Support module reference

Context view tabs

The support module uses five tabs in the context view to display its options, Analysis, Edit, List, Support scripts, and Process simulation.

Tab	Primer	Additional Notes
Analysis	Primarily consists of the Downskin analysis which controls how the clusters are detected for viewing and for manual support generation. Also provides switches that affect on-screen display. For example, you may wish to hide the platform surface, or have supports displayed partly transparent. Note: Transparency requires OpenGL 3.3 capability, otherwise these settings are disabled.	Critical Angle: Triangles tilted up to this angle from the horizontal are considered to require support. Use this visual aid at your discretion to find surfaces which, on your machine with your given material, absolutely must, and do, receive supports. Non-critical Angle: Triangles tilted up to this angle from the horizontal may receive support if they are adjacent to enough other triangles that also require supports. This generates a smoother cluster silhouette. A smoother support silhouette makes removing supports easier. Minimum Area: Areas that would receive supports but are smaller in size than this threshold do not get supported. Respect CAD face groups: If a cluster spans a single face group only partly, or spans multiple face groups, every section thus created is treated as if it were a separate cluster. The option is available only when the part actually has face groups. Analyze automatically: For very complex meshes with many triangles, the cluster detection can take some time. To avoid binding up system resources for recalculation every time a setting is changed, you can turn this off and perform the new analysis at your leisure. Note: Cluster detection was called Downskin analysis in earlier versions.
Edit	Edit the generation settings for the currently selected support entity here, either by adjusting values directly or applying a set.	Use Sets to manage several spaces for holding custom values for supports. Sets are also looked up whenever you place supports manually.
List	Any available support structures are listed and can be navigated to here. Additional tools help with viewing them.	Replay support actions: As you can edit support entities after generating them through various means, you may at some point want to regenerate the support, discarding your manual edits. This button attempts to rerun any still available action. If there is a structure (cluster) or a single bar selected and the checkbox Zoom to selection is active, a zoom to the selected support is executed and the Bottom view is selected. The Set clip plane for selection checkbox is helpful when you need to view supports which do not reach the platform plane. When checked, the Z clipping plane and hiding functionality will be adjusted automatically to allow for a more efficient workflow. Hide non-selection displays no support entity other than the selected one. Hide support at platform: Filters the view to only those support entities which do not terminate at the platform. This can be used to edit and remove support created within cavities of models that do not need it.
Support Scripts	Support scripts are at the heart of the support module. They consist of support actions with already defined values. These can be saved and loaded for later use, even exported and imported.	The example scripts that come with Netfabb cannot be edited. However, you can copy them and edit the copies.
Process simulation	Contains visibility and visualization settings for the display of simulation results.	These print simulation results are generated by using a metal powderbed machine workspace based on material and toolpath selection and sending the generated solution to Autodesk® Simulation Utility LT for Netfabb® (included in the Ultimate subscription) or Autodesk® Simulation Utility for Netfabb® as included in the separate product Autodesk® Netfabb® Local Simulation. This tab also includes the controls to optimize lattice support, including a histogram display for bar support elements that compose the optimized support structures.

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Viewing and zooming

Three buttons in the toolbar handle focusing the view of the part currently loaded into the active support module. They are, in order:

Zoom to Part
Selected Support – This requires a support entity to be selected.
Zoom to selected area – This switches the mouse pointer into a mode that lets you draw a rectangle in the view. Once the mouse button is let go, Netfabb zooms to and focuses on the section that was covered by the rectangle.

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Settings

These are located at Settings > Settings > Support Module.

Colors	Define the colors for a number of UI elements
Number of decimal digits	Adjust this to have the required number of decimal places displayed.
Zoom animation duration	To help with recognizing the orientation of a part after a switch of perspective, the transition to the new perspective is animated. Use this to affect the speed at which the animation runs.
Show cutplanes	When using the clipping planes, or cutting planes, this switch toggles visible, semi-transparent planes at the cuts. When off, only the contours along the clip or cut are highlighted.
Zoom orientation	When switching through support entities in the List tab while Zoom to selection is active, this perspective is used when focusing on the respective support entity.
Mouse action for bar support	When you have chosen Create new bar, the setting here determines whether bar support entities are auto-generated upon single or double click.
Ask on deletion of all support	Toggles whether to ask for confirmation upon choosing to delete any and all existing supports.
Laser diameter for volume calculation	For calculating the amount of material rendered for non-solid supports, this diameter is used as the width of a single-pass toolpath.
Export as part attachment	Set this to No when you do not want to create supports as attachment but rather as separate part.
Respect part environment	When set to No, supports ignore any part they would intersect on their projection onto the platform surface.

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