Product settings reference

About the settings

The product settings are stored in two locations, the Windows® registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\Netfabb) and in a database file (%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\netfabb\ConfigDatabase).

To change Netfabb's settings, open Settings > Settings. Some of the settings involve picking colors. For instructions on how to use the color selector, see Change Colors.

You can export your settings to an XML file using the buttons in the dialog here.

During import, you can choose which sections to import from the XML file.

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User interface

Language

Current available languages are English, German, Japanese, Chinese simplified, Chinese traditional, Korean, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian).

Font Size

Provides five fixed font sizes as well as an option that lets Netfabb determine a font size appropriate to current screen resolution and DPI.

Note: Netfabb may determine an incorrect font size when on-screen text is scaled beyond 100 % by Windows® itself (Windows 7: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display). This may cause text to be overly large, and window elements to be hidden behind the task bar, even on screen resolutions that meet the system requirements.

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General

Start without License	Allows the launch of Netfabb straight into the license-free mode regardless whether a trial period or any subscription is active. If this is set to Yes, and a trial has expired, it disables the licensing reminder.
Unit of Length	Switches between millimeters and inches as default units
Show Icons in Menu	If you deactivate this option, no icons are shown in the menus and context menus of Netfabb. Shown icons are always to the left of the menu functions.
Proxy Settings	Updates and the Online Help require an Internet connection. Using the options here, you may set them independently from your system's proxy settings.
Netfabb logging	Set path for storing log files, and logging priority level. By default, the path is, or is equivalent to, %userprofile\AppData\Roaming\netfabb\netfabb.log. If you encounter any errors and want or need to contact support, we strongly recommend adding this file to your support case. If you can reproduce the issue, it's a good idea to set logging to a lower level such as Info and repeat triggering the issue so that more logging information is generated before you add the log file to the case.
Database Type	Sets type and, if non-local, connection to the database that stores certain information and configuration. For example, measurements and My Machines configurations are stored in a database. The local database is stored at %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\netfabb\ConfigDatabase.
Rotation with mouse, discretation degree	When rotating objects manually, hold ALT to rotate the objects in steps of this angle.
Rotation X, Y, Z degree	When rotating by the X, Y or Z key, the part will rotate in steps of this angle.
Colors	Set the colors for platform, parts, and modules.
Default platform shape	Toggle between a cubic or a cylindrical platform shape.
Default platform size	The size of the platform is best adjusted to the size of the build platform in your machine.
Zoom to newly created parts	If set to Yes, whenever you have created a part, the display will zoom into it.
Automatic check for erroneous parts	If you do not always check for parts with errors, there will not be any warning signs if you have damaged or faulty parts in your project.
Decimal Separator for CSV export	Period or comma
Clip plane shortcut step	Using the shortcuts for moving the clip planes (See Settings > Short-Cuts > Global > Clipplane), they will change position by this distance.
Recent file count	Set the number (1-20) of recently opened files to list in the File menu.
Autosave	Saves the currently open project in a selectable interval. Can be switched off.
Reverse zoom direction	Determines the direction of zooming for the mouse wheel.
Default Orbit type	Orbiting the camera about the parts can be free (around the Z axis of the viewport) or constrained (around the Z axis of the build platform): Free orbit (left) and constrained orbit (right)
Warn if solid model associativity will get lost	Mesh-based work such as cutting or repair on parametric models requires turning them into actual meshes. This option switches the warning message on or off that appears when launching such work on parametric models.
A360 Auto-Signin	Switch whether to use a present Autodesk Account login for logging into A360.

