Create a Custom 3D Printer Scene

If you have your own model of a 3D printer and you wish to use it with the addon, you will have to set it up yourself. This is more advanced than the previous guides and requires a little bit of knowledge of drivers in Blender. The guide will walk you through every step.

I highly recommend learning a little bit about drivers before you start this guide:

• The first step is loading the GCode as usual. Follow Your First GCode Import if you are not sure how.
• Once you have loaded your gcode. Select the empty object that is created.
  
• Then find the Object Properties tab and then the Custom Properties subsection.
  
• Click the New button and a new field called prop will appear in the properties.
  
• Click the gear icon next to the prop property.
  
• Rename it to max_z_height and set the min to 0.0 and max to the maximum height of your printer. Below are my settings, you can copy them exactly. Increase max if your object is larger than 250mm.
  
• Right click on the value next to max_z_height and click Add Driver.
  
• In the driver editor make sure these properties are exactly these and entered in the same order as shown in the image.
  

1. Single Property
   
2. LayerIndexTop
3. Scene
   
4. Your current scene. Most probably named Scene.
5. Stitcher_Props.LayerIndexTop
6. Enable Use Self
7. Copy and paste this exactly
   

self["override_height_value"] if self["override_height"] else self["layer_heights"][LayerIndexTop] if LayerIndexTop < self["number_of_layers"] else self["layer_heights"][self["number_of_layers"]]

• You have now created a driven property. When you change the layer height, this property will correspond to the top of your print
  
• You can use this property in any driver of your choice and assign it to their z height. For Example.
  • Create a new plane and place it above your loaded GCode.
    
  • Go back to max_z_height. Right click the value and Copy as New Driver.
    
  • Then select the plane you just created. Go to Item > Transform > Location in the n-panel.
    
  • Right click the value next to z and Paste Driver.
    
  • Now your plane should respond when you change Layer Index in the addon.