I had Preform generate supports for an oddly shaped .stl I created over at nervous (http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/kinematicsHome/). They let you play around with the design of a “kinematic” bracelet and then generate the .stl file (pretty cute). The flattened Bracelet fits in the Form1 envelope, at a pretty steep tilt angle. The resulting supports ended up being quite tall, and look like they could use a bit of support! The tallest supports look like they would definitely snap during the peel process at some point. The standard support structure is basically a forest of toothpicks (sometimes with ribs, sometimes without).
If the supports were interconnected, that would make this build a lot more likely to succeed. Perhaps a bit of the support material in the middle of the support structure could be hollowed out? I’m sure there are more efficient structures that could be built. In this case, a 17ml bracelet turned into a 120ml build. A more efficient support structure would be really nice in this case. I hate wasting resin, and it’s not all that cheap.
Finally, the second picture shows an articulated tab at the end of the bracelet. There’s no easy way for preform to know that this part can pivot, and so it generates 3 supports in a line parallel to the hinge and very close to the axis of rotation of the hinge. In this case, I think manual point selection would make a lot of sense here.
