SlicerPi, Slicer Docker?
After writing another post I've just had the idea, that idk if it's possible, of creating some sort of PrusaSlicer server running locally on some machine, on a docker image or why not on a raspberry pi or similar?
This would become very handy for people like me when unifying the whole experience of managing printers from different terminals.
I control my printers often from 3 different computers, (2 mac, 1 win) -- Having to create all combos ends up being messy, as I often end up with too many profiles I'd need to manage, and I don't have ways to control any version, nor push any updates to my other computers without having to manually do it.
Having a mini Slicer-Server would be awesome. I was looking at Rerpetier-Server, but doesn't seem to cut it.
Another option would be to have a NUC or similar where I can remote-desktop and slice there, but we all know how clunky this can be.
It would be insane if this ended up being some form of webapp that could be deployed almost anywhere.
Any ideas?
After writing another post I've just had the idea, that idk if it's possible, of creating some sort of PrusaSlicer server running locally on some machine, on a docker image or why not on a raspberry pi or similar?
It was fairly easy on a Pi until 2.7.4 - that version only works on the command line, 2.8.0 doesn't have an ARM build and webkit gets in the way. None of the builds play well with Pi5.
Install an older version on Pi4 and access from anywhere with X, VNC and probably other remote connection, install a NAS server or even FTP - keep your files on a disc on the Pi and you have an effective variant of your initial request. It is a little slow but not annoyingly so, like running on a 5 - 10 year old laptop.
Cheerio,
RE:
This is pretty interesting idea.
It is possible to put GUI apps to the containers and to be accessed vis web browser. An actual working example is already there https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/calibre - see the app named Calibre (to manage ebooks) which is the desktop app (for example X) in the container - and Apache Guacamole is an additional app installed inside that container to access X via web interface. As a result you could run the app in the container and have it accessed vis web browser.
I can also see that there is Orca slicer already https://fleet.linuxserver.io/image?name=linuxserver/orcaslicer
So I guess PrusaSlicer would be possible?
I can see some problems which may be difficult or impossible to fix, though:
- PrusaSilcer recently is available as App image which makes certain things harder
- PrusaSlicer may require some hardware acceleration of the display not to be sluggish or may not render at all
- amd64 vs arm builds, it may require non-arm image to run the container
- probably Linux image only
- data import/export - direct access to the printer over the USB may be hard to get, so exporting to mounted volume from host may be easier, or exporting to the printer over the web (for example PrusaLink or PrusaConnct). Where to host custom profile so that it would survive the container replacement would have to be done as well ( Another host path mount I guess)
I think the best option would be to talk with guys from linuxserver.io
See my GitHub and printables.com for some 3d stuff that you may like.
RE: SlicerPi, Slicer Docker?
This is a good idea. I only have one printer but multiple computers that I work with.
Using VNC may be an easy approach. Setup up the slicer on a headless single board computer and work from that.
Another option is to share your profiles across your computers using Samba or NFS and set that as your configuration directory. Will work faster than VNC. This is the approach I think I will try first. Again, you can set up an easy file server using a single board computer and an external or internal MM2 drive.
Point of reference, Prusa Slicer on Linux, is now a flatpak, not appimage.
RE:
[OP under a different account] --- Funny, got the notification about the activity on this post, and reading it I just realised that it would be a lot easier to implement if the config/profile files live in a cloud storage.
So the PrusaSlicer instance can always run locally in your machine, as slicing complex models can be a bit intensive so a beefier machine could do it a bit quicker. But it fetches the profiles and configs from the server. It could be achieved with the current login to PrusaConnect. Config files could be stored in your account so then even if you were to connect from a new computer, you could download/fetch your configs, settings and everything, meaning that you could have the same experience in any terminal. (Meaning that it could also count as a backup).
Who to chat to in order to consider this as possibility?
RE:
Make a GitHub feature request, or maybe it is already there.
But for safety it would require cloud storage versioning with automatic retention, it would be a bit of coding to do that properly.
Now you could use mapped Google drive or OneDrive or something similar, but the problem would be a Linux 😉
See my GitHub and printables.com for some 3d stuff that you may like.
RE: SlicerPi, Slicer Docker?
Its already been requested. Many times.
RE: SlicerPi, Slicer Docker?
A simple config addition to the software to set where you store your config files is all that is needed. You can then map your network or cloud drives and access them. No forced cloud. I have seen the changes in other software that has added the ability to set where files are stored.
For Prusa slicer I had to configure the flatpak to allow me to use my shared drive. Once I did that, I can now set all my config files there by link the config file to that drive. Don't need any software changes.
As for backup, the config files are small and will fit on a USB stick, an OLD usb stick.