gcode-preview icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
gcode-preview copied to clipboard

A simple GCode parser & previewer with 3D printing in mind. Written in Typescript.

GCode Preview npm version MIT license

A simple G-code parser & viewer with 3D printing in mind. Written in Typescript. Try the demo

Features

3D WebGL + pan/zoom/rotate controls

Demo Animation

Thumbnail preview

Thumbnail previews as generated by PrusaSlicer are detected and parsed. In the gcode these are found in comments, enclosed between 'thumbnail begin' and 'thumbnail end'. The images are encoded as base64 strings but split over multiple lines. These are now parsed and patched back together, but still kept a base64. This allows easy use in the browser for us as data urls.

image

The thumbnails can be accessed like this: gcodePreview.parser.metadata.thumbnails['220x124']

Thumbnails have a .src property that will create a usable data url from the base64 string.

See an example in the demo source.

Build volume

The build volume will be rendered if the buildVolume parameter is passed. It has the following type:

buildVolume: { 
  x: number; 
  y: number; 
  z: number
}

example:

Demo

Go try the interactive demo.

Installation

npm version

npm install gcode-preview

or

yarn add gcode-preview

Quick start

Html

    <body>
      <canvas class="gcode-preview"></canvas>
      
      <script src="three/build/three.min.js"></script>
      <script src="three/examples/js/controls/OrbitControls.js"></script>
      <script src="gcode-preview.js"></script>

    </body>

Javascript

  const preview = new GCodePreview.init({
      document.querySelector('canvas'),
  });
  
  // draw a diagonal line
  const gcode = 'G0 X0 Y0 Z0.2\nG1 X42 Y42 E10';
  preview.processGCode(gcode);

Vue.js integration

There's a Vue.js example that has a Vue component to wrap the library.

Known issues

Preview doesn't render in Brave

This is caused by the device recognition shield in Brave. By changing the setting for "Device Recognition" in Shield settings to "Allow all device recognition attemps" or "Only block cross-site device recognition attemps" you should not get this error. https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/16904

Notice: deprecation of Canvas2D

In favor of WebGL, I'm deprecating the Canvas 2Drendering. My reasons for this are:

  • WebGL (via THREE.js) gives me more options, like rotating the model
  • WebGL renders faster
  • I don't want to maintain 2 rendering methods due to time constraints

This means that as of version 2.1.0 only WebGL will be supported. I you really want to use Canvas 2D, stay at the 2.0.x version branch and/or consider forking.

Sponsors

A big thanks to these sponsors for their contributions.

Q42

Duet3D

Contributing

If you have found a bug or if have an idea for a feature, don't hesitate to create an issue.

It would be great if you want to help out because I'm always short on time to do more testing and improving. So for instance, maybe you'd like to help out with:

  • testing GCode Preview with a variety of gcode files, from different slicers
  • reporting any bugs you find and add as much detail as possible, or even better, a screenshot
  • even better yet: send in a pull request :-)
  • apart from the main code, lots of improvements can still be made in:
    • documentation
    • unit tests
    • demos, especially in combination with frameworks like React, Svelte etc

Donate

If you want to show gratitude you can always buy me beer/coffee/filament via a Paypal donation ^_^

Changelog

Jump to the CHANGELOG