ask the nozzle
A slicer, but it watches your back

ATN Slicer
OrcaSlicer + pre-flight + AI + physics.

A full OrcaSlicer fork with our 40+ rule pre-flight engine built in — plus, on the paid tiers, AI Diagnose & Ask beside the gcode preview and a Workshop physics suite that predicts warping and heat build-up before you print.

Free download · Windows 10/11. The slicer is free to keep; subscriptions unlock what runs inside the panel.
Windows build available now. Prefer no install? Ask, Pre-flight and Diagnose run in any browser at askthenozzle.com — including on macOS/Linux. Desktop builds for Mac/Linux aren't out yet.
ATN pre-flight panel showing findings after a slice
After every slice, before you press print — the findings show up in a side panel attached to the gcode preview. No upload, no second window.
Free for everyone

What you get above stock Orca — free

Download it, keep it, no subscription. Three things Orca doesn't do, on by default.

A full OrcaSlicer — free

Same hotkeys, same project files, same Bambu / Klipper / Prusa support. Drop-in replacement, nothing to migrate — it reads your existing profiles on first launch. Free to download and keep, and we merge upstream Orca changes regularly.

Free

Mid-air detection — built in

Every slicer warns about overhangs; none tell you when it's about to extrude into thin air. ATN Slicer walks the actual tool-paths and flags any extrusion laid down with nothing beneath it — the spots that fail even with supports on — as red markers right in the Preview.

Free

Top-support-layer fan control

Cool only the interface layer where support meets the part — so the surface releases cleanly and looks sharp — without over-cooling the rest of the support and weakening it. A small, genuinely useful ATN addition, free for everyone.

Free

Pre-flight on every slice

40+ deterministic checks run on the G-code after each slice: volumetric flow vs hotend, min-layer-time over-melt, supports-off-on-overhangs, chamber-required-for-PA, over-long bridges, footprint-vs-bed fit, a thermal read, and a plain-English explanation of every mid-air spot. Free accounts see a blurred teaser; Starter reads every finding.

Free teaser · Starter reads it
Starter & Hobbyist

Read the findings, then fix them without leaving the slicer

Starter unlocks the full pre-flight. Hobbyist adds one-click Apply and the AI panels.

Hobbyist · one-click Apply

Every recommendation is a button

Pre-flight doesn't just tell you the outer-wall acceleration is too high — it hands you the corrected value with an Apply button that writes it straight into the profile. Fix a slice in seconds, re-slice, done.

Material-aware, too: the checks pull from our distilled vendor datasheets, so the numbers for Polymaker Fiberon PA6-CF20 (or any catalogued filament) match the manufacturer's spec, not a generic default.

A pre-flight recommendation with a one-click Apply button
Hobbyist · AI Diagnose

Diagnose a failed print — without leaving the slicer

Print didn't come out right? Photograph it with your phone and drop it on the Diagnose panel. The full Vision-AI pipeline runs — same curated knowledge base, same importable settings patch — with the exact slice settings auto-attached, so it reasons about what you actually printed.

AI Diagnose panel inside the slicer with a print photo and diagnosis
Hobbyist · AI Ask

Ask anything, and it already knows your plate

"Why does this part need supports?" "Cheapest material that survives 80 °C?" The Ask panel is the same expert AI as the website — but every question already knows what's on the build plate and the settings you sliced with. No copy-pasting your config into a chatbot.

Ask AI panel inside the slicer, gcode-aware
Workshop

Engineering-grade physics, on your desktop

Workshop turns the slicer into a print-simulation tool. It runs a licensed local engine that predicts how the part will actually behave — before a gram of filament is laid down.

Warp & residual stress

A warp scorecard for the part

A reduced-FEA solver models the part cooling and contracting layer by layer, then scores its warp and bed-lift risk — accounting for the material's thermal expansion, modulus and crystallisation shrinkage. See at a glance whether that big flat PA-CF bracket is going to curl off the plate.

Workshop warp scorecard risk readout
3D displacement

See where it will move, in 3D

Not just a number — a colour-mapped 3D view of predicted displacement across the part, so you can see exactly which corners lift and which features distort. Reorient, add a brim, or change material and re-check before you commit.

