35 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
35 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
# NodeSlicer Technical Overview
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NodeSlicer is a Blender extension designed for high-performance mesh slicing and G-code generation. It provides a node-based interface that abstracts away the complexity of 3D-to-2D geometry conversion, offering a pipeline for 3D printing workflows.
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## Core Principles
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1. **Fast Slicing**: Bypasses the Blender CPU-bound Boolean modifiers by using vectorized plane-triangle intersection via NumPy.
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2. **Robust Geometry**: Leverages Shapely (built on GEOS) for all 2D operations, ensuring topological correctness in offset/buffering and boundary extraction.
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3. **Extensibility**: A custom Node Tree architecture allows for easy creation of new nodes for custom toolpath strategies or post-processing.
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4. **Blender Integration**: Deeply integrated into Blender's UI while maintaining a decoupled geometry engine for maximum performance.
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## System Architecture
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```mermaid
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graph TD
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UI[Blender Node Editor] --> Eval[Node Evaluation Engine]
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Eval --> Capture[Mesh Capture - infra/blender_mesh_capture]
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Capture --> Slice[Slicing Logic - core/slice]
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Slice --> Gcode[G-code Generation - core/slice]
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Gcode --> Export[File Export]
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```
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## Data Lifecycle
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- **Mesh Data**: Extracted from Blender as `(N, 4, 3)` NumPy arrays representing triangles and face normals.
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- **2D Contours (Slices)**: Stored as a list of closed paths (NumPy arrays). Coordinates include Z-height. Topology (shells/holes) is managed via Pyclipper using the Even-Odd fill rule.
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- **Toolpaths (Paths)**: Stored as a list of open or closed paths (NumPy arrays). These represent the actual motion lines of the 3D printer.
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- **G-code**: Formatted strings that include travel moves (`G0`), extrusions (`G1`), and metadata (layer change comments).
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## Important Files
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- `__init__.py`: Node tree and evaluation engine definition.
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- `core/slice.py`: Slicing and G-code generation algorithms.
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- `infra/blender_mesh_capture.py`: High-performance mesh extraction from Blender.
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- `registry.py`: Central registration of Blender classes.
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