GCodeGenerator

Python library to generate gcode for Ultimaker 3D printers.

⚠️ This repository is only for this library, not scripts that use this to create gcode. Store those scripts in your project specific repositories.
You can install this library using pip install git+https://github.com/Ultimaker/GCodeGenerator.git

from gcode_generator import GCodeGenerator
gcode = GCodeGenerator('Ultimaker S7', layer_height=0.15)
gcode.create_tool('AA 0.4', 'generic_pla')

gcode.move(100, 100, 0.15)
gcode.extrude(120, 120)     # Extrudes a diagonal line from (100,100) to (120,120)
...
gcode.save('test.gcode')    # Or 'test.ufp'

Material profiles

This generator uses Ultimaker fdm_materials profile files to automatically use the print settings for the selected material. The settings currently used are:

setting	default	unit
print speed	70	mm/s
travel speed	150	mm/s
retraction amount	4.5	mm
retraction speed	45	mm/s
print cooling	100	%
print temperature	200	°C
standby temperature	100	°C

For settings that are not specified in the fdm_material file, the above default values are used. Print profile settings can be overridden for each extruder separately using
generator.tools[0].material['print speed'] = 45

A local .xml.fdm_material file can be used by specifying its file name/location. A profile directly from the GitHub repository can also be used by specifying e.g. git:ultimaker_pla_magenta as the material name.

File formats

The gcode can be saved using the GCodeGenerator.save(file, **kwargs) method. file can either be a string (filename) or an open file-like object.
Currently, saving as .gcode or .ufp are supported. Additionally, you can specify the following keyword arguments:

• format: [gcode|ufp] File format to save as. If not specified, automatically inferred from filename.
• time_estimate: number of seconds the print takes. If not specified, an automatic estimate is used.
• image: Image to include as thumbnail (UFP only)
• name: Name for the object in the metadata json (UFP only)

Plugins

To keep the code organized, the generator only has basic commands built in. Functions for more complex patterns can be added to the plugins folder. When a script needs these functions, it can import that module. This makes these functions available in the GCodeGenerator.plugins namespace.
A function defined as:

@GeneratorPlugin
def my_special_function(gcode: "GCodeGenerator", x, y, a, b):
    ...

can then be used as:

gcode.plugins.my_special_function(x, y, a, b)

See gcode_generator/plugins/patterns.py for more examples.