More precise slicer in support editing mode, with stronger coloring

[rkagerer]

Manual support editing has come a long way since the early '0.8.x days of Preform, and I have to pass along a sincere kudos to the software developers for their work on this.

However there’s still a really awkward workflow I find the software repeatedly forcing me into. Let me explain:

I like to preview the build of my model layer by layer before it prints, to look for “dead” spots (i.e. emergence of floating islands that are not connected to my model or support structures), and “cantilevers” (long, near-horizontal overhangs that could use additional support). Presently this is only really viable in the main view slicer (see Image 1 below).

The slicer in support editing mode sort of tries to facilitate this, but isn’t precise enough. For example the slider seems to give you a proportional scale of 100 steps rather than allowing you to step layer by layer. Also the color distinction between “printed” and “upcoming” layers is too subtle.

I find myself constantly having to cycle between the “main” view and the “support editing” view to accomplish the task. This is made harder by the fact that one is upside down, and you lose your layer position each time you switch. So once I identify an “island” in the main view, it’s a lot of mouse-movement to rotate to an underside view, get the zoom right, put my finger on the screen exactly where the support needs to go, switch to support edit mode, find the right layer, place the support, then switch back to the main view and (again with the gymnastic rotate/zoom) find the layer I was working on to confirm the problem is solved and continue my work.

There has to be an opportunity to make this less awkward.

Am I just doing it wrong?

Am I too concerned about “floating islands”? (i.e. Is there some tolerance for these to exist for a few layers before they are joined to my model? Will they simply stay stuck to the PDMS layer until they meet the rest of my model and get peeled? If so, is that true even for the Form 2 which wipes after each layer?)

How good, generally, are the heat maps at catching these sort of things (e.g. if I want to manually place all supports from scratch)? I noticed PreForm didn’t highlight the issues below. Is that a miss, or are just small enough that I shouldn’t be concerned?

Image 1: Main Slicer:

Image 2: Support Editing Slicer:

Note, I’m not the first one to bring this up:

What happened to the 'layer indication' when editing supports

Since the new Preform (1.9) has been updated, going through the layers in the ‘edit support’ mode is a pain. Not only aren’t the layers numbered anymore, if you scroll up with page-up it scrolls to an undefined layer which means it’s nearly impossible to add manual supports in the right spot. Especially with complex layers. Why have you taken out this wonderful feature which means we now have to ‘guess’ where to place the support. Apply the changes, check again, and do it over if placed incorre…

Retain layer position when editing supports

Stepping through layers to add/remove supports is a powerful ability, It would be nice if PreForm would remain on the same layer when editing or applying changes to the support structures.

Ability to toggle layer slice view

It would be useful to be able to toggle showing the top side or bottom side of the model when slicing. For instance, when in support edit mode, the top of the model is shown, yet other times the bottom of the model is shown. Being able to hit a key, like ‘tab’ for instance, that would flip to showing the opposite side would be awesome. (if something like this already is implemented, please tell me ho to do it )

Slice View while manually editing support

It seems that manual editing of supprts would be more effective on complex models if you could see the slice as in the main view. This way you can clearly see potential print failures due to floating parts of the model that are otherwise obscured by the rest of the model that rises above the failure point. Even a simple cut away view would help even if it was not exactly the same resiults as the formal slice function. So long as you could still see and place supports on the visible section of ge…

Form 1 view same as the tank

Rather than looking at the model orientation based on the build platform, I think it would be easier to get a better sense of the objects orientation as if your looking at the tank. I think this will be easier to better judge where dead spots might be on the tank in relation to the view in the software rather than trying to re-think where they are.

[Zachary_Brackin]

As far as I can tell, the automatic support generation should catch all of the areas that absolutely need support, so what I usually do is have it do an automatic generation and then delete the ones that don’t look necessary and do my own.
As far as going through slices–the B9Creator software does that pretty well, you can see each layer and it colors it red for areas that don’t have anything underneath them on the previous layer so it’s easy to see parts that aren’t supported, then you can click on that area and add a support.
As far as the shading in Preform–it’s not very accurate, I get areas that are shaded but don’t actually need more support, or I get areas that are clearly supported fine but are like completely red, so I pretty much ignore that.

[rkagerer]

Thanks Zach. Yes, auto-generation works. My question is more around using manual placement.
Have you seen any failures due to missing supports which the heat maps didn’t catch?

[Zachary_Brackin]

I’ve always started off with the auto-generation to have it catch the points that have to be supported and then I delete the ones that don’t look like they’re essential, so if you were to do it from scratch I’m not sure it would indicate the areas that aren’t supported.
Also, the shading is done using vertex colors, so part of that also depends on the density of the mesh and whether you have vertices at the point that needs to be shaded.