V0.3 Snapshot Profiles

Here you can define exactly when a snapshot will be triggered. There are 3 triggers available currently:

1. Layer/Height trigger
2. Timer Trigger
3. Gcode Trigger

click to see the tab

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FormerLurker/Octolapse/master/Extras/Wiki/assets/img/settings_tab_snapshot.png|alt=The snapshot settings tab)

You can get to the snapshot profiles by opening the Octolapse settings and clicking on the 'Snapshot' tab.

click to see the profile

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FormerLurker/Octolapse/master/Extras/Wiki/assets/img/settings_profile_snapshot.png|alt=The snapshot profile)

Layer/Height Trigger

This is the trigger you'll probably use most often. You can trigger on every layer or at specific height increments.

Trigger Height

To detect a layer Octolapse watches for extrusion. After Octolapse detects that all axes are homed to a known position, it watches for extrusion below the priming height (see priming height in the printer profile settings). The height of this extrusion determines the current layer height. The next time an extrusion is performed on a higher layer, Octolapse will detect a layer change.

Trigger on all layers

To trigger on all layers, set the trigger height to 0. Warning: if you are printing in vase mode settings height = 0 will cause Octolapse to trigger with every movement, causing serious performance issues.

Trigger on height incriments

Height changes are detected in much the same way as layer detection, except Octolapse will take at most one snapshot every increment. For example, if your model is sliced with a layer height of 0.2mm and you set set the Trigger Height to 0.3mm, Octolapse will take a snapshots on the following layers:

Before the first layer, the increment height is 0.0mm

layer 1 - z=0.2 - Increment Height:0.3 since 0.0 <= z

layer 2 - z=0.4 - Increment Height:0.6 since 0.3 < z

layer 3 - z=0.6 - Increment Height:0.6 since 0.6 < z is FALSE

layer 4 - z=0.8 - Increment Height:0.9 since 0.6 < z

layer 5 - z=1.0 - Increment Height:1.2 since 0.9 < z

layer 6 - z=1.2 - Increment Height:1.2 since 0.9 < z is FALSE

layer 7 - z=1.4 - Increment Height:1.5 since 1.2 < z

You may want to set the trigger height to a value higher than 0 the following situations:

1. Vase Mode - You MUST set a trigger height here, else a snapshot will be taken after EVERY extrusion!
2. Variable Layer Height - Your timelapse may appear to speed up and slow down when printing with variable layer height.
3. Infill on different layers - Sometimes infill/support is printed at a different heights which can cause a lot more snapshots to be generated than you'd normally expect.
4. Very tall items - If you want to keep your FPS reasonable and your timelapse length reasonable for a very tall print, you may want to set a height increment to a value slightly larger than your layer height. This will reduce total snapshot time too!

Timer Trigger

The timer trigger allows you to take snapshots on a time interval. This is useful for prints that are short, or prints that have a large surface area. It allows you to capture more frames than the layer trigger. The resulting timelapses will speed up on layers that take less time to print, so it gives you a pretty good sense of how long the different layers took to print.

Seconds to Trigger

Octolapse will wait at least this amount of time before taking a snapshot. If the print is paused, the timer stops. The timer also stops while the snapshot is being taken.

Don't set this value too low, especially for a very long print, else you might have way too many snapshots and poor quality.

Gcode Trigger

This trigger is designed to be used with custom gcode. You can add the snapshot command to the gcode anywhere you like, and Octolapse will take a snapshot.

Print Quality Settings

There are many settings available to improve print quality. Octolapse can restrict snapshots only to certain positions, or while printing certain features (infill, perimeters, etc), and can optionally lift and retract before a snapshot. Depending on the settings it is possible that Octolapse will not take snapshots on some layers, so make sure you understand these settings before using them.

Extruder State

Here you can control when and how Octolapse triggers a snapshot based on the current state of your extruder. You can force Octolapse to lift and retract while taking snapshots, or put limits on when snapshots can be taken based on what your extruder is doing.

See this link for more information about the extruder state quality settings.

Feature Detection

Feature Detection is a great new way to dramatically reduce or even eliminate artifacts that can be caused while taking snapshots with Octolapse. Here you can tell Octolapse to only take snapshots over areas of your print that are less critical to quality, like infill or interior perimeters.

See this link for more information about feature detection.

Position Restrictions

Create circular or rectangular positions where Octolapse is allowed or forbidden to take a snapshot. Create as many as you like. Optionally you can allow Octolapse to calculate an intersection between regions and the current extursion path, allowing you to take a snapshot even while extruding a single line in a single command.

Click to learn more about position restrictions.

Snapshot Image Removal

Here you can control how often your snapshots are deleted. You can even disable removal entirely if you just want the snapshot images. Unfortunately there is no way to access these images through the User Interface, but they are within the Octolapse data directory, and can be accessed directly there. This location varies depending on your environment, but I'll add instructions for accessing these files in some of the more common scenarios. Let me know if I'm taking too long!

Note that currently ALL snapshots are deleted, not just the snapshots for the current timelapse! Sorry about that, but I hope to improve this later.

Clean Snapshots After Rendering

When this is enabled, Octolapse will delete ALL snapshots after a successful render operation. This applies to every camera used where a timelapse is generated.

Warning: Snapshots NOT removed after rendering success must be deleted manually!

Clean Snapshots After Rendering Failure

When this is enabled, Octolapse will delete ALL snapshots after rendering has failed. This applies to every camera used where a timelapse is generated.

Warning: Snapshots NOT removed after rendering failure must be deleted manually!