Papa’s Best

Optimizer updated

9 Sep 2022 00:00 UT

This update focuses on JPEG optimization, which is now a lot faster and more stable! A whole class of semi-random errors has been fixed.

You can download the update here and check out the changelog here!

Optimizer updated

30 Aug 2022 20:54 UT

This update brings compression improvements – most importantly, JPG/PNG now become even smaller! It also fixes problems with JPG files in CMYK color space and with legacy Office files.

You can download the update here and check out the changelog here!

stltopng – Automatically generate pictures from STL files

14 Aug 2021 00:42 UT

I just uploaded a new program – stltopng. This little command-line utility is built on my STL Thumbnails. It takes pictures from STL files and stores them as PNG images.

If you ever wanted to take pictures from STL files in an automated way – e.g. for a gallery on your website – it can now be done fast and easy! I also upladed the C++ source code in case you’d like to have a closer look at the interface.

The program is not fully finished yet, and setting the colors and viewing angle is still pretty cumbersome. Nonetheless, I’d be happy to hear your feedback!

Download here, quick start here, and manual here.

STL Viewer updated

10 Mar 2021 23:45 UT

STL Viewer updates have been rare last year – I’m still working on big new features. However, there’s also been lots of small improvements, and there’s no reason to keep them back!

The current update brings performance updates, better ASCII STL loading, vastly improved coordinate space detection (especially with Fusion 360), and more. Download it here!

Now also in Microsoft Store: Due to popular demand, you can also buy Papa’s Best STL Viewer from the Microsoft Store. I can’t give it away for free because Microsoft charges me for it, but it costs just a small one-time fee that’ll support development. The Store version is identical to the free version, but being a Store App adds some features:

Windows will automatically update it
no warnings about unknown publisher, untrusted program, etc.
package is checked and signed by Microsoft

Decide for yourself. You can visit the Store site here, directly open the Microsoft Store here, or just keep using the free version 🙂

Optimizer updated

22 Jan 2021 21:21 UT

Small hotfix: If a JPG couldn’t be rotated in lossless mode, Optimizer deleted its rotation setting from the EXIF data anyway – even if metadata was to be kept. This affected, for example, photos from Huawei phones.

You can download the update here!

Optimizer updated

7 Dec 2020 22:58 UT

I released a hotfix for my Optimizer destroying TIFF files in some rare cases. I always tried to repair slightly damaged files before optimizing them, but under some circumstances this would not work and leave an invalid file behind. The feature is now disabled until I find a better way to implement it; Best Optimizer will fail on damaged TIFF files.

An earlier update – in case you missed it – introduced a GUI button to correctly handle the temp path functionality, and it fixed a few problems loading/saving settings.

You can download the update here and check out the changelog here!

Optimizer updated

4 Aug 2020 17:49 UT

Papa’s Best Optimizer now optimizes embedded thumbnails in JPEG images.

Furthermore, I added an option to delete APP14 Adobe metadata. The option comes with a warning, though, because some images require the data to display correctly. The great Phil Harvey provides an example here.

There’s a bunch of other improvements as well.

You can download the update here and check out the changelog here!

STL benchmarks updated

8 Jul 2020 20:25 UT

The performance benchmarks on my STL Viewer page were almost three years old, so I repeated them. I used slightly different hardware, updated versions of the programs, and – for the fastest ones – video capturing to measure them accurate to fractions of a second.

Many 3D printing programs became faster over the last years, which is fantastic news. I’m also happy that new 3D viewers – notably Blaze3D and F3D – were developed specifically with performance in mind!

You can see the complete results here.

Colors in STL Thumbnails

1 Jun 2020 20:18 UT

You can now customize the the thumbnail colors. Just pick your favorite object/background colors in my STL Viewer and the setting will propagate to the thumbnails! I’ve written a manual that covers all the details.

You can customize the viewing angle as well, but this currently requires editing the registry. I’ll add a user interface for it with a future STL Viewer update.

Get the new version here!

STL Viewer and STL Thumbnails updated

7 Feb 2020 21:57 UT

STL files with invalid normal vectors now render correctly. I always relied on the exporting program to write correct normals, but so many programs do it wrong that my programs now recompute the normals from scratch.

As a side effect, display performance is now a lot faster. Furthermore, ASCII STL loading speed has improved again.

As always, you can download the thumbnail update here and the viewer update here!

Optimizer now supporting EPUB and SVG

28 Jan 2020 11:11 UT

Papa’s Best Optimizer now supports optimization of EPUB ebooks. It not only recompresses the book container but also the images inside, leading to a 10% gain on average.

SVG graphics are another addition to the list of supported formats.

The UI remembers its settings now – no need to re-apply them every time you start the program. Compression of PNG has slightly improved as well.

Download the update or see the full changelog here!