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Import and export

Resolve Windows link file names	This setting determines the naming of parts that are opened with a link file (LNK) that links to a 3D file. If it is inactive, the part in the project will be named as the LNK file, if it is active it will be named as the 3D file.
Ask for saving while deleting part	If you want to remove a part, Netfabb will prompt you to confirm this.
Change LOD for all opened files	All parts and project will automatically be opened with this level of detail (LOD) value.
Restore LOD after project loading	Whenever working with a lower LOD in order to speed up processing, this switch saves it to continue working with this LOD next time.
Confirm after project saving	If this option is activated and you save a project, you’ll get a confirmation when the process has been finished.
Always use file preview	If you select Yes, the File Preview Browser will start every time you want to open a file.
Ask for saving while opening a project	If you have an unsaved project loaded, you will be asked for confirmation when you attempt to open another project.
3MF import	Select whether to split 3MF build items, and to always ask for splitting with this file type. You may also select whether to interpret 3MF components as Netfabb groups.
ASCII-STL import	Select whether to split ASCII-STL solids, and to always ask for splitting with this file type.
CAD Import	Contains options regarding assemply splitting.
Use netProject cache	Select whether to use this feature
Use advanced file import	If this is activated, a dialog box appears where you can change the settings for the import and stitch, scale, and duplicate parts.
Use shorter texture names	Select whether to shorten names of textures.
Pentaho reporting SDK folder	Specify the path for storing these files.
Java executable	Specify the directory location of Java, needed to generate reports using Pentaho templates.

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Display settings

Strength of background gradient	Set a percentage value for the amount of color change in the gradient that goes from bright at the top of the display to dark at the bottom. The default color is white, which becomes grey at the bottom.
Use enhanced display functions (OpenGL3.3)	The enhanced display functions enables a more detailed rendering of parts. If you have trouble with displaying your parts, set this switch to No. Note that this will also disable and/or hide any transparency as well as related options and switches.
Level of detail	Use the Simple mode for quicker calculation, or Advanced for a more precise view of the part.
Highlight center of platform	Two lines along X and Y mark the center point along them and, where they cross, the center of the platform itself.
Animated Perspective Switch	Toggles whether changing between default perspective should be animated or instantaneous.
Use vertex buffer objects	Specify whether to use vertex buffer objects, an OpenGL feature to increase performance when copies of parts are involved. Rather than rendering each part individually, only the original is kept in memory while the copies are drawn as instances of the original.
Antialiasing	Specify whether to use antialiasing for smoothed drawing of edges. This feature uses a lot of processing power, however, and might decrease performance.
Transparency of Cuts	Set a percentage value for the amount of transparency displayed when performing polygon cuts. This can be changed in the cutting module as well.
Coordinate System	The perspective indicator, a representation of the global coordinate system can be configured in several ways. Set here its size as a percentage of the display's size, as well as the visibility and size of the colored planes. They vary between the minimum and maximum value, depending on the current perspective, with planes in the background always displayed larger than those in the foreground. The planes, when displayed, can be used for changing the perspective by clicking on them. This is also where you switch between the regular perspective indicator and the viewcube, and in which corner of the display it sits. The two styles of perspective indicator in Netfabb: the coordinate system and the viewcube
Ruler	Change color and visibility (transparency) of the ruler displayed at the bottom of the display.

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Netfabb Application Service

Enable Server Access	Allow a Netfabb Application Service server to use this Netfabb instance, when running, for performing queued tasks
Server URL	This is the URL where this instance of Netfabb can register itself with the NAS server behind it.
Server passphrase	The required access control passphrase, if set in the server.

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Slice Commander

Colors	Define here the colors for a number of UI elements that are used when working in the Slices section.
Highlighting Grid Size	To highlight the interior of a closed contour, a placeholder hatching can be displayed. With this option, specify how tightly the lines for the placeholder filling should be spaced.
Highlighting Style	Select in which direction the lines should point (read: which axis they should be parallel to) that are used for the placeholder hatching, in X, Y, or X and Y.
Default Point Reduction Tolerance	This is the default threshold up to which a change in shape is allowed when a point reduction is to be performed.

Highlighting examples: Along both axes (left) and along X axis only (right).

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Support Module

Colors	Set the colors used for the platform, mesh, supports, anchors, and down-oriented edges
Number of decimal digits	Specify an integer value
Zoom animation duration	Set a time in milliseconds (ms)
Show cutplanes	Yes or No
Zoom orientation	Specify a perspective view or keep existing orientation
Mouse action for bar support	Single or double click
Ask on deletion of all support	Yes or No
Laser diameter for volume calculation	Set a diameter value
Apply as part attachment	Setting this to No creates the support structures as separate parts on the platform instead of parametric attachments to the supported parts. Some older applications and formats need this as they do not recognize dedicated support structures. For example, attached support is dropped when exporting meshes to STL instead of the modern 3MF.
Respect part environment	When set to No, support structures get generated on a part regardless of the presence of other parts.
Use voxelgrid for walls	Supports near walls can interfere with the same walls. When using the voxel grid approach, the wall detection is improved.
Voxelgrid size, Voxelgrid height	The size of the voxels determines accuracy of wall detection and avoidance but incurs proportional computation costs.

