Unlayered Slicer: the slicer for Unlayered 3D printers, with multiplanar printing built in.

Unlayered Slicer is Unlayered 3D's fork of OrcaSlicer. It is built on OrcaSlicer 2.5.0-dev and keeps its feature set: calibration tools, wall and seam control, adaptive layer heights, tree supports, multi-material printing, and network printing through Klipper, PrusaLink, OctoPrint, Duet and others.

This README describes Unlayered Slicer 0.1.6.

• Website: https://unlayered3d.com
• What's new: CHANGELOG.md lists the changes in each release.
• Source: this repository. Each release is tagged; v0.1.6 is the exact source of the 0.1.6 installer.

What it adds

Multiplanar printing

Instead of slicing a whole model in flat layers parallel to the bed, you split it into segments with cut planes, and each segment is sliced in its own orientation. Overhangs and surfaces can then be printed in whichever direction suits them.

• Cut Planes (top toolbar, Prepare view): place planes on an object without splitting it. A coloured preview shows the segments they produce, and each part can be given its own build direction.
• Skeleton Cut (Advanced mode): computes a skeleton of the model and adds a cut plane for each branch.
• Supports per segment: support generation follows the segments rather than assuming one flat bed.
• Hotend collision check: after slicing, a sidebar warning shows where the hotend would hit already-printed material.
• Help ▸ Multiplanar Tutorial walks through the workflow.

These features are switched on per printer: Printer settings ▸ Motion ability ▸ Non-planar printing (Advanced mode). The printer type there decides what the G-code looks like:

• A/B, B/C or A/C for machines with two rotary axes. The segment orientations are written as rotary-axis moves. A/C (a C turntable on an A cradle) converts the exported G-code to the machine's own coordinates, using the A/C settings under Motion ability; A/B is an experimental first take on a bed tilted by three independent Z leadscrews ("tri-Z"): A and B are the bed's tilt about X and Y, which the firmware turns into leadscrew heights.
• Virtual for an ordinary three-axis printer. Each segment's layers are still tilted, but the nozzle stays upright and no rotary moves are written. Set Max tilt angle and Max print height (from the bed) to suit your printer. Both default to 0, which means no limit.

Unlayered printers

• Unlayered 5 Axis Printer profile (0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 mm nozzles), with its own process presets. Its start G-code calls macros that exist only on an Unlayered printer.

• Unlayered host type for printers running RepRapFirmware. It sends and prints like the Duet host type, and it adds two buttons to the physical printer dialog:

  • Firmware: updates the mainboard, Wi-Fi module and display. It uses releases of Unlayered3D/RepRapFirmware, or the bundle shipped with the installer.
  • Config: installs printer configuration files.

  Both work over the network or USB. They target the Duet 3 Mini 5+ in an Unlayered printer. See USB_UPDATES.md.

Web application tab

One tab, Unlayered Universe, embeds a page from unlayered3d.com. It is on by default and fetches nothing until you open it. To remove it, set universe_app_enabled to false in Unlayered Slicer.conf while the app is closed.

A page talks to the slicer only through a documented bridge with per-tab permissions. The bridge is specified in WEB_APP_BRIDGE.md, and there is an example page in resources/web/webapp-example.

Removed from OrcaSlicer

• Orca Cloud sign-in and preset sync.
• Online vendor profile updates. Profiles come with the app.
• Bambu Lab cloud features: cloud sign-in, cloud printing and account binding. Bambu Lab printers are used over the local network (LAN mode, with an access code), which needs the Bambu Lab network plug-in. The plug-in is optional: the first-run setup offers it, and it can be installed later from Preferences ▸ Online.

Stealth mode is offered on the first-run setup page, off by default. It hides the remaining cloud account settings.

