Pleasant3D

Zaggo — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:30:31 +0000

Very often I had the problem, that downloaded STL files needed some minor editing in order to be printable on my MakerBot. Most of the time it was just a simple move to the center of the build platform or a resize.

In addition to that, I already wrote OpenGL code to visualize STL and GCode files a couple of months ago for another larger project.

Finally I had sometimes the problem that I downloaded a ASCII encoded STL file and wanted to open the file in my 3D/CAD application. Since this application can only read binary STL files I needed an easy way to convert ASCII STL to binary STL.

So I wrote Pleasant3D, a small utility which solves these problems and uses the above mentioned visualization code to display STL and GCode files:

There’s no zooming for now and the size of the “build platform” is fixed to 10x10cm (i.e. MakerBot’s build platform). I wrote the code in a way you’ll can choose different build platforms (e.g. RepRap Darwin, Mendel and so on) for visualization and adjustments in future revisions of the application . Since I only own a MakerBot, any feedback on your needs is appreciated.

You can watch a short screencast of Pleasant3D here:

Please note, that this is v1.0 of Pleasant3D and thus its initial release and first time in the wild. So please be gentle…

Pleasant3D requires Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or newer.

You can download Pleasant3D here for free:

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Pleasant Hardware » Snow Leopard

Pleasant3D