Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Pro format

[SirKliv]

Hello!
Is there any possibility to add new format support for Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Pro?
Sliced file suffix: pwsz
Zip image format: pwszImg
This format is supported in the Anycubic Photon Workshop slicer since v3.3.2
Thanks in advance!

[sn4k3]

No ETA to support that.
Also discussed here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/uvtools/posts/1115738076202361/

[kozross]

@sn4k3 - what information would you need in order to support this format?

[sn4k3]

The layer image compression / encryption

[nalimcos]

Hello @sn4k3 ! I just bought one of these, and happen to be a developer (no experience with file formats though).

I have taken a look at a file sliced by Chitubox 2.2 (which I have already used to successfully print with this machine) and here is what I found:

Overall container: .pwsz -> as expected, it's just a zip file

Layer images:
layer_xx.pw0Img
Screen resolution is 13312*5120, so I'd expect 68 157 440 bytes for a raw image at 1 byte per pixel
The files sizes vary around half of that though, so there is some compression there. Some form of RLE?

File beginning:

Transition from '0f ff' repetition (looks suspiciously like RLE4EncodingLimit in your code, but I haven't checked whether that's relevant) to what seems to represent the tiny test object in the center of the build plate:

File ending:

Here is the entire pwsz file (.zip added so github would let me attach it):
test.pwsz.zip

How much development time do you think it would take you to get the file format added (basic support at least), along with PrusaSlicer integration? I'd be glad to either contribute financially to move this up the priority list (my budget would probably not cover outright hiring you to get it done 😆 ), or to do it myself if you can guide me to some extent as I'm unfamiliar with the project.

[rncwind]

Not an M7 pro but a standard M7 owner here.
File format seems to mostly be the same after slicing in lychee, except with a pm7 extension instead of pwsz.

Basically the same zip file contents listing after renaming pm7 to zip

Layer images are also .pw0Img files.

Makes sense since they're pretty much the same machine internals wise.
Hopefully this can be of some little help!

[nalimcos]

Quite a bit of the necessary work has actually already been done, uvtools can read some Photon M7 files when the debug flag is set, and it didn't take much fiddling around to read M7 Pro files. (It looks like non-square pixels aren't really handled by the preview at the moment though!)

Apparently, layer images can be either .pwszImg or .pw0Img. Also, my chitubox input file had key_image_format pwszImg in anycubic_photon_resins.pwsp while the layers were .pw0Img, so the extension should be checked against the contents of the folder, not the metadata.

Export to M7 Pro was not a great success: layer_images was entirely missing, haven't searched for the reason yet.

There seems to be some work needed on the settings (anycubic_photon_resins.pwsp), not sure whether it is serviceable as is, but the heated vat is not supported yet any rate; not sure about the rest.

[sn4k3]

Apparently, layer images can be either .pwszImg or .pw0Img. Also, my chitubox input file had key_image_format pwszImg in anycubic_photon_resins.pwsp while the layers were .pw0Img, so the extension should be checked against the contents of the folder, not the metadata.

Using a slicer other than the original for developing is often an error. In past versions Chitubox had bugs in anycubic file format implementation which broke UVtools validations (They fixed). This is why you always want to use original slicer to generate the files and compare with.
About metadata, my experience tells me that's only informative, printer don't care about it most of the time as firmware is already defined to follow only a way, so you can declare whatever you want as long the data it reads are in the expected format.

Please slice only with Anycubic slicer and confirm the data.

[nalimcos]

The thought had crossed my mind, but I got lazy as it would have required rebooting into Windows or fiddling with WINE, while I already had Chitubox installed. I will compare the formats when I get a chance. We did, at any rate, get some information on one variant of what the printer accepts (and what one slicer currently outputs).

I suspect there is an actual temperature control somewhere, as the printer ignores what I set in its interface and just preheats to 25C (which I see several times in the file) - I will do some testing.

[sn4k3]

Here two files sliced by me in anycubic slicer, both produce pwsz images

fish_fossilz.pwsz.zip
fish_fossilz.pm7.zip

[kozross]

@nalimcos - what WINE setup do you use for running Photon Workshop? I've tried it a few times, and it never worked for me.

[sn4k3]

@nalimcos - what WINE setup do you use for running Photon Workshop? I've tried it a few times, and it never worked for me.

For testing purposes you can mount a window VM, much more reliable than wine