag so I know where I messed with the gcode. But... I think I can live without it. It's not so important...
Alex

thanks on forum feature answer. yes the editing looks safe i've thought of that. i can make that a simple plain text editing and you can type anything, but currently the sw implement a very limited gcode subset and the data structure is stored as coordinates,feedrate etc only, not the gcode commands. so if you type gcode incompatible command, that wont reflect in the internal data or the saved output later. the sw doesnt even support inline comment iirc. the trick i can advice, but if you can only accept this workaround, is by inputting "special coordinate" so you can search in text editor later. for example if a vertex is at say (3.3, 5.5), you may edit that to (3.2999, 5.5) and search for "999" in text editor. but try it on small sample gcode file first if it works, i dont remember how it save the file output if you put too may decimal places maybe it got translated to engginering notation, i cant remember its been too long. hope it helps.