Support module reference

Controls, options, and settings explained

The context view holds most of the controls to work with supports. Additionally, the settings hold a number of switches for less often used properties.

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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	Cluster detection controls how the downkins, made up of triangle 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. Minimal area: Areas that would receive supports but are smaller in size than this threshold do not get supported. Respect 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 using the button Analyze downskins.
	Visual settings affect the display of parts and supports	Show part, Show support, Show platform, Show environment, Show downskin: Toggle visibility of those elements. "Environment" refers to other parts on the platform. "Downskin" toggles the highlighting, a dark red color by default. Transparent part, Transparent entities: Toggles transparency of these elements Recalculate: If you changed the arrangement of parts outside the support editor, use this button when you return to test and adjust for changes in parts overlapping each other. Anchor diameter: Adjusts the size of the dots that highlight control and attachment points of supports on part surface and other places
	View holds the setting for cluster marking and displays a volume estimation for support structures currently present	Mark cluster diameter: Adjusts the brush size for when Mark cluster manually is active *Support volume with <value><unit>* laser size**: Uses a value defined in the settings to estimate the volume of material rendered for the supports currently generated. Important: For performance reasons, this is only a rough estimate based on surface and thickness and ignores any enclosed volume. Solid bars are typically used in photoresin processes where the bars themselves are much larger than the pixels or laser spots of the target machine's exposure system. For example, using a laser diameter the size of the actual pixels or laser spot would result in severe underestimation as the bars' volumes are completely ignored. Bars can generate with a significant amount of self-intersections, especially when using solid bars in bouquets. This can lead to overestimation. Should you want to consider the figure estimated here as relevant to your processes, such as in quotes, we recommend to adjust the laser diameter used in the calculation to correct for the targeted additive process and typical support generation parameters.
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 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 perspective 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 supports created within cavities of models that do not need them there.
Support Scripts	Support scripts are at the heart of Netfabb's support generation. 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 menu handle focusing the view of the part currently loaded into the active support module. They are, in order:

Zoom to Part
Selected Support – Only active when a piece of support is 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 used to highlight different elements in the display
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	For the command Create new bar, this setting determines whether you need a single or a double-click to place a bar.
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, the support editor ignores any part other than the one you are currently working on in the support editor even when it would intersect with projected supports of the current part. Two separate blocks in the build room. One is being worked on in the support editor, the other one (displayed with transparency) is acknowledged by the editor. Note how only a section of the other part is taken into account even though it is a full copy of the first. This is done for performance reasons.

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