Feature suggestion: SVG to infill pattern

[kefir-]

It could be useful to have the ability to mark a part with a number, letter or something else. This can of course be done by changing the STL, but it would also be an interesting option to be able to overlay an SVG on the STL (eg. drag-and-place in the Plater tab), and use that to enforce (or suggest) the infill pattern. That way, it could be possible to write some text or draw an image using the infill pattern itself. If the pattern isn't solid, slic3r should fill in using normal it's infill pattern.

I'm sure there could be other uses for this as well, such as letting the user override the infill pattern completely with what they like. For this, perhaps a "tile" option could be useful, so a small SVG could be used to overlay an arbitrarily large print.

[alranel]

Heh, very creative idea. How would it work with alternate layers? Cross-hatch or not?

[kefir-]

Good question! Depends on whether the use is artistic (ie. visible from outside) or structural. For the creative/artistic use, I'd guess it would suffice to write the pattern on the top and/or bottom infills, and not cross-hatch.

For structural use, one could either cross-hatch, or allow two or more SVG patterns that are printed repeatedly, so the user can define even that if they like. Not sure.

My initial idea was just the artistic version, perhaps that's a good start, even without any tiling? Just to annotate a part, or write a cheesy greeting. :)

I'm just making this up as I go along, though.

[pi-ratte]

If doing Characters/writing with the top infill - a nice option would be to be able to select a different extruder for the svg so that its printed in another color. Making it more visable.

[lordofhyphens]

Things that would be needed initially to make this work:

• Translate an SVG file to the same format used by infill (I haven't quite figured out how this works yet).

We'd probably also initially only want the SVG to be perimeters/lines (so no filled objects).