PreForm Model Spacing for Manual Packing

Feature Requests & Ideas
1

The 3D packing feature generally works very well, but I’ve noticed that manually packing models can sometimes yield a much higher packing density. It seems that when packing manually, the “Model Spacing” setting from the Packing panel isn’t applied, which I’m sure is the intended behavior. Since PreForm doesn’t allow for direct measurements between models, the only available spacing feedback is the “Overlapping Models” warning.

This brings up a couple of questions:

  1. Does PreForm consider models “overlapping” when their surface armor touches or intersect?
  2. Is the surface armor always the same thickness for a given print setting?

It would be really helpful if manual packing could still respect a minimum spacing setting. I can see two possible ways to support this:

  1. Add a visual indicator that shows the set minimum spacing as a boundary around each model.
  2. Update the “Overlapping Models” warning so it also triggers when models get closer than the specified spacing.
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2

Closing the loop from your other post on packing - passed this along to the team too. Thanks for taking the time!

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4

Thanks for the clarification—that helps confirm how PreForm handles overlapping models and the consistency of surface armor thickness. It lines up with what I’ve noticed, especially in how it flags models that are nearly touching. Glad to hear you see value in those feature suggestions!

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