A 3D printing firm called ActiveCell was looking for a system to help manage their ever expanding printer farm.

Kytschi was contracted in to build an API that would allow their front end developer be able to build a centralised administration tool that would take in a job from a customer and kick it to a free printer.

They asked us to build the API in lumen as their front end developer had some experience with it and the idea was once we had knocked the project out they'd take over the maintenance.

The API would allow them to first query their printer farm for a free printer. They'd then look at that printer and see if it suitable for that job, does it have the right coloured spool of plastic, does it have enough material for the job and so on.

They could manage their printer materials via the API as a basic stock management system.

Next they could query the printers stats, things like its temperature, its nozzle status, etc.

Once they have found a suitable printer they could then fire over a 3D print design file to the printer. The API would then manage the printer's job keeping an eye on its process and reporting back to the front end app.