Updates for CFBF Optimizer, Optimizer, STL Viewer, and STL Thumbnails

1 Nov 2019 21:22 UT

My CFBF Optimizer got a little more compact due to updated compiler settings.

My STL Viewer and my STL Thumbnail generator now properly handle binary STL files exported from 3D Slash, HiCAD, Polygonica, Vectary, and from French CATIA versions. They benefit from the updated compiler settings as well.

And the tabs in my Optimizer now enable/disable properly and display without flickering on old Windows themes.

Optimizer updated

20 Oct 2019 00:25 UT

Papa’s Best Optimizer got a huge UI update! You can now use Drag-and-Drop to optimize files and folders. Office optimization was improved. I cleaned up the options and fixed countless small problems, e.g. some deadlocks on Windows 10.

Head over to the download page and see the full changelog here!

Optimizer added

21 Sep 2019 13:49 UT

I’ve uploaded my tool for lossless file optimization – Papa’s Best Optimizer. For the past years, it saved me lots of disk space and quite some bandwidth costs. (All images and files on this site have been optimized by it.) Finally I’ve found the time to make it available to the public.

If you also care about optimizing things down to the last bit, head over to the download!

STL Viewer and STL Thumbnails updated

10 Aug 2019 16:15 UT

The latest update fixes a missing registry entry for the MIME type of STL files. Windows can now integrate the viewer and the thumbnail handler much better.

If you ever had problems with the thumbnails not showing up, or with Windows not using the viewer to open STL files, I recommend you download the thumbnail update here and the viewer update here!

STL Viewer updated

28 Jul 2019 01:11 UT

This update integrates the viewer into the Windows Open with dialog. Previously, if you wanted to manually make the viewer your default program for STL files, you had to search the drive. Now it should be suggested right away. Small problems have been fixed as well.

You can download the update here!

STL Viewer and STL Thumbnails updated

30 Jun 2019 00:04 UT

Today’s update contains a fix for graphics artifacts with multiple STL files in the same view (File → Add Part …). The title icon and the date stamps of installed files have been fixed as well.

I tried adding support for Windows 10’s Dark Mode, but Microsoft limits it to Windows Store apps and keeps the interfaces secret. So unfortunately no Dark Mode yet :(

Get the update for Papa’s Best STL Viewer here and the update for the thumbnails here!

STL Viewer and STL Thumbnails updated

11 Jun 2019 09:25 UT

This update fixes the orientation of STL files exported from recent Solid Edge versions.

Programs disagree on whether Y or Z should be the up axis, which is a major source of annoyance for me. My tools implement a set of algorithms to decide on a case-by-case basis which axis is most likely up. While this is a solid win for usability, it needs periodic adjustments when new program versions are released. If you encounter STL files that are not rotated correctly, please send me a sample!

The thumbnail handler was extended to show in the bottom-right corner the icon of your default STL program.

You can download the new version of Papa’s Best STL Viewer here and the updated thumbnails here.

STL Viewer updated

4 May 2019 11:22 UT

This update makes use of my CFBF Optimizer to make the setup even smaller. The size of programs and setups is, in my opinion, a very important quality factor:

Correctness: Smaller programs tend to have fewer programming errors and are easier to maintain.
Trustworthiness: For small setups and programs, it’s easier to inspect what they do with your machine.
Performance: Smaller programs tend to consume less system resources (also see my benchmarks).

Furthermore, Microsoft fixed a few problems in their tools, allowing me to remove old workarounds. You can download the new version of Papa’s Best STL Viewer here.

CFBF Optimizer added

31 Mar 2019 14:46 UT

You may have noticed that the setup of my STL Viewer has become smaller recently. This is mainly due to optimizations to the container format, Microsoft’s Compound File Binary Format (CFBF). I decided to share those optimizations with you, so I added CFBF Optimizer to my site (including source code). If you’re a programmer or just into data compression, check it out!

STL Viewer updated

14 Feb 2019 18:57 UT

The latest version fixes problems with the background color as well as spaces in file paths. Apart from that, detection of measurement units has improved. So if you ever had problems opening files that should otherwise be fine, or if the Viewer ignored your background color settings, be sure to head over to the download section!

STL Viewer updated

16 Dec 2018 14:22 UT

This update allows to run Best STL Viewer on computers that are very weak or very old (missing Direct3D 11-compliant hardware and drivers). It will automatically fall back to software rendering, which is very slow – but it’s better than nothing! (Windows 7 is still a minimum requirement, though.) Some small problems have been fixed as well.

STL Viewer updated

17 Nov 2018 14:16 UT

The STL viewer now comes with a greatly improved setup (better updating, less UAC prompts, significantly smaller size) and a new option to use US/Imperial units (auto-detected on first launch). You can grab the update at the download page!

RSS feed added

20 Jul 2018 12:00 UT

You can now subscribe to updates via RSS!