Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

grid.space

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 135 posts

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#81

Post by soanvig »

the_fall wrote: post #45

Part of me wants to be wary. The useful life of industrial machinery such as CNC mills is much longer than the lifespan of websites, so locally-installed software you own is usually a better choice. But another part of me realizes that everyone is using Fusion360, despite the fact they have a history of taking away features to force people to migrate to paid tiers. So it probably doesn't matter.

> much longer than the lifespan of websites

But browsers (and browser technologies) have documented track of being fully backward compatible up to the beginnings of WWW, and it's not going to change.

Which actually is much much better than any other environment you can imagine - unless of course you use (and want to use) that one frozen in time 25 year old PC. And pray nothing breaks (y2k bugs and whatnot).

If the software is open source (and works offline) you can have it functional in 10 or 20 more years. And it will be "locally-installed software you own" you want.

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#82

Post by radium3d »

h4kunamata wrote: post #77
rbbydotdev wrote: post #70

- 100% free, no subscriptions, no accounts, no cloud - Local-first: all slicing and toolpath generation runs on your machine - Works in any browser, even offline once loaded YES! I think a new type of open source is emerging centering around what is now possible in browsers. Browsers have a great track record when running legacy projects. Relying on a backend could be a liability for longevity. I built opal editor my…

> Works in any browser, even offline once loaded That, my friend, is not how offline works. You will be required to have internet access in one way or another. Offline works 100% locally no matter if you have internet or not.

You're misunderstanding how websites work. You can install it locally on your computer and run it via localhost https://github.com/GridSpace/grid-apps

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#83

Post by jacquesm »

bityard wrote: post #31
reactordev wrote: post #3

Now if we can only get an offline printer…

I bought a bambu p1s recently and it can be used entirely offline. You can import models to orcaslicer (open source), do your slicing, and export the g code file to SD card. If you want to skip the SD card, block the printer's mac/ip address at the firewall and set up WiFi. Then send the print directly from orcaslicer. That being said, my gut says bambu is going to slowly require a persistent connection to the cloud…

Yes, you can use the P1S offline, but they've done everything possible to make it hard: crappy micro sd interface without the ability to use folders, USB plug absolutely inaccessible (see if you can even find it) and then, once you've found it it turns out that there is absolutely no way to use it to print with. They push you towards their closed source plugin 'for your benefit'. Fuck that stuff. There is absolutely no way I'm going to run a Chinese built piece of software that I can not inspect on my desktop. FOSS or bust.

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#84

Post by jacquesm »

snapetom wrote: post #8
observationist wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elegoo printers can be offline - you can run everything from the machine itself, as long as you have your model/s on a thumb drive. Or is that not what you mean?

Same with Bambu's. They include microSD slots.

And work really well until you have more than 20 files or so after which it becomes impossible to manage the SD. Your best bet here is to have a stack of SDs of what you'd normally put in folders. Really nice, especially given how easy it is to write on the outside of a micro-sd what the contents are.

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#86

Post by hulitu »

soanvig wrote: post #78
h4kunamata wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Works in any browser, even offline once loaded That, my friend, is not how offline works. You will be required to have internet access in one way or another. Offline works 100% locally no matter if you have internet or not.

But you have to get the software somehow? Once you get it, it works offline. The same here I guess: once you download the source code/binaries into browser's cache (that can store things indefinitely) it's offline.

> But you have to get the software somehow?

We call this: download. Usually better than RCE.

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#87

Post by pmontra »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #26

OT: Why is that Alphabet, Mozilla, Apple, etc can get together to create web standards that allow anyone to create software that works cross-platform - only a browser is needed, but Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Canonical, etc can't get together to create standards that allow anyone to create software that works cross-platform?

Apple make money from the App Store and from selling their hardware, so why should they want to invest on something that let people install software bypassing the App Store or that works on other platforms?

Alphabet make money from ads, so they want web pages, apps on Android and Chrome everywhere.

Mozilla make money from Google.

Microsoft make money from software licenses and subscriptions and from cloud services. They might be interested in cross platform installation.

At the moment what we have is PWA and WASM and icons on the desktop.

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#88

Post by astafrig »

the_fall wrote: post #45

Part of me wants to be wary. The useful life of industrial machinery such as CNC mills is much longer than the lifespan of websites, so locally-installed software you own is usually a better choice. But another part of me realizes that everyone is using Fusion360, despite the fact they have a history of taking away features to force people to migrate to paid tiers. So it probably doesn't matter.

> locally-installed software you own is usually a better choice.

It’s a good thing that’s exactly what this is, then.

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#89

Post by hulitu »

auggierose wrote: post #32
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #26

OT: Why is that Alphabet, Mozilla, Apple, etc can get together to create web standards that allow anyone to create software that works cross-platform - only a browser is needed, but Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Canonical, etc can't get together to create standards that allow anyone to create software that works cross-platform?

You answered the question yourself: There is already a standard that allows anyone to create software that works cross-platform: the browser.

> There is already a standard that allows anyone to create software that works cross-platform: the browser.

Which one exactly ? IE ? Dillo ? Lynx ? Pale Moon ? Firefox version 126 ?

Re: Grid: Free, local-first, browser-based 3D printing/CNC/laser slicer

#90

Post by astafrig »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #26

OT: Why is that Alphabet, Mozilla, Apple, etc can get together to create web standards that allow anyone to create software that works cross-platform - only a browser is needed, but Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Canonical, etc can't get together to create standards that allow anyone to create software that works cross-platform?

The API surface becomes the lowest common denominator of all the platforms it supports, possibly with a path to support platform-native features, but probably in a way that’s necessarily not as good as native.

I think we already have plenty of avenue in ‘solutions’ like Electron to let people build bad apps.

Post reply on HN