PrusaSlicer 2.3.0-alpha4 released  

PrusaSlicer 2.3.0-alpha4 released

Hello All;

This is a new test release of PrusaSlicer. Please note that this is dedicated to moderate to experienced users.

This is the fourth and hopefully the last alpha release of PrusaSlicer 2.3.0, following 2.3.0-alpha1, 2.3.0-alpha2 and 2.3.0-alpha3. This release introduces several new features, fixes bugs found in previous alphas and contains many additions and fixes in 3rd party profiles.

To let you enjoy the alpha without worries, the alpha builds save their profiles into PrusaSlicer-alpha directory, so you may use the alpha side by side with the current release without ruining your production configuration.

Improvements with respect to PrusaSlicer 2.3.0-alpha3

• The Arrange function is newly customizable. Right-clicking the 'Arrange' icon at the top toolbar opens a dialog to tune distance between objects and to allow rotation of objects around their Z axis during the arrangement. The arrangement settings are not saved in the project, but they persist between sessions in PrusaSlicer.ini. (#414, #3268)
  
• New 'Fill bed with instances' feature fills the print bed with the maximum number of copies of a selected object. This new feature is accessible from the context menu after right-clicking on an object. (#1350)
• Anchoring of sparse infill to an inner-most perimeter has been reworked to never overlap anchor lines one over the other. The old algorithm produced over-extrusions (left image), while the new algorithm (right image) does not. (#332 , #4076, #4204)
  
• Length of the sparse infill anchors may newly be configured with the new "infill_anchor" parameter. Setting the "infill_anchor" parameter to zero disables infill anchoring completely. (#1451, #5078)
• The Adaptive Cubic and Support Cubic infills newly anchor the internal dense infill lines to the outer sparse infill lines, which is quite critical for printing PETG and similar materials. Anchoring of the dense internal infill lines respects the "infill_anchor" settings, however the length of the internal anchors is capped to 5x infill line width. The following picture shows 2 mm long anchors at both the sparse and dense infill lines.
  
• New infill type: Aligned rectilinear infill is a variant of the old Rectilinear infill, which extrudes each layer with the same orientation. (#1938) thanks @m-schubert
• The G-code preview legend was extended when using the ColorPrint feature to show active filament colors and color changes by color boxes. (#5072)
• The stand-alone G-Code Viewer newly shows names of used Print/Filament/Print profiles.
• When drag and dropping a project file (3MF or AMF) onto the PrusaSlicer window, the user is newly asked whether to 1) open the project (that means the plater will be cleared first), 2) import just the geometry, or 3) import just the config. At the same dialog the user may choose to remember her/his decision and not ask again at the next drag & drop event. In that case the dialog may be re-enabled at application preferences.
• Vertical slider in the G-code Preview (FDM mode) and in the layer view (SLA mode) newly shows a ruler with Z-heights. A time estimate for the respective layer is shown when hovering the mouse over the slider area.
• A new Shift-G hotkey opens a dialog to jump to a layer in the G-code Preview.
• Filament spool weight can newly be set in filament settings. When filled in, the 'Sliced Info' box shows the weight of the spool plus estimated filament usage for the print (and therefore minimal weight of the spool at the beginning of the print to not run out of filament). Most of the filament profiles available for Prusa3D printer profiles were updated with the filament spool weight.
• Maximal zoom limit in the 3D scene has been increased, allowing more detailed view of the objects.
• The parameter editor was extended in alpha3 with hyperlinks to Prusa3D knowledge base. When clicking on a label text at the parameter editor with an associated hyperlink, browser window was opened. Some users found that behavior annoying or they consider it a security risk, therefore when clicking on such a hyperlink, the user is newly queried whether to open the web browser or not, and the decision is remembered. The decision may later be reverted at the application preferences. (#5196)
• Monotonic infill is now default for bottom layers. It has already been made default for the top layers. (#4963)
• Font size in the G-code preview vertical slider has been enlarged to the default font size for readability. (#5121)
• Icons and buttons in notifications were enlarged. Namely the Eject button was difficult to target.
• Layout of the "Machine limits" parameter page was improved.
• 'Export finished' notification is newly closed when the SD card or USB thumb drive is ejected.
• The print bed and printer thumbnail images are newly searched for and loaded from user's "vendor" directory before the installation "resources" directory. This allows one to customize the print bed image without having to overwrite the application global resources. Because the Wizard already reads the vendor config bundles from user's "vendor" directory, this feature allows one to install new 3rd party vendor configuration just by copying his config bundle, printer thumbnail image and print bed models to user's "vendor" directory. This feature also makes development of 3rd party printer profiles easier. (#4122) thanks @aegean-odyssey
• Localization dictionaries were updated for CZ, DE, ES, FR, IT and PL languages by Prusa Research.
• Brazilian Portuguese dictionaries updated, thanks @BoaImpressao3D.

