First, I want point out that I am very satisfied with the functionality of Simplify3d as of version 4.0 with all it's settings, the possibilities to treat different parts of the model in different ways, custom support and the like. I use the program a lot, almost every day lately, and I use it with different printer types and lots of different filament. But there's the one thing with the software that I do not agree with, it's the way it organizes the settings. Let me explain.
It is not obvios at all (and in many cases also not very logical) that e.g. the number of top and bottom layers is a "per qualitiy" setting but the nr. of shells, just one line below, is a "per filament" setting. I am also astonished that the print speed is "per machine" instead of "per quality" (or at least "per filament"), as in reality it is. I'm sure there's a documentation somewhere out there, which settings are on what level, but should it not also be as intuitive as possible in the settings tabs?
Another thing that does not suit "real-life" needs, is that the first layer settings (height, width, speed) are "per filament" and not "per quality", as it obviously makes a huge difference wether you print at 0.1 or 0.3mm. I'm quit sure, that no FFF-type 3d-printer currently on the consumer market can be operated with identical first layer settings at different layer height! Since the primary layer height is a "per quality" setting, so should be the above mentioned first layer settings, agreed? I am aware, that the orgranization of the settings is challenging and will never be to everybody's likes, but I am sure that it can be improved a lot, compared to the way it is done now. It would help me getting rid of plenty of (in fact) superfluos profiles, dummy filament definitions and other "work-arounds". Thank you very much for considering...
Re: Request to re-organize settings
Just so you know, you can already fully customize which settings are controlled by the material, quality, etc. So if you want speed to be a quality setting, you can already make that change. Through this same process, you can also see all of the other settings and values that are changed for each material or quality choice.
There's lots of posts on the forum already about how to do it, but the basic idea is go to File > Export FFF Profile, and choose the profile you are interested in. Then open that file in a text editor and scroll down to the bottom. You will see which settings are changed for each quality level by looking at the settings within each <autoConfigureQuality> section. If you want to add a new settings to your quality configuration, just add that tag into each <autoConfigureQuality> section, then save and File > Import FFF Profile to reload your changes.
It's also important to note that you only have to make this change ONCE. After that, you can just use the normal GUI for any settings values adjustments. So it's pretty easy, and since I personally think speed is more of a material related setting, I'm glad they make it fully customizable
There's lots of posts on the forum already about how to do it, but the basic idea is go to File > Export FFF Profile, and choose the profile you are interested in. Then open that file in a text editor and scroll down to the bottom. You will see which settings are changed for each quality level by looking at the settings within each <autoConfigureQuality> section. If you want to add a new settings to your quality configuration, just add that tag into each <autoConfigureQuality> section, then save and File > Import FFF Profile to reload your changes.
It's also important to note that you only have to make this change ONCE. After that, you can just use the normal GUI for any settings values adjustments. So it's pretty easy, and since I personally think speed is more of a material related setting, I'm glad they make it fully customizable
Re: Request to re-organize settings
Your posts are helpful, but this is another impractical solution by S3D. You shouldn’t be forced to modify their FFF settings in another program then to re-import them. Settings like these should be controlled within S3D by default, individually for each material, especially settings as important as these. Every material will have completely different settings that shouldn’t be globally shared throughout other materials. I believe DDDSam’s request to re-organize the settings is a good idea.
My opinion: The material should be always be the parent setting to all other print quality related settings. So, when you want to change from one material to another, it’ll change all the relative settings that will affect your prints for that material.
My opinion: The material should be always be the parent setting to all other print quality related settings. So, when you want to change from one material to another, it’ll change all the relative settings that will affect your prints for that material.
Re: Request to re-organize settings
The one big problem here is that with regard to settings and the way in which individual users want the setting organised and controlled is that no two users want the settings controlled in the same way. You want a certain set of parameters to be controlled by a preset number of filament. Somebody else wants certain settings to be grouped by quality settings. I don't want either!
The way in which S3D's settings parameter file can be set up to allow almost any set of permutations to be set up to allow selection by differing things is...and I know you will not agree with me.....a very good way of allowing different users to set things up in different ways. What S3D does lack is an easy way of carrying out this customisation...and of course good documentation so that users can actually find out what is possible...qnd how to do it!
I very much doubt that S3D will do anything to address this shortcoming in functionality. There is a way....not the best way I must admit....to set up the settings profile, and as it does the job then it's not going to be improved on.....and us users will have to make do!
The way in which S3D's settings parameter file can be set up to allow almost any set of permutations to be set up to allow selection by differing things is...and I know you will not agree with me.....a very good way of allowing different users to set things up in different ways. What S3D does lack is an easy way of carrying out this customisation...and of course good documentation so that users can actually find out what is possible...qnd how to do it!
I very much doubt that S3D will do anything to address this shortcoming in functionality. There is a way....not the best way I must admit....to set up the settings profile, and as it does the job then it's not going to be improved on.....and us users will have to make do!
Doug Kightley
Volunteer at the National Tramway Museum http://www.tramway.co.uk
Railway modeller and webmaster at http://www.talkingtgauge.net
Volunteer at the National Tramway Museum http://www.tramway.co.uk
Railway modeller and webmaster at http://www.talkingtgauge.net
Re: Request to re-organize settings
This is and has been my biggest complaint with S3D for years. I've basically stopped using S3D because the management of print and filament settings is such a complete disaster. Sorry, but I don't think that editing XML files is a really a viable solution for a piece of software like S3D. There are also several 'gotchas' here where, for example, if you change one parameter for only one particular filament that in the XML, that when you then change to a different filament, that parameter doesn't get set back to the previous value. The problem here isn't the underlying design of how these settings are stored, but the fact that S3D doesn't indicate to the user where settings are coming from in any way in the UI.
