bambu-slicer-tools 0.9.0

Tools for working with 3D slicer (.3mf) files. Currently focussed on Bambu Studio.

slicer_tools

A library of python tools for working with 3D slicer files (.3mf). Currently the library supports Bambu Studio on the following very limited function set:

• Comparison of printer presets across multiple files. Comparisons are presented as Excel (.xlsx, readable by LibreOffice) files, which detail the differences between presets in all of the selected files and the system presets. The main purpose of this is to extract common settings from multiple files, but may also be useful in debugging files with many changes.
• A dumper that will export all settings contained in preset (generated by walking the preset inheritance tree).

Minor editorial comment: The preset file structure used by BambuStudio (and presumably other slicers in the same family) is so chaotic and internally inconsistent that while this project should have been a couple of hundred lines of quick and dirty code, it's now approaching 2000 for fairly minimal functionality. I'm releasing it because the difference function has been genuinely useful for me in building new presets, and the dump function is useful for checking presets. It also provides a first pass for programmatic access to .3mf files and presets, but it's up to someone else to decide if it is worth picking up to do more with.

Change Log

From v0.9.0 is the first release, with limited feature set.

Installation

Two options:

• Download the Windows executable (created with pyinstaller) from the Releases page.

• Install the package from pip: pip install slicer_tools.

To run, fire up a command or terminal window and run slicer_tools.exe, or to run from the python package, use py -m slicer_tools.tools. The rest of the docs use slicer_tools.exe, but feel free to use the python version if you want very slightly faster output (or if you are on a non-windows platform).

Usage

Differences

To generate preset differences for a single file, run:

slicer_tools diff --source <path to 3mf file> --output <output file>

The output file is optional and defaults to preset_diffs.xlsx, and will be created in the same folder as the input file.

To generate preset differences for all .3mf files in a folder, run:

slicer_tools diff --source <path to folder> --output <output file>

Both source and output are optional for this mode. If source is skipped, the difference will be performed on the working directory, and if output is skipped, the output is written to preset_diffs.xlsx.

For help, run slicer_tools diff -h.

See Difference File Structure for details and cautions on using the output file.

Preset Export

To generate one or more complete presets from a single file, each in .json format, run:

slicer_tools export <path to file name>

The slicer tools will then guide you through selecting the preset type you want to export and allow you to choose one or more presets of that type for export.

As I've needed to do some hacks for generating differences, please read the WARNINGS in the following section, as the exported files may not perfectly match the structure used internally by BambuStudio (they work well enough for the purposes of creating new presets, and I've run out of patience to deal with the special cases). The warnings about the following special fields are relevant:

• name and <type>_settings_id.
• inherits.
• from.
• version.

If you plan to use any of these fields, please cross check against the original preset file.

All other fields should be consistent with the original files and inheritance trees.

Difference File Structure

A slicer_tools difference file is an Excel/Libre Office compatible .xlsx file that:

• contains preset difference information for all of the .3mf files processed by the slicer_tools diff subcommand; and
• consists of three work sheets, one for each of filament, process and machine, corresponding to the BambuStudio preset types.

By far the easiest way to understand the difference file structure is to run a diff on a folder containing a couple of .3mf files and take a look at the resulting diff file. Once you have done that, the long winded descriptions in the rest of this section will be more useful and will likely make more sense.

Each worksheet summarises the differences between project/override presets and the system presets they have been built/inherited from. As these terms don't have a formal BambuStudio definition (at least not as far as I've found!), they and the related user preset are defined as follows for the purposes of slicer_tools:

• A system preset is one of the default presets available within BambuStudio, which are available from the "System presets" dropdowns in BambuStudio and can be found in the %AppData%\BambuStudio\system\BBL folder on Windows.

• A user preset is a user defined preset that is shared between all .3mf project files. These are stored in the %AppData%\BambuStudio\user\<userid> folder on Windows. These may form part of the inheritance tree for a project preset. (BUT: See WARNINGS and discussion below for handling of base user presets in slicer_tools.)

• A project preset is preset saved as a "Preset Inside Project" within a .3mf project file.

