I wrote a bloat-free STL viewer

Krishty · Post by **Krishty** » April 30th, 2018, 12:16 am

LePaul wrote: ↑April 29th, 2018, 11:12 pm Did the Thumbnail preview version make it over yet...that's something I would really like. I do like your program, I use yours and the MS one to quickly open and identify what those STLs are

I had too little time to finish the thumbnails, but I PM’d you beta access

Post by **LePaul** » May 2nd, 2018, 11:52 am

Thanks! Just saw that

danilius · Post by **danilius** » May 13th, 2018, 3:26 am

Just tried this out on a 176mb STL file, it opened in just under a second. For files around the 10mb mark, it looks like the app takes longer to start than it does to display the file, so that's as close to instant as possible. Scrolling through files below the 20bm mark is almost instant. Brilliant! Many thanks.

amandalove · Post by **amandalove** » February 19th, 2019, 3:50 pm

Hi! Krishty,
I got the latest version Thank you so much! Actually, I have a printing firm in the USA and this will help me a lot. Many Thanks again.

Krishty · Post by **Krishty** » February 20th, 2019, 2:21 pm

Amanda,

beautiful boxes you have there! Since I last posted here (almost a year ago, the time flies), I improved the setup, lowered the system requirements even more, fixed many small errors, and improved performance. With feedback like yours, I feel that work was really worth it

If you have any problems or questions, don’t hesitate to ask me …

Post by **LePaul** » February 21st, 2019, 8:35 am

@Krishty glad to see you back

I love your program, if you have a website I can share, I would love to give it a mention on my YouTube Channel (Where Nerdy Is Cool)

Post by **GrueMaster** » February 21st, 2019, 10:09 am

@Krishty Also, did you ever get permission to release the source? I'll understand if that is not an option, but if it is, I'd like to examine it and see if I can make a native Linux version (wine can be tedious, even for the more experienced).

Post by **Roberts_Clif** » February 21st, 2019, 10:57 am

If the program was written with Visual Studio's Visual C++ including Linux is simple enough.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/ ... ith-cmake/
or
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/ ... al-studio/

Krishty · Post by **Krishty** » February 21st, 2019, 2:06 pm

@LePaul Hi!

Cool channel – my website is https://papas-best.com, with the STL Viewer at https://papas-best.com/stlviewer_en … feel free to mention anything. If you need information that cannot be found on the website, just ask me

I added the link to my signature, if that’s okay with the forum rules …

–

@GrueMaster, @Roberts_Clif: No problem; you should have gotten a private message with the source code. However, don’t get your hopes up too high:

While Visual C++ has Linux support, it can only compile platform-independent applications.
The STL Viewer uses Direct3D 11 for rendering (supported on any system with Windows 7 or later; no need to install special drivers; brings its own software renderer for weak systems), and a Linux port would mean re-writing the renderer in OpenGL or Vulkan.
The STL Viewer uses the native Win32 API for its user interface. For a Linux port, one would have to use a platform-independent library like GTK or Qt. I looked at Qt and it would increase program size from just 67 KB to over three MB, which is pretty drastic for me.

Currently, I recommend using Wine on Linux for the Viewer. A few users have reported that this works quite well, even the setup …!

Post by **Roberts_Clif** » February 21st, 2019, 3:30 pm

Meet Vulkan

OpenGL, despite its cross-platform abilities, has been battling against DirectX for years now, and that's undoubtedly going to continue with Vulkan.
There's good news for Linux gamers "Porting between Vulkan and DirectX 12 won't be too hard," says Khronos Group president Neil Trevett.

Post by **GrueMaster** » February 22nd, 2019, 9:58 am

I'll probably look at a QT solution as that is what I am familiar with. I am the current owner of Win32DiskImager (although admittedly I haven't had time to do the next major round of updates in 2 years - time flies). Need to reinstall my Windows Development SSD in it's NUC so I have a Windows development platform again. It was offline for a few months, so will likely take hours for updates.

Post by **LePaul** » February 25th, 2019, 9:41 am

That's fine!

Can you offer the link to the program that allows the users to view the PreView if they view their files in File Explorer? And instructions for use?

Krishty wrote: ↑February 21st, 2019, 2:06 pm @LePaul Hi!

Cool channel – my website is https://papas-best.com, with the STL Viewer at https://papas-best.com/stlviewer_en … feel free to mention anything. If you need information that cannot be found on the website, just ask me

I added the link to my signature, if that’s okay with the forum rules …

–

@GrueMaster, @Roberts_Clif: No problem; you should have gotten a private message with the source code. However, don’t get your hopes up too high:

While Visual C++ has Linux support, it can only compile platform-independent applications.

The STL Viewer uses Direct3D 11 for rendering (supported on any system with Windows 7 or later; no need to install special drivers; brings its own software renderer for weak systems), and a Linux port would mean re-writing the renderer in OpenGL or Vulkan.

The STL Viewer uses the native Win32 API for its user interface. For a Linux port, one would have to use a platform-independent library like GTK or Qt. I looked at Qt and it would increase program size from just 67 KB to over three MB, which is pretty drastic for me.
Currently, I recommend using Wine on Linux for the Viewer. A few users have reported that this works quite well, even the setup …!

Krishty · Post by **Krishty** » February 25th, 2019, 11:34 am

The Windows Explorer STL thumbnail handler? Here you go:

https://papas-best.com/stlthumbnails_en

Run the setup and you should be fine. A restart may be required on Windows 7.

It does have the problem that the background of a thumbnail goes black occasionally. I’m still investigating that, but it’s one of the reasons I did not announce it publically yet.

Post by **LePaul** » February 26th, 2019, 1:15 pm

@Krishty , just to verify, this requires the STL viewer to be installed first, then this, correct?
Then set the View option in file explorer to an Icon setting (small, medium or large)

Krishty · Post by **Krishty** » February 26th, 2019, 1:36 pm

No, it’s independent from the STL Viewer

Yes you should set the View option to an icon setting if Windows doesn’t do that automatically (the thumbnail handler does inform Windows that .stl is viewed best in an icon view, but Windows sometimes ignores that).

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I wrote a bloat-free STL viewer

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