FAQ

Q: Do I need an AMS/MMU to print HueForge designs?

A: NO! Though an AMS/MMU makes printing easier, the application is specifically designed to have only one color per layer, so ANY printer capable of pausing for a filament swap can reproduce a HueForge print.

Q: What is TD and why do I care?

A: TD is short for transmission distance and is a measure of how much light penetrates a filament. It is used to calculate the amount of color blending that occurs between layers of filament so the application can predict resulting colors properly.

Q: Can I use my own filament that’s not listed in the filament library?

A: Yes, of course. However, all filament needs to be properly characterized by its RGB number (hex) and its transmission distance (TD). HueForge uses this to provide an accurate prediction of the resulting print. Filament data can be added to the library as Owned by clicking New Filament and saving to the library for future reference. Note: Clicking the checkbox next to a filament that is in the Unowned library moves it the to the Owned library (press Save Library for future use).

Q: How do I get the TD value for a filament?

A: HueForge has a large library of filaments, from various companies (like BambuLabs, Esun, Fillamentum, Overture, IIID Max, Numakers, Paramount 3D, Polymaker, Protopasta, Sunlu and others). Additional filaments and makers are being added as they become available.

However, if yours is not already in the library, there are several ways to determine the TD of a filament. These include printing a small two-color sample, searching social media sites for published community supported filament databases or directly measuring it using the recently released sensor, the TD-1, from Ajax-3D.

Printing a two-color sample using a filament with a known TD (generally black or white) under the one being tested is a common way to get the TD value of a filament. Various samples have been proposed and used recently; however, it is now suggested to use the Seashell_Test.hfp found in the HueForge/Tools folder to determine the TD of the filament. "The Seashell Method.PDF" file in the folder describes how to use this technique

Some examples of community filament databases: At Reddit [1], Google Drive [2], TBD

The TD-1 is a sensor device designed and provided through Ajax-3D that integrates directly with HueForge to read the TD of a filament inserted into it and to estimate its RGB value. More information is available at his website: [3]

Q: What filaments do I want/need to do HueForge prints?

A: To start it is good to have a black and TWO whites, one with a medium TD (around 4 or 5) and one with a TD less than 2. Then for good gray-scale images a light and a darker gray are useful, though on a budget one gray can give good results.

When planning color projects, it is most useful to have reds, blues, greens, yellows and maybe a brown as well. Remember that color blending is the name of the game with HueForge, so it is not absolutely necessary to have all of the colors and shades present in an image to get some stunning results.

However, as skill is gained it might be necessary to consider having two different versions of very similar colors, one with a low TD and one with a reasonably high TD. In particular, this is most true for white, where three levels of TD might be considered: one low, one mid-range and one high. The mid-range works for most images, where the low TD can be used as the last layer or two to get some “pop” in the whites where appropriate. The high TD white is often useful in muting a color or changing its tone, like shading in an otherwise blue sky.

Without a doubt, one disadvantage of owning (and using) HueForge is that you WILL want more colors of filament than you ever imagined you would.

Q: What do the sliders do?

A: The sliders (bottom left panel on the default screen) are the fundamental means of adding to and adjusting the colors (filaments) in a HueForge design.

Dragging a filament from the library panel (left side of the screen) and dropping it onto a slider makes it available for use in the design. Colors can be added to any unused slider or to replace a color on a previously used one. Note that right clicking on a slider opens a dialog menu that can also be used to add or modify a color and/or a filament.

Moving a slider up causes that color to be added to the design up to (but not including) the layer number shown immediately below the slider. The number of layers of that color is the difference of the layer shown and that of the next lower slider (which may or may not be to the left of the slider being moved).

Slider heights do not need to progress upward from left to right, though it can be helpful to have them ordered that way. The Reorder Sliders button is used to resort the sliders into that sequence.

Moving a slider to a zero-layer height removes it from placement in the model, but not from the slider. Another way to do this is to click the layer number box, which toggles that slider to remove that color from inclusion in the model or to restore it to use. This method leaves the layer height unchanged.

