Plugin for slicing via the legacy version of CuraEngine from within OctoPrint, unbundled from OctoPrint starting with version 1.3.11

The CuraEngine Legacy Plugin allows slicing of STL files uploaded to OctoPrint directly via the legacy version of CuraEngine (up to and including version 15.04.x). It was bundled with OctoPrint up until version 1.3.10.

📝 Note

Versions of CuraEngine later than 15.04.x have changed their calling parameters in such a way that this plugin is not compatible to it. For this reason, please use only CuraEngine versions up to and including 15.04, as available in the legacy branch of the CuraEngine repository on Github.

The plugin offers a settings module that allows configuring the path to the CuraEngine Legacy executable to use, as well as importing and managing slicing profiles to be used. Please note that the CuraEngine Legacy plugin will use the printer parameters you configured within OctoPrint (meaning bed size and extruder count and offsets) for slicing.

Setup

Install via the bundled Plugin Manager or manually using this URL:

https://github.com/OctoPrint/OctoPrint-CuraEngineLegacy/archive/master.zip

First Steps

Before you can slice from within OctoPrint, you’ll need to

  1. Install CuraEngine Legacy
  2. Configure the path to CuraEngine Legacy within OctoPrint
  3. Export a slicing profile from Cura <15.04.x and import it within OctoPrint

OctoPi ships with steps 1 and 2 already done, you only need to supply one or more slicing profiles to get going :)

If you are coming from an OctoPrint version prior to 1.3.11 and already had the then still bundled version of this plugin configured, your configuration & profiles will be migrated.

Installing CuraEngine Legacy

You’ll need a build of legacy branch of CuraEngine in order to be able to use the Cura Legacy OctoPrint plugin. You can find the legacy branch here.

Compiling for Raspbian

Building on Raspbian Jessie and later is as easy as:

sudo apt-get -y install gcc-4.7 g++-4.7
git clone -b legacy https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraEngine.git
cd CuraEngine
make

After this has completed, you’ll find your shiny new build of CuraEngine in the build folder (full path for above example: ~/CuraEngine/build/CuraEngine).

Using Cura Profiles

The CuraEngine Legacy Plugin supports importing your existing profiles for CuraEngine Legacy up to and including Cura 15.04.x. Newer CuraEngine releases (e.g. 15.06 or 2.x) use a different internal format that will not work with the Cura Legacy Plugin.

You can find downloads of Cura 15.04.x for Windows, Mac and Linux on Ultimaker’s download page.

In order to export a slicing profile from the legacy Cura desktop UI, open it, set up your profile, then click on “File” and there on “Save Profile”. You can import the .ini-file this creates via the “Import Profile” button in the CuraEngine Legacy Settings within OctoPrint.

Configuration

The Cura plugin needs to be configured with the full path to your copy of the CuraEngine Legacy executable that it’s supposed to use. You can do this either via the CuraEngine Legacy plugin settings dialog or by manually configuring the path to the executable via config.yaml, example:

plugins:
  curalegacy:
    cura_engine: /path/to/CuraEngine