Snapmaker Orca Color

Snapmaker Orca Color is an experimental fork of Snapmaker Orca focused on textured OBJ import and process-color slicing for multi-filament color printing.

This fork is based on Snapmaker Orca 2.3.2 and keeps the normal Snapmaker Orca workflow for standard single-color, painted, and multi-material slicing. The color-synthesis controls only appear when a model contains texture-derived virtual face colors from a textured OBJ import.

What This Fork Enables

• Textured OBJ import with OBJ + MTL + PNG/JPG texture support.
• Full-color preview from texture-sampled virtual face colors instead of reducing the model to the physical filament colors.
• CMY, CMYK, and CMYW process-color slicing modes below the filament selector.
• Layer-banded color conversion using the actual slicer Z bands, so the process-color transform matches the selected layer height.
• Automatic filament color locking for CMY/CMYK/CMYW modes.
• Simplification that preserves imported virtual color information.
• A refreshed rainbow app icon without the old BETA label.

The process-color bake is inspired by Primed3D's dithered export flow: https://github.com/3DRev/Primed3D. No Primed3D source code was copied; this implementation is independent inside Orca's slicing pipeline.

How To Use Textured OBJ Color Slicing

1. Keep The OBJ, MTL, And Texture Together

For a textured OBJ, keep the .obj, .mtl, and texture image in the same folder before importing. The OBJ references the MTL, and the MTL references the texture image.

2. Import The OBJ

Drag the .obj into Snapmaker Orca Color. If the matching .mtl and texture image are present, the model imports with full-color virtual face colors. The viewport preview keeps the real texture colors instead of forcing the model into only the physical filament colors.

3. Choose A Color Slicing Mode

The Color slicing selector appears below the filament selector only for models that contain texture-derived colors.

• Standard keeps the normal Snapmaker Orca slicing workflow.
• CMY converts the virtual colors into cyan, magenta, and yellow process-color material bands.
• CMYK adds black for darker regions and shadow detail.
• CMYW adds white for brighter regions and highlight control.

For CMY use three process-color filaments. For CMYK or CMYW use four process-color filaments. The fork locks the filament colors for the selected process mode so the slicer uses the correct physical colors.

4. Slice And Inspect The Result

After slicing, preview the tool/material changes before printing. The color texture is converted into process-color bands using the actual generated slicer Z heights, so changing layer height changes the generated color banding.

Use the detail view to inspect whether fine texture regions are being converted into the expected material transitions.

Download

Download the latest fork build from:

https://github.com/davidkrammer/Snapmaker-Orca-Color/releases/latest

Current public build:

• macOS Apple Silicon / arm64 only.
• Ad-hoc signed and not Apple notarized.
• Experimental: verify sliced output before using it on a real printer.

How to install

Windows:

1. Download the installer for your preferred version from the releases page.
   • For convenience there is also a portable build available.
   • If you have troubles to run the build, you might need to install following runtimes:
     • MicrosoftEdgeWebView2RuntimeInstallerX64
       • Details of this runtime
       • Alternative Download Link Hosted by Microsoft
     • vcredist2019_x64
       • Alternative Download Link Hosted by Microsoft
       • This file may already be available on your computer if you've installed visual studio. Check the following location: %VCINSTALLDIR%Redist\MSVC\v142

Mac:

1. Download Snapmaker-Orca-Color-v*-macOS-arm64.zip from this fork's release page.
2. Unzip it and move Snapmaker Orca Color.app to /Applications.
3. Try right-clicking the app and choosing Open.
4. If macOS still refuses to launch it, remove the quarantine flag:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Snapmaker Orca Color.app"

The current macOS release is ad-hoc signed and not notarized with an Apple Developer ID. That is why Privacy & Security -> Open Anyway may not be enough on some systems. A fully public macOS release needs Developer ID signing plus Apple notarization.

Linux (Ubuntu):

1. If you run into trouble executing it, try this command in the terminal:
   chmod +x /path_to_appimage/Snapmaker_Orca_Linux.AppImage

How to compile

• Windows 64-bit

  • Tools needed: Visual Studio 2019, Cmake, git, git-lfs, Strawberry Perl.
    • You will require cmake version 3.14 or later, which is available on their website.
    • Strawberry Perl is available on their GitHub repository.
  • Run build_release.bat in x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019
  • Note: Don't forget to run git lfs pull after cloning the repository to download tools on Windows

• Mac 64-bit

  • Tools needed: Xcode, Cmake, git, gettext, libtool, automake, autoconf, texinfo
    • You can install most of them by running brew install cmake gettext libtool automake autoconf texinfo
  • run build_release_macos.sh
  • To build and debug in Xcode:
    • run Xcode.app
    • open build_`arch`/Snapmaker_Orca.Xcodeproj
    • menu bar: Product => Scheme => Snapmaker_Orca
    • menu bar: Product => Scheme => Edit Scheme...
      • Run => Info tab => Build Configuration: RelWithDebInfo
      • Run => Options tab => Document Versions: uncheck Allow debugging when browsing versions
    • menu bar: Product => Run

• Ubuntu

  • Dependencies Will be auto-installed with the shell script: libmspack-dev libgstreamerd-3-dev libsecret-1-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev libosmesa6-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev eglexternalplatform-dev libudev-dev libdbus-1-dev extra-cmake-modules libgtk2.0-dev libglew-dev libudev-dev libdbus-1-dev cmake git texinfo
  • run 'sudo ./BuildLinux.sh -u'
  • run './BuildLinux.sh -dsir'

Note:

If you're running Klipper, it's recommended to add the following configuration to your printer.cfg file.

# Enable object exclusion
[exclude_object]

# Enable arcs support
[gcode_arcs]
resolution: 0.1

Some background

Snapmaker Orca is originally forked from Snapmaker_Orca.

Snapmaker_Orca is originally forked from Bambu Studio, it was previously known as BambuStudio-SoftFever. Bambu Studio is forked from PrusaSlicer by Prusa Research, which is from Slic3r by Alessandro Ranellucci and the RepRap community. Orca Slicer incorporates a lot of features from SuperSlicer by @supermerill Orca Slicer's logo is designed by community member Justin Levine(@freejstnalxndr)

License

Snapmaker Orca is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. Orca Slicer is based on Snapmaker_Orca by SoftFever

Orca Slicer is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. Orca Slicer is based on Bambu Studio by BambuLab.

Bambu Studio is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. Bambu Studio is based on PrusaSlicer by PrusaResearch.

PrusaSlicer is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. PrusaSlicer is owned by Prusa Research. PrusaSlicer is originally based on Slic3r by Alessandro Ranellucci.

Slic3r is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. Slic3r was created by Alessandro Ranellucci with the help of many other contributors.

The GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 ensures that if you use any part of this software in any way (even behind a web server), your software must be released under the same license.

Orca Slicer includes a pressure advance calibration pattern test adapted from Andrew Ellis' generator, which is licensed under GNU General Public License, version 3. Ellis' generator is itself adapted from a generator developed by Sineos for Marlin, which is licensed under GNU General Public License, version 3.

The Bambu networking plugin is based on non-free libraries from BambuLab. It is optional to the Orca Slicer and provides extended functionalities for Bambulab printer users.

Feedback & Contribution

We greatly value feedback and contributions from our users. Your feedback will help us to further develop Snapmaker Orca for our community.

• To submit a bug or feature request, file an issue in GitHub Issues or email us at support@snapmaker.com.
• To contribute some code, make sure you have read and followed our guidelines for contributing.