I’ve already raised this to several people within FL and the support team, but I just cannot help but rant today. Especially as I feel like subsequent Preform updates have been getting slower and less efficient and have been missing the mark a bit in terms of introducing new features that improve productivity.
The small, unassuming feature of auto print time calculation is something I really hate, and that’s a strong word.
As someone who often iteratively edits supports on large models (4L), moves things around, etc. this “feature” always slows down my workflow. I would say that 25-50% of the time I am literally waiting for Preform to “load” so that I can continue editing and placing supports or stepping through my model layers.
Adding a toggle for this is a really low hanging fruit that could increase productivity of users like myself immensely for extremely low effort.
Sorry, rant over. I still love my Formlabs machines and everyone at Formlabs
I totally get your frustration, constant recalculations can really slow things down when you’re making iterative edits. One workaround that’s helped me is temporarily disabling auto-calculations by working offline or pausing the slicer while making changes, then running the calculation only when I’m ready for the final setup. It’s not as smooth as having a proper toggle, but it keeps things moving faster. Hopefully Formlabs considers adding that option in a future update since it seems like a simple fix with big benefits.
Does working offline actually prevent Preform from auto calculating print time? AFAIK, I can’t turn it off, and even just moving the part on the build plate will force an auto calculate which lags.
I realized I took a poor screenshot before - I always disable the Print Validation toggles (updated the picture).
This is never a big deal on small parts, but on large parts is really laggy because of all the support points. I’ve been considering dropping $$$ for a overkill workstation just to see if that would help but that’s definitely not solving the root issue
Care to clarify how you work offline and/or pause the slicer?
Thanks for flagging the issue. We’re introducing a control in the next PreForm to turn off the estimator! Look out for it in PreForm 3.52.0 coming soon.
Thanks for sharing your feedback - we’re always happy to receive it!
