Hi all
In PreForm 3.52, we updated the Support tool with a new UI and workflow tools including:
- Presets
- Settings to customize touchpoint placement & support geometry
- Support visibility control
- Bundled supports
- Persistent support locations
4 Likes
The new interface took a bit of time to get familiar with it, but now I would not want to go back. Having the ability to customize the Pillar and Touchpoints has already led to improved part surface quality. For example, in one case I reduced the number of “Teeth Max” from 3 to 1, and the internal supports of my part were much easier to remove. In another case, I adjusted truss dimensions to mitigate overcuring of the support onto my part.
What don’t I like? I often find myself turning “Stabilization” off. When auto-generating supports, I noticed that Stabilized supports often appear right on top of other Overhang or Reinforcement Supports. I was constantly deleting these redundant supports.
Please keep adding to the customization options. I would like to see an option to force a support to “ground” to the raft/mini raft structure instead of to the part model. Or force a newly added support to connect to the nearest truss. I would point to “Lychee” software as a reference. It has an incredible toolset for support customization. But I prefer to do my setups in PreForm instead of relying on other software whenever possible.
2 Likes
Love having more control of my supports! The only downside for me, in the Dental Workspace, I have all of these colorful dots/points but I have no idea what they correspond to.. so what does a pink dot mean, etc. Otherwise, I like this new workflow and the visuals.
Hi @SaundersDental - thanks for the feedback! The touchpoint colors map to the type of touchpoint. These are indicated in the Support tool
1 Like
Hi @greasemonkie - thanks for the feedback!
What more customization options are you looking for? Would be great to understand the why you want these options as well.
Thanks for the fast feedback! After playing a little in the standard workspace (to see how it really differs from Dental) I see that I have the same “quirk.” I don’t have the pink stabilization option pop up while using the auto placement tab which is weird but not troublesome (maybe it’s the sort of files/cases I’m using?).
What I see now though, is that once you choose the manual placement tab, you lose all color-coding guides/aids. Not a huge deal, but as I’m deciding on what point to delete it would be nice to know whether I’m deleting a reinforcement touch point or one for more stabilization. Thanks!
Hi Hasan:
I generally have 3 cases where further customization of supports is desired:
- Surface finish / Ease of post-finishing by minimizing touchpoints that attach the base/bottom of the support directly to the part.
- Trapped “pockets” or counterbores when printing directly to the build plate
- On rare occasions, overhanging geometry places support pillars uncomfortably close to other part surfaces and fuse to the part during printing.
I could provide examples to this thread, but most of my parts are confidential to my clients. I would be happy to exchange more information over email or a video conference if that interests you.
First thank you for the effort on improving Preform, Question, the comment under the drop down of Improved Support tool reads “ switch back anytime in Preferences.” where is the preferences located ?
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You can find the option in your menu bar: PreForm>Preferences (⌘+,)
And you will find an option under “Use previous support tool interface”
Thanks - would love to get on a call! Feel free to DM and we can set something up.
Overall I’m liking the new UI now that it’s working properly - support visibility in particular has been extremely helpful. I use a Form 3B and notice that the Stabilization category isn’t configurable but still has its related magenta touchpoints being generated, not sure if that’s a bug or intentional. There are also a few more things that would address big pain points in my workflow:
- Decrease the minimum touchpoint size for the Form 3 generation (currently 0.3mm). I print a lot of small parts in Grey 4.1 and would really appreciate anything to make support removal faster. Even if 0.3mm is the smallest size that’s been internally validated, a variable could be added to the Print Settings Editor so I can try to push lower at my own risk.
- Allow for the creation of user support presets, similar to print settings. I don’t expect Formlabs to spend time making presets for the 3/3+ generation but would love to make my own to avoid adjusting pillar parameters, etc. for every job. I’m envious of the presets available for newer printers but don’t have the budget for a Form 4 right now.
- Much more of a stretch: exclude specific faces of a part from having supports auto-generated. A lot of my prints have surfaces that need to be support-free for mating or cosmetic purposes, so I regularly have to manually add supports point by point (can’t use the brush feature because of the small part/face size) or auto-generate and delete all points from the faces I need to exclude. In a perfect world this would work similarly to the Texture tool, where users could color specific faces in a STEP file and tell PreForm to block touchpoint auto-generation for one or more colors.
Any of these would be amazing to see added and save me a lot of time currently spent on rote clicking, but I know the development team probably has a long to-do list already. Keep up the good work!
I totally agree. I’ve encountered situations where new support locations create unnecessary internal supports whereas just connecting to the nearest truss is totally possible.
3 Likes
@shinji_formlabs I would love to see this feature, there’s a lot of situations where this would be helpful, specially when using flexible build platforms (V2), to make the parts and raft / mini raft extraction easier from the build platform.