Chitubox UI hints for beginners

[Guy Rixon]

Chitubox is very useful software for operating home printers, and the free edition is very capable, but you get the UI/UX refinement you pay for. Some necessary operations are hidden, not documented and can't easily be discovered because they use atypical UI. Here's some notes to ease a beginner's frustrations.

 

The Mac port of Chitubox seems to work, but the UI hasn't been converted properly to Mac conventions. The Chitubox menu in the menu bar doesn't have the usual new/save/save as... commands. These appear instead on a menu linked to a button top-left in the Chitubox window: the one marked with three horizontal lines.

 

To prepare a new model for printing, start a new project with the menu command: this gets you an empty build-space. Then use the Open... menu-command (not Open project..., which is different) to import the .stl file for the model into the build space. Then you can position it and add the supports.

 

When slicing for a Mars printer, there are two kinds output files: .chitubox and .ctb. The .ctb file is the sliced model that you transfer to the printer. You get this file via the Save button that appears at the end of a slicing operation. The .chitubox file records the whole project, including the model, its orientation and the support pattern. You get this one using the Save project... command from the main menu. The manual I was given says to transfer the .chitubox file to the printer, which is wrong for a Mars printer. Other brands of printer may consume files of different kinds.

 

To refine the printing of an old, saved model, use the Open project... command from the menu and load the .chitubox file for the project. However, if you just want to print it again with the same settings and supports, just keep and re-use the .ctb file. You don't need to re-run Chitubox for a verbatim reprint.

 

To place supports manually, you need to zoom, rotate and pan the view so that you see where to put the support tip. These view-change movements are all mouse/trackpad actions:

• right click and drag to rotate;
• left click and drag to pan;
• zoom with the moose scroll-wheel, if you have one (I think; I have a trackpad, so can't test the mouse thing);
• zoom with two fingers on a trackpad; move up to zoom out and move down to zoom in.

Changing the view is a separate matter from moving/tilting the model in the build space. The latter process uses the buttons on the main screen.

 

You'll often need to remove supports manually. The UI looks like supports should be removed by selecting the "remove" mode in the GUI and then clicking on each doomed support. Not so! In this mode, clicking on a support only selects it (and turns it red in the rendering). To actually remove it, select it then press the DEL key. Only one support at a time can be selected in this mode.

 

Where's the DEL key on a Mac keyboard? There isn't one. Use Fn+Backspace to get the DEL operation. (I.e. hold down the fn key and then press the backspace key, the one with the backward-facing arrow.) Yes, DEL and Backspace are different; thank Microsoft and IBM for that.

 

Often, one wants to print multiples of the same model in one print-run. This can be done by opening the .stl file of the model multiple times, but that's slow and seems to confuse Chitubox. There's a "clone current model" button in the main screen that does this better.

 

Rotating the model in the build space may be buggy. There's a button in the main screen to turn on rotation mode, and you can either drag the model around each axis with the mouse or type in the angle of rotation. If you type in the angle, Chitubox sometime applies the angle relative to the bottom of the build space and sometimes relative to whatever angle the model is already at. This seems to be some subtle bug. However, it always seems to print to the angle at which it's drawn, so you can tell what's going to come out.

 

Opening project (.chitubox) files also seems to be buggy. If a project is already loaded when another is opened, Chitubox sometimes tries to add the model of the newer project to the older one. Starting a new project first, to clear the print space, seems to fix this.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Guy Rixon
Noted bug in opening project files.

[njee20]

The .chitubox file type is not for sliced files, as you say that's an error, it's a project file. In essence:

 

- .STL is the 3D model, you import this into Chitubox, orientate it and add supports

- .Chitubox is the project file - this can be saved if you need to go back and make changes to supports, angles, exposure settings etc you use this. These are printer agnostic. You can change the printer type and slice a model from a project file.

- sliced file, totally dependent on printer type, .ctb for the Elegoo family (the standard Mars can also use .cbddlp files), .photon for the Photon, .photons for the Photon S etc etc. The key point is these files cannot be reloaded into Chitubox, so if you slice a file but want to change the supports afterwards you can't, unless you've also got the .Chitubox project file. If you've added the correct printer profile to Chitubox you will also only have the relevant file types for your printer, so it's a bit moot knowing what they all are.