To Apply a Z-Compensation

Compensate for energy penetration effects typically encountered with beam-type powder conversion processes

When working with laser or electron-beam machines, it is common for the first layers on top of unrendered powder to be printed thicker than subsequent layers. When producing small parts, this can lead to the part being lengthened along the z-axis. Z-compensation can be used to counteract this effect.

If your mesh contains highly irregular and noisy contours along z-compensation-relevant surfaces, z-compensation may produce unexpected distortions. For such cases, you may try Use Up-/Down-Skin-Analysis Preprocessing for some additional spacial processing before the actual compensation is performed. Either way, It is recommended to follow up with a mesh comparison against the original.

1. If not already opened, click Prepare > Repair Part to enter the repair module.
2. Click Mesh Edit > Z-Compensation.
   Tip: You can also right-click the display and choose Z-Compensation.
3. Adjust the Translation as required to match your machine. The affected vertices are translated by up to this amount in the z-direction.
4. Click OK.

Note: You can select one or more triangles in the mesh and then start the Z-Compensation command, ticking Only Selected Triangles ..., to apply the operation to only the selected triangles, as opposed to the entire part.