Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
Maybe I'm just missing this, I know that under Sliced Info after slicing a model it provides the filament usage (in objects & wipe tower), but it doesn't state how much filament was used in support material alone. This would be useful for both Single Filament printers and MMU units as it would help in some deciding factors as to how efficient supports are, without having to "print something out with supports, remove supports, then weigh the scraps".
SCENARIO (Prusa i3 MK3S MMU2S):
You add a model to slicer and set supports to "everywhere", print settings "0.15mm SOLUBLE FULL", slice the model.
Under "Sliced Info" it will display "Used Filament", and provide a breakdown for "objects" and "wipe tower".
Could we get a further breakdown of "Objects" please to be: "Model" & "Supports"?
I get this would be a rough estimate, but that's far easier to balance off of than doing a post print weigh in.
RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
Does it really matter if that is what it takes to print ? If you really want to know you can always turn off supports, slice, note down used filament and then turn them back on and slice again, note down new weight. Then assuming you have even a rudimentary education its simple math. No printing required.
Also this is a user forum. While the devs do occasionally pop in here its not a common occurrence. Its also not the place for feature requests. The proper place is over on Github - https://github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/issues
Issues raised there get a proper issue number, can be tracked and assigned etc by the Prusa team.
RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
Does it really matter if that is what it takes to print ? If you really want to know you can always turn off supports, slice, note down used filament and then turn them back on and slice again, note down new weight. Then assuming you have even a rudimentary education its simple math. No printing required.
Also this is a user forum. While the devs do occasionally pop in here its not a common occurrence. Its also not the place for feature requests. The proper place is over on Github - https://github.com/prusa3d/PrusaSlicer/issues
Issues raised there get a proper issue number, can be tracked and assigned etc by the Prusa team.
I placed it here on the user forum to see if others had similar thoughts about such a feature. It's easy enough to achieve as they are already tracking this information, all that's needed is a further breakdown.
"Does it really matter if that is what it takes to print ?" - Yes, knowing how much material is being used with various infill patterns, support patterns, helps greatly when printing on a budget.
"You could just do x manual method" - You're mistaken. You've only found out the model without supports is "x" amount of filament. OK That's neat, when you add more than 1 material it introduces something called a "purge block". That has no breakdown. It literally just tells you "yeah we used this amount of filament, but we won't tell you how much of 1 or the other".
Thanks for pointing me to Github though.
RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
They ended up linking my request to a 2 year old still open request, wowsers
RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
They ended up linking my request to a 2 year old still open request, wowsers
That is normal for a duplicate. A feature request has been submitted. If it generates sufficient interest, it may get attention. If not, just submitting a request is not going to make it happen.
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RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
Got it, so talking about it on the forums to drum up attention was the right move. Cool
RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
Got it, so talking about it on the forums to drum up attention was the right move. Cool
Much like the weather, you can talk about it all you like but just doing so won't change it. If you want to add more information to the github request, perhaps you can make a more compelling case. Discussing it here might get more people to add to the request. All in all though, there are a lot of feature requests, so I wouldn't expect a sudden shift in priorities unless you can draw more attention to it.
It's an interesting idea. I'm certainly not opposed to it and it is interesting information.
If you create "virtual extruders" in your printer settings, you can specify different extruders for perimeters, infill, solid infill, supports and interfaces. These won't interfere with the actual print process on a single extruder setup (I'm testing as I write) so it's a zero effort change.
This will result in the totals for each extruder being separately in the embedded summary in the generated gcode:
; filament used [mm] = 24.8, 103.1, 1711.1, 27.0, 112.5
; filament used [cm3] = 0.1, 0.2, 3.9, 0.1, 0.3
; filament used [g] = 0.1, 0.3, 4.8, 0.1, 0.3
; filament cost = 0.0, 0.0, 0.1, 0.0, 0.0
As was noted in the github duplicate request yours was merged with, the programming has already been done in the slicer (the hard part) so all you're asking for is to expose that same information in the user interface (the easy part). I'd add more data to the github with this detail to increase the odds of it being noticed. You can even make a good case for using the information for other purposes (e.g. weight of infill versus perimeters for lightweight part design, comparing optimal infill settings). I think you could rally some support from the MMU user base as well. I can see the value of a "detail" button if not dedicated screen real estate. The idea of a "detailed analysis" feature for PrusaSlicer is a good one, so maybe even go bigger.
I wouldn't take your request being merged and closed (or any of the related discussion) personally. A very busy developer has taken the time to read it, determine it is a duplicate and merge it, thus reducing the clutter. This is a good thing. What you want to do is draw attention to the existing request to generate some buzz.
For now though, your best bet is probably either a post-processing script to extract the information or a small script just write it to an info file or the screen.
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He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking. -- Spock in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
Purge Tower = "Wipe Tower Width" * "# of tool changes"
Two materials would be simple enough.
I have 408 tool changes with only 2 materials printed that would look like 24.48 m (24,480 mm = 60mm * 408). With the tool changes being an Even number it means the printer ended on Material #1, which means it was used more times in the purge block than Material #2.
Things get more complex the more materials you add, and whether or not they are present in that layer/purge.
Since you've brought up just scripting my own solution, I've just decided to do that and do it in python.
RE: Feature Request - Provide More Detailed Filament Usage Breakdown
[...] Since you've brought up just scripting my own solution, I've just decided to do that and do it in python.
That's the way I've gone with extras I'm after. Keep the issue going on github though. I'm sure other folks will be interested.
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He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking. -- Spock in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan