PreForm View Options

[br4n_d0n]

@verdugod, can the hanging (real world) view idea can be revisited for PreForm? Unless I’m overlooking something in the current PreForm versions.

PreForm Hanging View Option

It would be nice to have an option to rotate/flip the viewport camera to a hanging view to display the real world print orientation. This would be beneficial because it’s sometimes a struggle to visualize, especially for those new to this inverted SLA printing method. It may even be a fairly simple change to the software as the viewport already rotates in almost every direction. @MaximLobovsky @dogichow @Jesse_K @Jared @Jennifer_K

[verdugod]

Thanks @br4n_d0n ,
This is not an official feature yet, and it definitely makes sense why it could be helpful. It’s been on the radar of our PreForm team, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, pro tip: I just learned that @henryqiu uses an inverted view by using PreForm with his space mouse.

[br4n_d0n]

@verdugod

In the meantime, pro tip: I just learned that @henryqiu uses an inverted view by using PreForm with his space mouse.

@henryqiu care to elaborate?

[henryqiu]

Hey! Outside of Formlabs, I’m a digital sculptor and CAD designer, and I use a 3Dconnexions Space Mouse for most of my 3D programs. It also works with PreForm, and for some reason it unlocks that constraint and lets you orient the viewport anyway you want. I switch between navigating with my trackpad/mouse and the space mouse pretty often because one advantage of being locked on the axis with the trackpad/mouse is that I can see a perfect orthographic top-down view for when I’m arraying or laying out parts, which is really hard to align with the free-floating space mouse. Hope this helps!

[br4n_d0n]

I wonder why having a different type of input device allows you to rotate the camera in such a way. Really would like to do this with a normal mouse as well.

[StarFlicker]

Can you show a video or image to this effect? Like the other poster, I’m having a hard time coming up with a reason as to how or why preform exhibits different graphical behaviors based on the input.

[henryqiu]

My guess is that with a trackpad and mouse, it’s a lot more difficult to control the 6 axis: translation along the X, Y, and Z axes (pan left/right, pan up/down, zoom in/out) and rotation around these axes (pitch, yaw, and roll).

I have found it to be pretty standard for the Z axis to be locked to vertical for a lot of 3D software I use outside of Formlabs, because once it’s tilted, it becomes really difficult to get aligned back to vertical. For example, Fusion 360 has a “Default Orbit type” setting, with the options “Free Orbit” or “Constrained Orbit”, which do exactly that, lock the Z axis to vertical when rotating the camera view. I always set it to constrained orbit when I’m on the go and don’t have my space mouse, because it’s almost impossible to navigate free orbit with a mouse/trackpad. However, when I do have my space mouse, I find the constrained orbit to be too… constraining. So I switch back to Free Orbit. I don’t mind that PreForm automatically does this, because now I don’t have to manually change that setting every time I dock and undock from my station, but I will bring it up with our software team.