Plotting Toolpath of 3D Printer as Arrows in VTK

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1

Hey,

as i am currently working on visualizing the “Toolpath” for a 3d printing machine i am interested if this is possible with vtk (pretty sure it is…)

So the Data i have is in a .cli File (COMMON LAYER INTERFACE (CLI)).
I have a python script, which extracts the important information out of this cli file.
what i have as DataFrame object is the following:

partID z x1 y1 x2 y2
0 0 0.06 -30.073443 -21.202196 -30.086403 -21.220032
1 0 0.06 -30.014813 -21.291629 -29.992539 -21.260965
2 0 0.06 -29.911639 -21.319751 -29.943213 -21.363209
3 0 0.06 -29.871622 -21.434806 -29.830735 -21.378523
4 0 0.06 -29.749834 -21.437311 -29.800023 -21.506386

The partID doesnt matter here.
The information is basicly showing the so called Layer (or build-height in mm) as z-value, and the start (x1, y1) and endpoint (x2, y2) of the Laser path (The Scanning Vector of the Laser Toolpath) in a building space.

What i Like to View is something Like an Arrow or quiver plot for each Layer (for same z-values), a bit like this one shown here, but for a whole build part from z=0 to z=max in 3D

MicrosoftTeams-image
MicrosoftTeams-image1203×773 186 KB

Any hints how to start?

Thx and BR

2

what about:

from vedo import Arrow2D, show

data = [
    [0, 0, 0.06, -30.073443, -21.202196, -30.086403, -21.220032],
    [1, 0, 0.06, -30.014813, -21.291629, -29.992539, -21.260965],
    [2, 0, 0.06, -29.911639, -21.319751, -29.943213, -21.363209],
    [3, 0, 0.06, -29.871622, -21.434806, -29.830735, -21.378523],
    [4, 0, 0.06, -29.749834, -21.437311, -29.800023, -21.506386],
]

arrs = [Arrow2D(d[3:5], d[5:7]).z(d[2]).c("blue5") for d in data]
show(arrs, axes=1)

Screenshot 2021-10-23 at 12.57.34
Screenshot 2021-10-23 at 12.57.34754×604 3.67 KB

3

Hey Marco,

thanks for your answer! But what i am looking for is doing exacly what you showed, just with pure vtk. The reason is a have build a Qt Application that allready uses vtk, so i dont want to go for other libraries.
But i think i will check the implementation of Arrow2D in vedo, maybe this will point me to the right direction!

Best regards

4

Sure - just grab the implementation from vedo.shapes.Arrow2D if you like it.

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