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Orient Part

Colors	Set colors used for the various elements
Area selection angle	When marking areas that must not be considered supportable, this specifies up to which angle adjacent triangles may be tilted away to still become marked as well.

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Part Repair

Colors	Set colors used for outer and inner shells, boundary edges, self-intersections, duplicate triangles, edges, extrusions and other part features.
Default stitch tolerance	This value will be used to pre-set the maximum distance between border edges that will still get stitched.
Minimum edge length for good faces	Determines which triangles are defined as degenerated in the repair module. All triangles with a height lower than this value can be displayed in orange and are deleted with the function Remove degenerate faces. Triangles with an edge shorter than the specified value are highlighted.
Allow Undo	Set whether to allow any Undo during repair, and if yes, whether there should be a limit to either 100000, 300000 or 800000 triangles involved. When a limit is set, undoing a change that (in sum with previous changes in repair) changed more triangles, Netfabb cancels the repair but asks you to confirm this.

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Generate Label

Colors	Set colors for parts, backfaces, and two label types.
Default depth	Label dimension
Default height	Label dimension
Default build type	Add to part or subtract from part, inverted or not
Default font	Leave at "default" or double-click to select a font from those installed on the system.

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3S Executor

Set the colors used by the Selective Space Structures for surface structures, parts, selections, volume data, surfaces, and other items.

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3S Generator

Colors	Set colors used for nodes, bars, backside faces, hatches, previews and other elements.
Default raster size	Specify three dimensions.
Default cell size	Specify three dimensions.
Default layer thickness	Small numeric value
Default face thickness	Small numeric value
Default edge overlap	Small numeric value
Render package preview	Yes or No
Enable undo in generator	Yes or No

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Toolpath

Set colors used for elements such as axis filter, core, DLL, downskin, filling, and hatches.

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Part Renaming

The part renaming specifies the name applied to parts after they are modified. The name of the original is always part of the new name. To change renaming settings, double-click on a function in the list, or click on the button "..." which appears to the right of the function after you click on it once. A dialog appears to change the automatic renaming. You can insert what will be added before or after the part name in the text fields left and right of "part name". Below, you can see a preview of how your parts will be named. "Part name" always refers to the name of the original part. With the button Set to defaults at the bottom of the dialog, you can restore the default naming for that particular function. The default setting for repaired parts, for example, is that "(repaired)" is added to the original part name.

Create Hollow Part, Inner Offset, Outer Offset, and Hollowing Shell refer to the respective options for the function Create shell. Group of shells of one part and Group of shells of multiple parts stand for the names of the groups into which the shells are moved with Shells to parts. Similarly, Group of cut parts refers to the group into which cut parts are moved.

Functions for which the automatic part renaming can be altered

For functions that may create several parts at once, or that process several parts at once, such as Duplicate, Shells to Parts, Cut parts, and Merge parts, there is the additional field "XX". This is only enabled, if the box below is ticked. If several parts are created at once, the "XX" stands for a number which will be inserted for each part name. If you duplicate a part, for example, the copies will by default be named "Part name_c00", "Part name_c01", "Part name_c02" and so on. If several parts are processed by a function, the "XX" stands for the number of parts processed, as for example in "Merge of 2 parts".

The dialog box for changing the automatic renaming for Shells to parts.

Any modified renaming items are written in italic letters. By using the very last item in the list, Defaults, you can restore the default naming settings for all functions.

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Short-Cuts

Keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl + S to Save Project, are listed here and can be modified. The shortcuts are arranged into categories:

Global
Default Module
Part Export
Part Repair
Texture Module
Support Module
3S
Labeling

The shortcuts themselves are listed in a separate article.

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