I know this has been brought up many times, but I just want to say that having to download another software tool to hollow out and place vent holes is silly. This should totally be a native feature in Preform.
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No, it shouldn’t 
Preform isn’t an editor. Being able to edit geometry would significantly increase the complexity of the software. Preform is a slicer. If you need to make changes to your geometry, that should be done in a program designed for editing geometry.
Meshmixer does a great job of hollowing and adding vent holes and it only takes a couple of steps to do it. But usually, I do this as part of generating the source model. I use Meshmixer to identify errors in the geometry, but I go back to my CAD software to correct them, I don’t do it in Meshmixer.
This argument might have been appropriate 3~5 years ago, but not today.
It took Formlabs almost 5 years to add a simple object mirroring function, when every slicer available for both FDM and SLA offered that feature since pretty much their inception. The argument that it would add to much complexity was used then too, which gave Formlabs license to drag their feet.
Hollowing and venting is another function that should be added and should be “required” on every SLA printing software. AND. nearly every major software now has the function. ChituBox, Anycubic Photon Workshop, Prusa (Slic3r SLA edition) and others.
The beauty of it is that it’s fast, and you can instantly see the difference between the solid model and the hollowed out model in terms of resin consumption and in the case of laser SLA like FormLabs the time it takes to print the model. The old way, I would either have to exit the printing software, open up the model in Meshmixer, the export it back out, open it up in Preform, if not happy with it, go back to meshmixer, and so on. Plus I would end up with a bunch of STLs cluttering up my SSD,
With ChituBox I can simply load the solid model and hollow it out as needed. it literally take 3~4 sec. and I see what my hollowed out model looks like. If I don’t like it, I hit undo, and change the parameters.
Yes, a function like this adds a little complexity, but it shouldn’t slow down the application, nor should it interfere with it. It’s just another tool in the toolbox, and one worth having.
I bought my FormLabs printer back then because it had the most elegant and easy to use software, but everybody has caught up and surpassed them since, and now they are at the tail end, and frankly it doesn’t even look like they’re eager to catch up, primarily because they are being given free passes, when we’re making excuses for them.
Wake up Formlabs !!
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I agree with Dudemeister. Workflow would be much more efficient if this was supported by Preform.
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I respectfully disagree here…for two main reasons:
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Hobbyist programs like Chitubox support this. High end professional solutions also support this (Materialise)
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Vent holes and hollowing are pretty core features/requirements that are required specifically for SLA. The latter (hollowing) is less important for me, but probably very important for figurines and artists. However, from an engineering perspective, vent holes are pretty common requirements. This is a very, very SLA specific thing. Because of this, I think that whatever solution Formlabs offers (in this case Preform), it should have all the capabilities and features required to set up an SLA print properly.
I’ll agree that using MeshMixer isn’t that difficult - I do use it once in a while. However, I think of it as a work around and would like to see these features native in Preform.
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I had this discussion with Solidsolution about some of the designs not being able to shell. If the design is complex and contains smalles fillets, SolidWorks for example fails to shell the model. So, looking at other slicing software, mentioned above, have much more control over the model, supports etc. Formlabs are trying to make us not thinking or they are trying to avoid to take any responsibility for the software fails and just not do this change. I believe both are true. If Formlabs are professional company and I was told they want to be seen as such, then they should give us more professional software. Have a faith in users. We are helping you, so help us too. Of course I can install and buy other producers software and actually I did. So I will be stopping using PreForm, just because Formlabs aren’t brave enough.
could they be forcing us to print solid? To sell more resin?
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I think it’s a smart decision to limit how much engineering they take on.
They certainly have enough challenges as it is.
There are decent solutions available elsewhere, and some for free. Not ideal, and sometimes frustrating. But…
I’d rather they focus, at least for now, on critical core issues that aren’t available elsewhere. Shelling and drain holes are a “nice to have”.
No really only nice to have. For me these are almost necessary. All depends on the shape complexity. SW is failing many designs I create and even when I visited them and they give it a try, they admitted, simple shelling would help. Thinking about this now, if SW can’t do this, this might be too much for Formlabs too.
Solidworks fails shelling because of the way the model is constructed and because the many steps that usually go into the building of the solid model. Solidworks doesn’t see the model as just “a solid shape” it sees it as a set of steps that were taken to create it using all the primitives and and tools that were used to cut, add, chamfer or fillet edges, and it tries to figure out how to hollow it out based on that.
On the other hand, programs like Meshmixer or Netfabb or slicers like ChituBox or Slic3r only see it as a watertight mesh, computes the thickness of the the mesh and subtracts the difference, That’s why it works, and works pretty fast.
What is interesting to me, is that Formlabs has some kind of agreement in place with Autodesk ?, because by their own admission, they use Netfabb to clean-up/fix models. So why can’t they license some of the additional code required to shell an object. Netfabb has the function, so it wouldn’t be to much of a stretch to include their shelling code, would it?
That would really be nice…not having this built in is silly at this point! - Probably just so we have to buy more resin…lol
That and mesh mixer is a deprecated product (they refer you to Fusion360’s mesh environment).
It would be best integrated into preform as some remark on here it shouldn’t and yes, of course there are tools to do it, but you could argue supports the same way, meshmixer can make supports as well). But if pre-form were to generate hollow/holes presumably it would be optimized for model and resin on that printer. I am guessing some resins drain better than others. I really only print in white/gray/clear/tough(the set) so haven’t tried some of the more exotic resins like flexible, etc. and wall thickness particularly at corners is another thing that depends on the printer, resin, etc to be able to print well. A lot of times I like my models solid (as a prototype feels more like injection molded heft) or if it is a printed jig for milling then having more tough=tougher!
Also for the love of god can we please support 3mf finally? Way better to hollow a 3mf solid geometry part instead of back-deriving the solid from a polymesh. Don’t get me wrong STL works remarkably well, but let’s move into the 21st century… all you need is one flipped normal or self-intersection and your print is a giant waste of resin. Now for safety the 3mf should be geometry only, ignore any embedded code.
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