Simplify3D User Forum

tenaja wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 8:47 am I hope so, too, but even if they do, we probably won't get to use it. They are headed down the saas rabbit hole targeting monthly fees from farms. There's no incentive to cater to us, since they already got our money.

Just look at the number of new forum users per month from, arbitrarily, 2017, vs now. Worse, and more telling, is the number of posts--we are switching to Cura.
They clearly screwed up in not collecting at least a coffee or two from us every year. So, now, they are scrambling to keep their code producing revenue.

As others have said, in some ways, Cura had surpassed s3d... But there's still a few areas that s3d is better, and still that minute chance that we won't be abandoned...

I started to use prusaslicer. It has a lot of nice features and was pretty easy to setup for a custom printer. I also like the way it handles settings. Much more straightforward and comprehensible.

It does still fall short in a few areas, but in those few cases, I just go back to S3D to handle it.

I hope version 5 ships, but if they go to a pay to play model, I will be gone faster than it takes to click the x at the upper right hand corner of your browser.

For me, 3D printing is for mechanical devices that I design myself. The most important thing is to design so that support does not become necessary.

Used S3D for many years, and still think it is the best of the slicers available.
CURA, is way too heavy and never ends well for me.
PRUSA, is fine but still requires development and there are too many things that I do not use.
IDEAMAKER, is closest to S3D, many good settings but their profile handling is shit, and their speed setup is completely foolish.

S3D is still the slicer I use and the result is always nice. If you have used it for a long time, you can easily tune parameters so the result is super nice.

I really hope S3D is still alive and continues the good work.

I think this product is dead. Not that I particularly care as I now exclusively use CURA. It's a shame as Simplify3D was once the best slicer out there. I know as I purchased it. Now? Dead. Dead in the water.

arhi wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 12:02 pm according to internet (glassdoor, reddit etc etc) there is only one main developer (the owner) so it can be also that he now likes another language...
Issue here is that S3D exist on all three major platform (Linux, MacOS, Win) and there are not many easy options for writing code that compile on all three so I doubt he's switching language as the major advantage of S3D is the speed, if he moves from C++ to some interpreter language (as I doubt he'd move to FreePascal that's the only other option that generates native code for all three platforms) he will lose the speed as no way c#/java/perl/python/javascript can come close to native code no matter how fast current computers are ...

a very common misconception. Much depends on the developer's qualifications. I very much doubt that the user will notice the difference if the program in C++ will run for 31 seconds, and in c# 34 seconds, but the development in c++ took 3 months, and in c# 2 months.
in this case, S3D is written using QT. There, after each method is called, a check is called for the need to call the destructor, and there are many places very similar to C#/Java. I have big doubts that it works faster than C#/Java.

XoTT@6bI4 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:56 am Much depends on the developer's qualifications.

This developer obviously knows C++ so I don't see what benefit it would get from e.g. C#, there's zero benefit in using C# for app like this, especially if you want to use it multiplatform, as while mono is cool, it still requires much more fiddling to get it to work on all three platforms than simple QT.

Furthermore, S3D uses OpenGL ( ANGLE supported subset of opengl: https://chromium.googlesource.com/angle/angle ), again, I doubt that there's anything a C# would bring here...

XoTT@6bI4 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:56 am I very much doubt that the user will notice the difference if the program in C++ will run for 31 seconds, and in c# 34 seconds, but the development in c++ took 3 months, and in c# 2 months.

I do *a lot* of development in C, C++ and C# (used to do a lot of java too but Oracle killed it IMHO so not any more)... first the difference in speed is much higher and second the development speed is not in this case on the C# side. Not on the long shot. If we were talking about starting the code from scratch, maybe, but since everything relevant (from parsing input files, creating output files, parsing variables etc etc) is already created in C++.. what is the part you will do faster in C#? add menus?!? Manupulation of the 3D object is not something any of them have out of the box and here you already have super fast code that works that you would have to rewrite in new lang... so if anything any new lang would be longer to develop stuff, not shorter.

XoTT@6bI4 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:56 amin this case, S3D is written using QT. There, after each method is called, a check is called for the need to call the destructor, and there are many places very similar to C#/Java. I have big doubts that it works faster than C#/Java.

Everything is faster than java when gui is in question, mentioning java is just wrong in this context... as for C#, I use C# for every simple "forms" app I do as it is faster to get to the end point and not too much slower in execution (it is noticeably slower, especially if you are running it on a "not so fast computer"). Normally I'd use cbuilder for that (same time to get to the end, faster end result) but cbuilder is not free as is def. not portable... freepascal on the other hand is a potential solution (NETFABB used it for e.g. from the beginning, dunno if they still use it now after AutoDesk acquired them)
..

so, I don't see any "common misconceptions" there ... apart from your idea that "c++ gui app is not faster than java gui app"

I get way better results in Cura but I have tried S3D on a friends printer and despite it being stoneage compared to many slicers, I still liked the S3D layout better, was easier to use too,just that the finished print quality on S3D was not as good quite as good as most other slicers but still not bad overall. that said, if they were to sell S3D for say, $50 for the curent version I'd still buy it.