Slic3rSo you've got a 3D printer and a STL file to print. You need a software to convert it to a series of layers and to generate the toolpaths to build it.
Here comes Slic3r! Its features are:
See the README for feature list and the Documentation page for online help and tutorials.
Slic3r is a one-man job. I started this project in mid-September and it's already being widely used and appreciated. I spent much time on development: more or less a couple months working full-time. I'm a freelance developer, and reserving time for such a project has costs for me.
Ohloh estimates the total cost of having developed Slic3r so far (although this has to be taken with a pinch of salt) at nearly $57k. This is probably too much, but you get the idea. I could have kept the code closed and started selling licenses, but I decided to share my work with the community.
In the RepRap community, many people cover their costs by selling hardware. They honor the free software licenses, by publishing their designs, but they can also sell material things (kits, printed parts, hotends, heated beds, electronics etc.) to fund and continue their research. Software developers... well, they can't sell anything :-)
I believe that building a new, fast, flexible, easy to use slicer is a fundamental contribution for the whole RepRap project. It also gives a boost to companies selling kits and printers.
I will only use donations to fund my RepRap-related expenses. Plastic, for example, which is necessary to test a slicer.
Sure. I'm open to anything that complies with Slic3r's free software license and with the interest of the project. Contact me and let's talk about your offer.
No, I'm not a registered charity so donations are not tax-deductable in any juristictions I'm aware of.
The following people and companies kindly made a donation (money or hardware):
If your name is not listed, please excuse me and feel free to send a heads-up e-mail.
The easiest way to install Slic3r is to download a precompiled package for MacOS X, Windows or Linux. No dependencies, no hassle.
If you want to stay current and don't wait for updates to the binary packages, you can clone the project with Git and then install all dependencies by running these few commands:
$ git clone git://github.com/alexrj/Slic3r $ cd Slic3r $ sudo perl Build.PL $ sudo cpan Wx
Note for Ubuntu users: you must first install the build-essential, libgtk2.0-dev libwxgtk2.8-dev, libwx-perl (this can be skipped, it just makes installation faster), and libmodule-build-perl packages. Should you have problems with the sudo perl Build.PL command, you can replace it with curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo --installdeps . which should work a lot better on some Ubuntu systems having broken CPAN setups.
Note for Mac (Lion) users: see this page for instructions.
Note for Win users: see this page for instructions.