Firstly, I'll admit that there may be some additional retract / extrusion multiplier and maybe some other settings that I can tweak. I used the exact values that I normally use in KISSlicer. That may explain a few of the print issues not listed below. But I'm seeing some other weirdness that I need some help with.
And I love the MatterControl UI. Everything is very slick, and almost all of the settings that I leverage in KISSlicer are present.
1. The slicer skipped lines
This one and the next are headscratchers. It looks to me if the size of the model or feature isn't an exact multiple of the nozzle width, it just skips a line to conpensate. You can see these in the sample print above. This model isn't very complicated, and the slicer just plain uses weird line spacing, resulting in missed lines in the print. This is also present and easy to see when you switch to layer view. Is there a setting that I'm missing?
2. The slicer renders each numbered loop separately
The slicer accepts a setting that completes loops from inside out by default, which is great. What's not so great is that it renders each perimeter line for all features combined before going to the next feature. So if there are 2 perimeters, it will render the internal perimeter for all features first, then go back to the external perimeter separately. This results in 3 times as many starts and stops as it should, and affects the surface finish. It also completely removes the benefit of going inside to out on perimeters. Maybe I'm spoiled, but KISSlicer does all loops for each feature separately.
3. The slicer causes the hotend to dance a little jig between some moves
This one I think I've figured out. There's a setting to avoid crossing printed perimeters, so what the slicer is doing is dancing around existing layer features to get to the next line.
This can be turned off, and is in the settings menu as "Avoid Crossing Perimeters" and in the settings export as "avoid_crossing_perimeters"
4. The slicer will sometimes just dart from one position to another without retraction or z-lift
This one I may have figured out, but haven't had a free machine available to try. You can see this in the diagonal drag lines present in the print. There's a hidden setting that tells the slicer that it doesn't need a retract or zlift when going between features on the same layer. You'll also see the hot end dart at full speed between features on a layer without retract and zlift, dragging the head diagonally.
There is a hidden setting, which can only be changed by exporting then importing the changed settings file. This is in the settings export as "only_retract_when_crossing_perimeters".
5. No way to declare brim height. Brim is always rendered at the default first layer height.
This one I may have figured out, but haven't had a free machine available to try. I generally set the brim height to either 0.3 for PLA, to as high as 0.5 for some ABS prints.
There is a hidden setting, which can only be changed by exporting then importing the changed settings file. This is in the settings export as "skirt_height = 1" which most likely means 1 layer?.
Alan
