Preform: Absolute orientation

A major (yes major) issue with Preform is that it only allows relative orientation changes. It takes a while to find an optimal orientation for many of our parts. When we make a minor design change there’s no way to see what the last part’s absolute orientation was so we have to start over.

All we need is for Preform to have a text output somewhere that provides the current orientation of the part’s coordinate system relative to the build platform so we can enter it in for the new part. Bonus points if you add a “replace” functionality of a single model in .form file that keeps orientation and print settings (height offset, support size, etc.).

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Yup, this has always bothered me. An absolute orientation with a delta orientation adjacent or below the absolute would be swell. Maybe an option that is off by default to keep the simplicity of preform intact.

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Damn good ideas.

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Love the idea, especially the “replace” option. I am often tweaking parts and it would be huge to be able to quickly and easily drop in the replacements using the settings for the older versions.