While there are shortcomings to it's approach, I think the way Slic3r clearly separates print versus filament settings is a much better starting point from a UX perspective.
I've actually considered building my own UI for managing the configurations in a more easily digestable way that would also automatically handle some known edge cases, but most of the time I'm perfectly happy to just keep using Slic3r PE.
EDIT: Here is a previous post on a related topic.
While there are shortcomings to it's approach, I think the way Slic3r clearly separates print versus filament settings is a much better starting point from a UX perspective.
I've actually considered building my own UI for managing the configurations in a more easily digestable way that would also automatically handle some known edge cases, but most of the time I'm perfectly happy to just keep using Slic3r PE.
EDIT: Here is a previous post on a related topic.
Re: Request to re-organize settings
I agree with kelchm (and the others), that exactly here lies the problem: the GUI does not make transparent, where which setting comes from. If you absolutely want to stick to the weird way, then at least make it transparent! And of course it would be nice to provide a way to handle the profiles, other than through an external XML-editor and the like.
The more posts I read here, the more I get the impression, that we - your customers - are ignored in this respect, you seem to be pretty sure that you've got it right, right? Well, others may not be so arrogant, so beware.
The more posts I read here, the more I get the impression, that we - your customers - are ignored in this respect, you seem to be pretty sure that you've got it right, right? Well, others may not be so arrogant, so beware.
Re: Request to re-organize settings
This is very annoying to me as well. I hate the way all the information is stored and organized. It makes it impossible to actually organize and keep track of.
I have had this program a while now and pretty much use it exclusively for multiple printers and still have not figured out how to keep it organized. This is my biggest complaint.
They need to hire more than one programmer, or this programmer needs to let outsiders in so they can help with the bad GUI and organization. They could make this great, but sometimes programmers are too smart to understand what the public actually needs or wants. They think everyone thinks like them and knows what they know about the inner workings that make perfect sense to them.
If a "Process" is literally going to be the most important thing you work with, then how about letting the Name field stretch out so you can at least read the damn thing. Every time I open the software I have to stretch the side bar out, then the name and type fields. Its annoying. Then, how do you put enough info in that name field to tell you enough about it? You have to open it up and dig through everything to remember what it was every time. When you have 3 or 4 different types of printers, this gets really cumbersome.
Why is every printer available in every process? Why not select the printer your working with and then only show processes for that printer? Or even break it down further for better organization. It is such a jumbled mess. I can't tell you how many times I accidentally saved over or didn't save a (modified) FFF selection.
Why not have more information than just the name and useless Type Fields to see from the main window or a flyout or something?
I am still at a loss of how I can organize this short of taking all the info there is and dumping it into an excel spreadsheet, and then somehow organizing it and reducing everything to a million processes that I can somehow code into just a "name" field for easily finding and using it. Basically that is the only choice you have, and every process for every printer and filament is all in the same list. Boo!
If anyone has figured out a nice way to keep track of each printer and each filament and each settings easily, please let me know. Every time I waste an hour or two looking, it just leads me to another list with people complaining about the same thing and no real solutions.
This is not software that helps OCD or promotes saving time and being organized that is for sure. I like the functionality and I don't mind the basic windows format look. I like all it can do, but it needs to be put together in a way that is better laid out and to where you can save your setups in a better way that are easier to navigate.
If they would just take some initiative and let some users in to help them or have some talks about what to do, it could be so much better. Spending some time on the organization and GUI will make a lot of people happy. Once that is done well, then get back to optimizing the slicing.
I have had this program a while now and pretty much use it exclusively for multiple printers and still have not figured out how to keep it organized. This is my biggest complaint.
They need to hire more than one programmer, or this programmer needs to let outsiders in so they can help with the bad GUI and organization. They could make this great, but sometimes programmers are too smart to understand what the public actually needs or wants. They think everyone thinks like them and knows what they know about the inner workings that make perfect sense to them.
If a "Process" is literally going to be the most important thing you work with, then how about letting the Name field stretch out so you can at least read the damn thing. Every time I open the software I have to stretch the side bar out, then the name and type fields. Its annoying. Then, how do you put enough info in that name field to tell you enough about it? You have to open it up and dig through everything to remember what it was every time. When you have 3 or 4 different types of printers, this gets really cumbersome.
Why is every printer available in every process? Why not select the printer your working with and then only show processes for that printer? Or even break it down further for better organization. It is such a jumbled mess. I can't tell you how many times I accidentally saved over or didn't save a (modified) FFF selection.
Why not have more information than just the name and useless Type Fields to see from the main window or a flyout or something?
I am still at a loss of how I can organize this short of taking all the info there is and dumping it into an excel spreadsheet, and then somehow organizing it and reducing everything to a million processes that I can somehow code into just a "name" field for easily finding and using it. Basically that is the only choice you have, and every process for every printer and filament is all in the same list. Boo!
If anyone has figured out a nice way to keep track of each printer and each filament and each settings easily, please let me know. Every time I waste an hour or two looking, it just leads me to another list with people complaining about the same thing and no real solutions.
This is not software that helps OCD or promotes saving time and being organized that is for sure. I like the functionality and I don't mind the basic windows format look. I like all it can do, but it needs to be put together in a way that is better laid out and to where you can save your setups in a better way that are easier to navigate.
If they would just take some initiative and let some users in to help them or have some talks about what to do, it could be so much better. Spending some time on the organization and GUI will make a lot of people happy. Once that is done well, then get back to optimizing the slicing.