• An override preset is a preset that applies to one or more objects in a current model - it is the preset name that appears in the drop down selection box for the machine, each of the filaments and the current process settings for the project. An override preset may have a number of changes that apply for the project (orange values in the GUI), or may be the same as the source preset they are build from (no orange values).

  Note 1: that override presets are not defined at all in BambuStudio - they are a group I have created in order to be able to capture differences that result from using orange override values in BambuStudio. (It's up to you to decide if they are useful or not!).

  Note 2: override presets do not have unique names in BambuStudio - they have the same name as the parent preset they are built from. To handle this quirk in the difference tool, I take the parent name and append a suffix consisting an underscore and some random characters to provide the override with a unique name. Again, this is a useful convention for differencing and has no meaning within BambuStudio.

The slicer_tools package refers to the collective of the system, user, project and override presets as "preset groups".

With all that defined, difference are generated using the following logic:

• For each project and override preset in a .3mf file (the active preset):
  • Generate a list of all settings and settings values for the active preset by walking the inheritance tree for the preset.
  • While walking the inheritance tree, identify the youngest system ancestor of the active preset (the system ancestor furtherest away from the root of the tree).
  • If the setting value for the youngest system ancestor is the same as the setting value for the active preset, proceed to the next setting (no difference found).
  • Otherwise, a difference exists, so record the setting name, the active value and the value for the youngest system ancestor (this is the system reference value).

When recording the value in the worksheet, the following rules are applied:

• If the value is a string value or a list containing a single string [string], the string value is recorded (list entry popped if required).
• If the value is empty (unfortunately, yes this can happen), an empty string is recorded.
• Otherwise the value is recorded verbatim - e.g. ["string1", "string2"], etc.

After this, the values are colour coded to address a whole series of special cases and issues:

• If the reference value is unset, the reference value is an empty cell, highlighted in pink.
• If either value has a format more complex than string or [string], it is highlighted as too complex to difference.
• A normal reference system value is highlighted in green.
• If the active preset is an override and the setting value is different from the system value and different from the active preset's parents value, then the difference is highlighted as an override. I believe this more or less matches orange highlighted values in BambuStudio.

Finally, a small number of settings are highlighted as Special. These are settings where I have either altered the BambuStudio data to make the difference work, or are values that require special handling when generating your own presets from the difference data - see Warnings for more detail on each field and the workflow for creating new presets for more detail on these. If you are particularly concerned about where I have modified fields, please review the warnings about base user presets, version values and inherits values.

WARNINGS: PLEASE READ THIS SECTION

These warnings may repeat information from elsewhere.

• override presets do not exist in BambuStudio. They are a convenience I have created for the purposes of differencing.
• Similarly, override presets do not have unique names (or names at all). As a convenience for differencing, I've created random names by appending an underscore and random characters to the end of the parent preset name.
• BambuStudio's JSON handling is all over the place. Some values are strings, some values are lists containing a single string, and some are more complex. The diff tool will extract the string value for the first two cases and doesn't handle the third. If you are using the output from the diff tool, please be aware of this and cross check that your json format matches the json format in an actual BambuStudio file (i.e. the diff tool is not definitive for formatting).
• BambuStudio treats user defined base presets as if they were system presets. I follow this treatment, but to make it work, I redefine the FROM field for these presets from user to system. As the difference tool isn't designed to work on these presets, I don't think this has any practical impact for differencing. However, this is important for settings export as the FROM field will be incorrect (but you should just be referring directly to the base file in this case anyway).
• I do not know how to create consistent version numbers, so if a version number is missing, I specify it as xx.xx.xx.xx.
• Some system files are missing INHERITS values. This only occurs in files at the root of the inheritance tree, so I add in a {"inherits": ""} setting to allow the difference engine to work correctly.
• The difference engine highlights several values as special, as these are values that BambuStudio either always creates in preset files, or are related to one another, or both. If you are going to use difference output to create your own presets, I suggest using the workflow outlined in the following section to generate templates that will create these fields for you automatically.

Workflow for Creating New Presets

I'd suggest using this process for creating process and filament presets only. A lot could go wrong with tweaking machine presets, so this is probably better done within the slicer itself (where the slicer should handle error checking properly).