The number of layers of a particular filament is the difference of that filament’s layer height and the height of the next lower filament. That is, the slider numbers represent where filaments end, not the total number of layers used in a print.

Q: Does HueForge create the Gcode to send to the printer?

A: No, Hueforge saves the project in four files, generally to a folder named HueForge/Projects. These are the [Project_name].HFP file, a copy of the original image with same name as the project, a [Project_name].STL file of the geometry model, and a [Project_name]_describe.txt file with the information about the filaments and layer change information to be used in your favorite slicer.

Q: I’ve had success with a grayscale print, but as soon as I try to add color everything goes south. What am I doing wrong and how can I fix it?

A: Adding colors to a HueForge image isn’t always straightforward. One way to learn how to manage colors is to use the examples provided in the HueForge/Projects folder. Load them and examine the sliders and other settings to see how the results were achieved. Then nudge sliders and other controls to see their effects. Then try loading one of your images that has similar colors in place of the original and see how it looks. This is especially true for modes like Color Pop (see #Q: When do I need to use Color Pop and how does it work? for additional information) and Color Aware (see #Q: When do I need to use Color Aware and how does it work? for additional information).

Additional information on how to use Color Pop and Color Aware is available here. There are also several video tutorials by HueForge [4] and others available on YouTube [5].

Q: How do I select filaments/colors to match my image?

A: Right clicking on a point in the source image in HueForge opens a dialog menu with two choices; Find Closest Filament or Create New Filament. Selecting the first-choice sorts both Owned and Unowned filament libraries to place the filaments in nearest color order. If an Owned filament color is not acceptable a filament near the top of the Unowned list can be tested to see if it provides a better match.

Unowned filament items can be tested in the design to see how they perform without any obligation to purchase them. If you want to find a source of that filament right-clicking on color swatches that have a triangle cutout on the lower right will open a dialog with a Buy Filament option that takes you to an affiliated sales portal of that filament’s provider.

Q: How do I make my print thicker so it’s not so floppy?

A: The easiest way to do this is to increase the values of both the Min and Max depths in HueForge by an equal amount. Then to speed printing, the layer heights of the part of the print up to the Min depth can be increased to reduce the number of layers. This is called a Height Range Modifier in some slicers (not variable height). If it is used, the color changes are added at the layer height in millimeters, rather than the layer number.

Q: Can I turn the print over to make it completely flat?

A: No, because HueForge designs have only one color per layer. It often uses more than one layer of the same color, but a flat print would need more than one color per layer to produce the image. However, since the prints are generally thin, in most applications the surface texture is generally not a problem, even for things like coasters. And in other applications, like faux materials, the added texture gives an added sense of realism to the end product.

Q: When do I need to use Color Pop and how does it work?

A: Pictures with one region of color over a monochrome background benefit from the Color Pop mode. This mode stacks two color spectra one on top of the other. This puts the background of the image on the bottom of the print and the colored part above the background.

The original version of HueForge required breaking the image into separate images that were then joined after printing to accomplish this. This newer mode merges the process into one workflow within HueForge. Think of it as stacking two HueForged designs on top of each other. To do this it is necessary to define each region from dark to light, most often by duplicating the black and white filaments, once in the lower grayscale region and the second set to define the boundaries of the upper colored region.

An online help with a detailed explanation for Color Pop mode is available here.

Q: When do I need to use Color Aware and how does it work?

A: As with Color Pop, Color Aware is sometimes the best way to get the needed color separation that a project demands. This is sometimes the case when the image contains two or three dominant colors but a few greyscale areas. Like Color Pop, Color Aware reproduces the color spectrum multiple times one on top of the other.

The difference is that instead of separating grayscale from color, Color Aware separates levels by the primary RGB colors: red, blue and green. Control is provided to expand or contract the color levels based on a particular project’s needs.

An online help with a detailed explanation for Color Aware mode is available here.

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