Network access

These connections are not affected by stealth mode:

• At launch: the app checks for a new version at https://unlayered3d.com/slicer/latest.json. You can also check manually with Help ▸ Check for Updates. Builds whose version ends in -dev skip the automatic check.
• Updates: downloading an update needs an Unlayered account. Help ▸ Sign in to Unlayered opens unlayered3d.com in your browser; the slicer keeps the resulting sign-in token in the system credential store and sends it only to unlayered3d.com. Signed in, a new version downloads in the background and installs on Help ▸ Restart to Update or the next time the app closes. On macOS this works when the app is in Applications (or Applications in your home folder); a copy anywhere else opens the download page instead.
• Usage diagnostics: only if you choose to share them. First-run setup (or the first launch after updating from 0.1.5 or earlier) asks Keep my data private or Share usage diagnostics; nothing optional is sent before you answer. Shared diagnostics say which features are used, slicing results and errors, crashes, and basic system details (operating system, processor cores, memory, language), sent to https://unlayered3d.com/api/slicer/telemetry with a random id that is not linked to you or your account. Models, G-code, file and object names, and the names of your own presets are never sent. The site also derives an approximate country from the request (the IP address itself is not stored). The optional Slicing improvement program, a separate box under Share, adds early access to new features and lets that data be used to develop, train, test, evaluate, and improve AI, CAD, slicing, software, manufacturing, and hardware systems. Change either in Preferences ▸ Online, or set the UNLAYERED_NO_TELEMETRY environment variable to switch diagnostics off for every user of the computer. USAGE_DIAGNOSTICS.md lists every event and field that is sent, and how long it is kept; the bundled Slicer Privacy Policy covers the same data.
• Universe tab: loads its page from unlayered3d.com when opened.
• Firmware button: reads release information from the GitHub API.

If you install the Bambu Lab network plug-in, it is downloaded from Bambu Lab's servers.

Getting it

Installers are provided to Unlayered 3D customers. There are no public binary releases, so everyone else builds from source.

Unlayered's own builds are Windows x64. The macOS and Linux build scripts are carried over from OrcaSlicer and use the renamed targets, but they are not regularly tested.

How to build

The build follows OrcaSlicer's layout. The dependencies are built once from deps/, then the application is configured against them. The OrcaSlicer build guide applies; the steps below are the short version.

Windows

build_win.bat --install-vs ide

That sets up a new machine with CMake, Perl, Git and Visual Studio. Restart the shell afterwards, then build the dependencies and the slicer:

build_win.bat -ds

When the script finishes, it prints where the executable is. build_win.bat -h lists every option.

Linux

./build_linux.sh -u      # install system dependencies (asks for sudo)
./build_linux.sh -dsi    # dependencies, slicer and AppImage

A Flatpak manifest is at scripts/flatpak/com.unlayered3d.UnlayeredSlicer.yml; build it with build_flatpak.sh.

macOS

./build_release_macos.sh -a universal

-h lists the options. Use -d or -s to build only the dependencies or only the slicer.

Bundled firmware

A Windows installer can carry a printer firmware bundle in resources/firmware/, as described in its README. It is optional. Without it, the firmware updater uses the GitHub releases alone.

Klipper note

If you print through Klipper, add the following to your printer.cfg:

# Enable object exclusion
[exclude_object]

# Enable arcs support
[gcode_arcs]
resolution: 0.1

Background

Unlayered Slicer is a fork of OrcaSlicer by SoftFever and the OrcaSlicer contributors. OrcaSlicer is itself based on Bambu Studio, which originated from PrusaSlicer by Prusa Research, itself a fork of Slic3r by Alessandro Ranellucci and the RepRap community. Thanks to all of them.

License

Unlayered Slicer is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, the same license as OrcaSlicer, Bambu Studio and PrusaSlicer. See LICENSE.txt.

• The example page in resources/web/webapp-example/ is MIT licensed, so that web applications can start from it freely.
• Firmware images bundled with an installer are separate programs under their own licenses. RepRapFirmware is GPLv3, and its source is at Unlayered3D/RepRapFirmware.

The Unlayered 3D name and logo are trademarks of Unlayered 3D and are not covered by the AGPL license.