Creating a Template

This process handles creating a preset containing internally correct special values (see Warnings).

• Run BambuStudio.
• Create a dummy preset to use as a template:

  1. Start with a preset that is the basis for the new preset. For example, for a generic TPU, select "Generic TPU" or "Bambulab TPU95A", or for a process preset for the X1C start with "0.20mm Standard @BBL X1C".

  2. Save the preset as a user preset. E.g. "Jayo TPU" or "0.20mm Standard for Jayo TPU @BBL X1C". Don't make any changes to this preset.

  3. Export the presets. File->Export->Export Preset Bundle ...

     • -> Process presets(.zip) and extract the preset .json file you have just created.
     • -> Filament presets(.zip) and extract the preset .json file you have just created.

     These json files are the templates for your new presets, and should have all of the special fields prepopulated for you - See Warnings.

  4. Back inside Bambu Studio, DELETE the presets you created in step (2).

I've included filament and process template files in the examples folder to give an idea of the expected output (Generic TPU - Jayo Template.json and 0.20mm Standard Jayo TPU Template @BBL X1C.json).

Create Preset File, Add New Fields

This step is pretty straightforward:

• Copy the template file and rename with a .json extension to create the new preset file.
• Add any new settings/value pairs that you want to the new preset file, taking care to not replace any of the special fields copied over from the template.

If you are using the output of a difference run to decide which fields you want to add, note again that the difference tool tries to provide value differences, but provides no information about the correct formats for each field. JSON fields may be in a couple of different formats:

1. A list containing a string value.

   "filament_max_volumetric_speed": [
       "2.5"
   ],
   

2. A string value.

   "brim_width": "5",
   

3. Something more complex:

   "bed_exclude_area": [
       "0x0",
       "18x0",
       "18x28",
       "0x28"
   ],
   

I've found the easiest way to set up new fields and values is to assume everything follows format (2), setup an Excel formula to generate the fields in a spreadsheet, copy/paste the values into the preset file, and then compare the formats to an exported preset and correct the format if required.

As I've only been working with 15-20 settings per file, the modest amount of manual data handling required is massively lower than the effort to get slicer tools to sort the output format correctly, so I'm willing to live with it. If any one wants to pick up the automation torch, please go wild! (contributions happily accepted)

Load and Test the Preset

Import the preset(s) created in the previous steps back into Bambu Studio. File->Import->Import Configs.

Finally use the slicer_tools utility (difference or export) or the slicer GUI compare interface to check that your new preset settings match up with the settings you created above. You can also re-export your newly imported preset and check that all of the fields/settings are as expected.

Sample TPU Presets

The slicer tools repository includes the following TPU preset examples I developed using this package:

• A process preset for generic TPU: 0.20mm Standard for Jayo TPU @BBL X1C.json.
• A filament preset for generic TPU: Generic TPU High Quality.json.
• A filament preset calibrated for Jayo TPU at my local ambient conditions (60% humidity, 13C): Jayo TPU Flow Rate Calibrated.json.

To use these, you will need to import the process preset and one of the filament presets and use both of them together (the process preset is critical for extrusion speed control, and the same preset works with both filament presets).

Again, the Jayo TPU filament preset is calibrated for my local ambient conditions. I'd strongly calibrating your own filament by starting with the generic TPU preset (which uses the BambuLab Generic TPU settings for temperature, flow ratio and K-factor), and run the following calibrations for your own filament:

• a temperature tower (I've had good success at 205C, but many TPU profiles run between 220C and 240C, and depending on your filament this may be needed to ensure good layer adhesion (my TPU looks best at 190C, but I've needed to go a bit higher for strength at the cost of a small amount of stringing and slightly worse overhangs);
• a flow calibration (0.931 flow ratio for my TPU); and
• a pressure advance calibration (0.04 K-factor for me).

(If you do try my Jayo settings and don't get great results, I'd suggest bumping your nozzle temperatures as a first fix - also check the manufacturer temperature range.)

If you want to try it out from BambuStudio directly, please see my demonstration model on MakerWorld - if it's not live already, it will be uploaded shortly. The MakerWorld page has a bit more detail on the basis for the settings and a lot of photos.