3D displacement view of predicted part warping
Click to enlarge
Heat-soak thermal + layer bond

Heat-map the print, catch weak layers

A spatial thermal model walks the toolpath and tracks how hot each region stays between layers — the heat-soak that causes over-melt, droopy tips and glossy mush. It also flags interlayer-bond and delamination (Z-bond) risk where layers land too cool to fuse. See the hotspots as a per-layer heat-map, located in X/Y/Z.

Spatial thermal heat-map of the print
Click to enlarge
The scorecard

Every risk as a number you can act on

One readout with the hard figures behind the flags: peak interlayer (Z-bond) stress and the layer height it strikes, the warp index and bed-lift driver, plus the material's shrinkage, CTE and modulus. See exactly why a part is at risk — and watch the numbers move as you change orientation, material or a setting.

Workshop physics scorecard: delamination, warp and bond stats
Learning diary

It learns from your prints

Log a result against a slice and the Learning tab distils what worked and what failed across your own history — surfacing the common causes behind your failures and feeding them back as sharper pre-flight checks tuned to your printers and materials.

Workshop Learning diary tab

Which plan unlocks what

The slicer itself is free to download — features inside are gated by your subscription.

Starter — £3/mo
£3 / month
300 credits
  • Free ATN Slicer download
  • askthenozzle.com web tools
  • Read the full in-slicer pre-flight — every finding + recommendation
  • One-click Apply
  • AI Diagnose / Ask
  • Workshop physics suite
Choose Starter
Workshop — £25/mo
£25 / month
3000 credits
  • Everything in Hobbyist
  • Warp FEA + 3D displacement view
  • Heat-soak thermal heat-map
  • Delamination / Z-bond risk
  • Learning diary
  • Local ATN Engine + priority support
Choose Workshop

Common questions

Why a fork? Why not just a plugin?
OrcaSlicer (like Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, SuperSlicer) has no proper plugin API. The closest you can do is a post-processing script that runs after slicing — it can't show UI inside the slicer, react to settings changes live, or add sidebar tabs. To put a Diagnose panel, an Ask chat and the physics views next to the gcode preview, we needed a fork. We track upstream Orca closely so you stay current.
Will I lose my existing OrcaSlicer profiles?
No. ATN Slicer reads the same profile format as Orca, Bambu Studio and the PrusaSlicer family. On first launch it offers to import everything from your existing slicer install, and profiles exported from ATN Slicer load back in stock Orca.
Does it support my Bambu / Klipper / Prusa printer?
Yes — every printer Orca supports works in ATN Slicer, because it IS Orca underneath. Bambu LAN-mode upload, Klipper Moonraker upload, Prusa Connect — all there.
Do the checks cost credits?
Pre-flight is 1 credit per slice. A photo Diagnose inside the slicer is 20 credits and an Ask turn is 10 — same as on the web. Hobbyist's 900/mo covers a busy hobbyist; Workshop's 3000/mo is built for a multi-printer operation and unlocks the heavy physics suite (warp FEA, 3D displacement, heat-soak thermal, layer-bond) that runs on the local engine.
What runs the Workshop physics — is it cloud?
The heavy simulation runs on a small licensed engine bundled with the slicer, on your own machine — so your geometry never leaves your desktop. Your Workshop subscription licenses it; cancel and the physics panels grey out while the rest of the slicer keeps working.
What if I cancel my subscription?
The slicer keeps working as a plain Orca fork — profiles, hotkeys, slicing, mid-air detection and top-support-fan all stay. The pre-flight, AI and physics panels grey out with a "subscription required" message. Re-subscribe and they wake up.
When can I download it?
Now — the Windows build is a free download from the button at the top of this page. macOS and Linux desktop builds aren't available yet, but the Ask, Pre-flight and Diagnose tools run in any browser at askthenozzle.com in the meantime.

Ready?

Free Windows download. Subscribe to read the full pre-flight (Starter), unlock one-click Apply + the AI panels (Hobbyist), or add the physics suite (Workshop).

Download for Windows →