Conical Slicing: A different angle of 3D printing
Current 3D printing slicers are dumb. What I mean by this is that even though they are slicers for 3D printing they simply stack 2-dimensional layers on top of each other to form your final part. There are basically no movements within the GCode instructions where all 3 axes move simultaneously. That’s why current 3D printing slicers are rather 2.5D slicers. But why are they using this approach? Well, simply because it’s mathematically easy and honestly because this approach works remarkably well. Yet we are leaving a ton of potential on the table because 3D printers are easily capable of complex 3-dimensional moves, yet we don’t have any software to take advantage of it. Over the last few years 3D printer slicers didn’t really change a lot besides being way easier to use and much quicker. Yet the general slicing approach always stayed the same. Cut a 3D part into a 2-dimensional slice, draw perimeters around the circumference and fill the rest with one of many infill patterns. The only real evolution we’ve seen this year is the Arachne Perimeter generator first seen in CURA that dynamically adjusts the width of the extrusions for more details and fewer gaps. Still, everything is on a two-dimensional plane, which causes the typical stairstepping pattern on sloped surfaces and of course, requires supports on overhanging structures.
Over the years we have seen a couple of approaches of non-planar slicing, often to improve top surfaces, yet none of them ever really made it into a mainstream slicer. Though quite recently we have seen a couple of really impressive ways of 3D printing parts that have previously been deemed impossible by using really clever slicing approaches. One of them is non-planar, conical slicing. A bunch of weeks ago I’ve shown this technique in my RotBot video, where I visited the University of Applied Science in Winterthur, Switzerland, where they built a 4-axis Prusa printer that can manufacture complete overhangs without the need for support structure. Yet the best thing is, that we can use the same slicing approach on regular 3-axis printers to achieve very similar results. And this isn’t just an idea published in a paper, but you can download the Python scripts necessary and try this out on your own parts and prints. I also uploaded a bunch of sample G-Codes on Printables for the not-so-programming-savvy! If you print them or even slice your own, please share the results and spread awareness around this method!