Bugs fixed, regressions with respect to PrusaSlicer 2.2.0

• Arrange function sometimes placed the last object in strange positions. (#3900)

Bugs fixed, reported for PrusaSlicer 2.3.0-alpha3

• Fixed a G-Code Viewer crash when switching to 'Tool' view with G-Codes generated by other slicers.
• G-Code preview now works correctly when sequential print or spiral vase mode is active. (#4721)
• G-Code Viewer: Fixed color print visualization for G-Code containing multiple extruders.
• The stand-alone G-Code Viewer no longer modifies the parsed G-code, the access is read-only. (#5079)
• Fixed "G-Code Preview did not show after a language was changed". (#5098)
• Fixed vertical spacing issues in Configuration Wizard so it can accommodate an increasing number of printers.
• 'Test' button in physical printer dialog is now being correctly updated.
• OSX specific: Fixed a multi-display issue: Modal dialogs now correctly open at the monitor of its parent window.
• OSX specific: Fixed a layout glitch of the mode selection buttons.
• OSX specific: Fixed scaling of the G-code preview legend after the application window was moved from Retina to non-Retina display and vice versa.
• Windows specific: Fixed incorrect layout of widgets in configuration pages when two monitors with different DPI are used.
• Linux / AppImage specific: Fixed crash on startup on some systems due to boost::filesystem::canonical() issues. (#4973)
• Linux (GTK3): Fixed layout issues in preset editor pages. (#5081)
• Linux (GTK3): Spin controls in preset editor pages only showed one of the up / down buttons. (#5053)
• Linux (GTK3): Fixed wrong background color of parameter groups in preset editor pages. (#5062)
• Fixed crash when adding a Repetier Server Physical Printer with 2 printers . (#5153) thanks @mloidl

3rd party profiles

• Anycubic Predator profile improvements and fixes (#5104, #5156, thanks @nordurljosahvida)
• New Print and Filament profiles for Creality printers (#5092, #5110, thanks @pmjdebruijn)
• Creality profiles improvements and fixes (#5114, #5117, #5143, #5193 thanks @pmjdebruijn, fixes #4980)
• Added thumbnails and bed model for new TriLAB printers (#5118, thanks @mat100)
• New TriLAB printer profiles (DeltiQ 2, DeltiQ 2 Plus), updated TriLAB print profiles (prusa3d/PrusaSlicer-settings#108, thanks @mat100)
• A "Beta" badge has been removed from thumbnails of printers introduced in PrusaSlicer 2.2 to indicate that these profiles were verified.

What is in the working

• We are looking into ARM builds for the Apple Silicon. It is reported that PrusaSlicer 2.3.0-alpha3 is running happily on the new ARM based Macs (#5124), however we would like to evaluate performance drop of the Rosetta2 emulation layer.
  

  Download link:

  https://github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/releases/tag/version_2.3.0-alpha4

  Please report any bug here:

  github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/issues

  We look forward to your feedback!