OK, Time to Start Yet Another "Where is Version 5? " Thread

[arhi]

elevate Simplify3D to a more recent status in your eyes

transparency is required in order to get any feedback worth mentioning. without any info from you providing feedback is futile exercise

* actual data on what's been already worked on and what's the order/importance of each of the features being worked on.
* what's coming in 4.x, what bugfixes, features?
* when's next 4.x arriving if ever, or this is it and we should not expect next 4.x
* what's coming in 5.x, what changes, what features?
* when's 5.x coming

feature-request part of the forum is "full" with clear features, on top of that, some "more modern" g-code generation ... e.g. long sequences of very short movements in the GCode (something all modern slicers fixed)

What I fail to understand is that you are not taking the "low hanging fruits" .. there are so many features missing that are easy fix that would make a lot of users happy and solve the "no release in 2 years" problem .. e.g.
- connexant 3d mouse support (approx one engineer/day to implement, another one to test)
- octoprint integration (2 eng/hours to implement, 10 eng/minute to test for basic implementation, 2 eng/day to implement full fancy set of features)
- RRF (duet) integration (2+2 eng/days to implement)
- import/export all settings/profiles as xml/json/whateverhumanreadable (?! a week?)

that's like tops 2 weeks of single developer's work on super safe stuff that does not pose risk to the system (no chance of introducing bugs if a developer is not a total dunster) and you have a release .. There's bunch of stuff like that ... you can do a release every few months .. but when you, like now, wait 2 years to make any update, expectations will always be higher than what you can deliver

[gwhite]

The S3D people are clearly under strict orders not to say ANYTHING concrete or substantive about Version 5. This is clearly coming from the top brass, who have NO clue about customer relations.

I find it hard to believe that they are still making much money selling Version 4. Anyone who does the least bit of homework will figure out there's a serious problem at S3D. That begs the question: how are they still keeping the lights on? If it's venture capital, I'm amazed someone hasn't read them the riot act about the way they have mishandled Version 5, not only from a technical/delivery standpoint, but the way they have squandered customer good will.

I bought S3D on the recommendation of a friend. I have recommended it to others in the past. That friend has jumped ship, as have others I have gotten to know in the 3D printing community. There's certainly no way I would recommend anyone buy it now. That's a whole hidden sales chain that has dried up & blown away solely due to the lack of ANY real information about Version 5.

[nexy33]

good afternoon. sorry but I don't want to read the whole thread. tell me what about the dates of the new release? thanks.

A release date has not been announced.

You may not think S3D is dead, but a large number of your customers do.

I'm a Simplify3D employee and there's not just me here on our community forum. In fact, there are more Simplify3D moderators on here than there ever have been previously. We're all anxious to know more about Simplify3D V5. I don't think it gets anyone any closer to knowing anything more to insinuate that the company is dead or dying. I appreciate your constructive criticism of our communication regarding development progress.

I have 7 different printers I would rather not keep having to swap software when I'm setting up runs if it hadn't been for buying a sapphire pro when they launched I would never have bought this, don't get me wrong to start with it was good but is now feeling dated and old and is lacking a lot of the newer features. If there hadn't been the announcement when I purchased of version 5 coming soon I wouldn't have.

I'm happy to pass along any feedback you have or feature requests you feel would elevate Simplify3D to a more recent status in your eyes. There are several existing feature request threads that are fairly popular. If your desired feature has already been requested please don't hesitate to add your input to the existing threads for said feature.

If your still taking feature requests then the software isn't even close to complete IMO.

[billyd]

Is this some sort of NSA psychological experiment to determine the patience level of consumers?

[Printerman]

The S3D people are clearly under strict orders not to say ANYTHING concrete or substantive about Version 5. This is clearly coming from the top brass, who have NO clue about customer relations.

We are mostly private customers here, buying 1 license, and most businesses don't care about these types of customers.

Question is why a business would spend $$$ on S3D when the personell you can find is already used to the alternatives, but I guess they leave that to sales to figure it out.

Or they are SO CONVINCED that S3D v5 is so much better than anything else out there right now (maybe it will take your drawings as an input and make a nice printable model out of them?) that they don't need to care about anything at all and we will happily shell out 250$ in 2024 for it.

[steuned]

i used to be annoyed too, but at this point it is freaking hilarious. S3D has your money because some of the most popular 3D print youtube channels would recommend this software up and down the gamut just a few years ago, but people are still watching those videos today.

i could take the time to humor whoever claims to work for S3D, replying to years worth of suggestions with sweet nothings "i'll be happy to document blah blah" or "great suggestion, we'll pass it on to our blah blah" seems those are the only people that still "work" there.

[myprinter]

Have been following this for well over a year, and have to say, Too far out.

Have many paid software packages from different companies, and never experienced anything like it.

Using the S3D for many years, i'am happy with it. Had hoped for a v5 at some point, but don't think so anymore.

[newbpwnr]

Where is any update in the last 18 months?

[parallyze]

V5? I don't really care. A v4 bug fix? Yes, please. But everytime I think about S3D a scene from one of
my favourite movies comes to mind...

--

"Remember this. The people you're selling this software to are the ones you depend on.
We are the people who do use your software, profiles and slicing process. We find bugs. We
guard the forums when you're asleep. We're trying to help others, no matter what.

We're the ones being laughed at for paying money for a slicer. Led to believe there will be
updates, great support and communications. Someday we'll be happy users and enjoying
flawless 3d prints without hassle.

But we won't. And we're just learning this fact....

...do not f*ck with us."

--

The way S3D is handling all this is absolutely incompetent. I've recommended S3D to others in the past.... thankfully
not for the past 6 months or so, but I get really angry about the situation S3D puts us into.

[doug_scott]

I worked a long time at a software company that made fax and data modem sharing software. It was privately owned. They used tech support people to test the software, thinking it would be a good way for support to learn the new version. On paper it sounds great, in reality its not. Tech support people tend to look for quick fixes to any issue they find instead of reporting it as a bug. The software gets released and support gets to simply telling the customer the work-around for the issue. Then you get the "feature creep". When a new version was being written by developers, management would come up with what they figured were just little tweaks, it would break the software since it was not planned for initially. Then they find out that it impacts over half the development team that now have to recode their module, and it would take twice as long as it should have due to it worming its way through the code.

Last time I looked into S3D it was privately owned, being managed by a family, the mother being the one holding the purse strings. Her son was supposed to be running it, but he was being micromanaged by his mother. If they are thinking of getting some venture capital people interested, they will be disappointed. VC people will do their due diligence, and know all the tricks. The company I was with at the time tried to get venture capital, the best offer they got was so bad that the existing owner would have to pay them to take it. It was finally bought out by a US based network giant.

You can tell how good the new version will be by its initial version number. Given the length of time it is taking to even get to a alpha release, I am expecting the initial release client will be v5.3.9. It will for sure not be v5. If it is called v5 then they are being dishonest about the version.

Until they announce a beta release with a number of existing customers being offered the beta version.

For the people that figure S3D is a lot easier to use than any of the competition should go back to when they first moved to S3D. It was not anywhere near as easy to use as it is now simply because you have 18+ months experience using it. I have tried the others as well, but, being in my 60s I need to be cognoscente of how much time I have left to learn a new software from scratch. Every different app has their own way of activating features, and quite a few have their own terminology.

I have been playing with other versions, and none of them stream M105 commands constantly with verbose logging enabled. There must be a way of stopping that or at the very least a way to port that stream to a text file so I can get the results of the PID AutoTune that was posted to the log, then got deleted at some hard coded log size limit because I was not sitting there watching the screen to catch the tuned settings.