I have been looking at a few of my drawings in the form software and it looks pretty clean and straight forward. I like the use of red to indicate the areas that need support for safer printing. One thing that interested me though was a Goldberg-8-3 sphere I downloaded from somewhere. When I loaded it into the software it shows no red areas! Does this mean it can be printed without supports? I suspect not because of the small contact area there will be on the plate, but how can we manage these decisions, is it something that comes with a little practice and not just looking for the red!
Interested in peoples thoughts.
I have attached a form file with the sphere at 3.5" for folks to look at.
Goldberg_sphere.zip
Hey Nigel,
The red “supportedness” only appears after supports are generated. For now, you’ll have to use your best judgement to determine whether or not a print would work without supports. There’s some additional information about support structures here: https://formlabs.zendesk.com/entries/23395888-Advanced-Support-Structure-Settings
In this case, the part you’ve attached would require supports to print well.
Craig, thanks for that. You know I have imported several items into the S/W yesterday and for some reason it did not register that there was no red before I added the support structures! I can see it now. I have been through the support documentation previously so I have seen the referenced page.
Onwards. . . .