Quotation & Automatic GCode : Pilot3r · Coming soon

Drop in a model. Pilot3r splits it, positions every piece for printing, has your slicer slice it, works out the price, then writes the quote and the assembly guide. You have nothing to do.

Print shops, fab labs and makers who sell their prints: anyone who needs to quote a large model quickly, without spending hours splitting it and slicing every piece by hand.

Quoting a large model takes time. You have to split it, orient each piece, run it through the slicer, add up print times and filament, count the pieces to glue, then write the quote. Hours of work, often for a quote that never gets signed.

• Split, following the Workzone settings: printer, piece size, tenon type, optimised split.
• Print position: every piece is turned to be printed.
• Slicing: every piece goes through your slicer, Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer, with your own 3MF project (printer, filament, settings, supports). You get the G-code, print time and filament of every piece.
• Price: material, machine time, gluing of each joint, fixed fees and margin.
• Documents: a PDF quote with the assembly guide, pictures of every piece and a data file for your own system.

Slicing is optional. Without it, you still get the split, the print positions, the measurements and the assembly guide, and you slice yourself.

• The largest cut face goes on the bed: it is flat, sticks well and needs no supports.
• A piece too tall for its base is laid flat. The limit is adjustable: by default, 3 times the short side of the base.
• Pilot3r checks that the positioned piece fits your bed, margin included. If not, it tries another cut face, then lying flat, then the original position, and tells you which one it kept.
• A piece made of several separate parts: each part is placed on its own face, then the slicer arranges them and adds plates if needed.
• Tenons are laid on their largest face. They can also be sliced as full plates.
• The original pieces stay untouched next to the positioned copies, for those who print differently (in resin, for example).

• From the menu: one click processes the job folder.
• Watched folder: Pilot3r watches the folder and processes each job as soon as a ‘ready.txt’ file appears in it.
• From the command line: Split3r --batch <folder> processes the folder, closes and reports whether everything succeeded. Your quoting website can start Split3r on its own.

Drop your models (STL, PLY, 3MF) into the folder with a reference settings file. Pilot3r creates a workspace for each one and processes it. Your quote or customer numbers, written in that settings file, are copied as they are into the results.

• Material: grams computed by the slicer × price per kilo (yours, or the one in your filament profile).
• Machine: print hours × your hourly rate.
• Assembly: number of joints × your fee per joint.
• Setup fee, miscellaneous fees and margin as a percentage.

Everything is set in a configuration window, in the currency of your choice.

• A PDF: the numbered overview from two angles, the summary and the quote, then the assembly guide with the suggested order and one card per piece: two views, cut faces in orange and the face on the bed in green, size, volume, neighbouring pieces, tenon sockets, print time and filament.
• The G-codes of every piece and of the tenons.
• Pictures of every piece.
• A data file (JSON): every piece with its measurements, print position, joints and the area of each face to glue, print time, filament and price. For each job, it also says whether it succeeded or failed, and why.
• For the whole batch: a PDF and a summary file.

A faulty file does not stop the batch: it is marked as failed with its reason, and Pilot3r moves on to the next one. Each job has a time limit (60 minutes by default), and so does the slicing of each piece (15 minutes).

Measured on our test PC:

• split only, a model in 6 pieces: 8 seconds;
• a car split into 7 pieces, each one run through Bambu Studio, quote included: about 6 minutes;
• a character split into 14 pieces, each one run through Bambu Studio: about 8 minutes.

Windows, macOS and Linux. Slicing with Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer.
- Elegoo profiles go through OrcaSlicer.
- PrusaSlicer under development

Pilot3r is coming to the next version of Split3r as a beta release.
Are you a customer and would like to try out the beta version now ?
Send an email to support@split3r.com, and we’ll send you the details.