Short overview of how good the nesting capabilities of various 3D slicer are.

The task is simple: placing as many of these shapes on a 200x300mm printed as possible. Manual (quick and dirty for reference): 6 pcs.

Ranking:

  1. Ultimaker Cura: 7 pcs.
  2. human (me): 6 pcs.
  3. Orca slicer: 5 pcs.
  4. PrusaSlicer & BCN3D stratos: 4 pcs. By switching (for this particular part) from the worst (Prusa) to the best (Cura) slicer the nesting performance improved by a whopping 75%!

Ultimaker Cura:

Prusa:

BCN3D Stratos (forked from an old version of Cura):

OrcaSlicer:

  • @mystikEnglish
    1•6 months ago

    I think it’s not widely front-and-center because it’s kinda fiddly, especially with folks with customized printers and there are caveats that can damage the machine or ruin the print if you are not careful. Sadly, I think that some of the more ‘closed’ slicer/printer systems could support it more reliably because the dimensions of the head + arm are much better known and the tool path can be planned much more precisely.