Apps and Tools

If you want to use your computer for the tasks in class and homeworks, you’ll need the following apps installed:

You might also want to use:

Linux installation

Recommended Linux distribution is Fedora, because it has all those apps in repositories (~app store) (except netfabb and KISSlicer, those are not open-source).

If you want to control the printer, your user has to be able to access USB over serial interface, that usually boils down to adding the user to the dialout group, but might differ on some distros.

Fedora

All possible tools and apps: # yum install @3d-printing admesh-devel
Only the necessarily needed ones: # yum install printrun slic3r openscad-MCAD admesh-devel
netfabb Basic can be found in RPM Fusion, as netfabb-basic package
KISSlicer is only available form the app’s website, because it’s license forbids redistribution

Use supported version of Fedora (20 or 21 for now), to get the tools in correct versions. On Fedora 20, you might need to get Slic3r form it’s website instead to get 1.1.7 - or preferably update to Fedora 21.

Other distributions

There is a chance some of the tools are packaged for your distro. Some of them might be missing or very old, if that’s your case, follow the instructions on the apps' websites.

Mac OS X installation

There is pre-compiled version of Pronterface for OS X, see:

Printrun

Other way to run Pronterface is to run it form source, for instructions, see Linux in the Linux section above.

ADMesh can be installed either by homebrew or by compiling it (follow the link in the Linux section).

Other tools have Mac OS X variant available (see apps' webpages).

Windows installation

For almost all the tools, Windows version is available. Get them form apps' webpages listed on top of this page.

Exceptions:

For connecting the printers and controlling them form your Windows machine, you’ll need some drivers. That differs from electronics to electronics. We don’t recommend Windows for 3D printing, although is’t possible.