Volume support properties reference

Support properties

Filling Type	Switch the support walls between Closed volume (solid) and Structure. The fragments that make up closed volume supports are essentially box-shaped columns. They are closed on all sides, even at top and bottom. The connection with the part surface is facilitated by small pins. Structure supports are, by default, akin to patches of intersecting wire fence. Also, the entire cluster area is enclosed by a single wall along the circumference, ie. the cluster's contour. Applied default closed-volume supports. A cut via clip plane demonstrates the cluster's contour, the fragments' cross section, the terminating surface at the top, and the stand-off against the part surface. Applied default Structure supports. Note the gap in the circumference.
Top distance to part	A stand-off distance between the upper end of supports and the part surface they connect with. Can be negative to sink support structure tips into the part if necessary.
Bottom distance to part	A stand-off distance between the lower end of supports and the part surface they connect with. Can be negative to sink support structure tips into the part if necessary.
Stand Angle	Support entities can be made conical with a wall angle of up to 45 ° from the vertical. To achieve the conicity, the angle is applied at the top, creating support that is either wider or narrower at the bottom. Note: This applies to each support element individually and can produce a significant amount of self-intersections that may need cleaning up, especially when using this in conjunction with Fragments.
Fillet intensity	Instead of being straight and angled, the closed-volume support's walls are formed into a concave curve towards the buildplate. At 0 %, the walls are straight and angled. At 100 %, the walls are vertical and terminate in a barrel fillet. Any value inbetween is a mix of the two.	Requires a Stand angle >0° Not available for closed-volume supports.
Fillet accuracy	The lower this value (in millimeters), the finer the fillet is tessellated, smoothing the contour but also increasing the triangle count.
Structure Properties	Contains properties of the support entity walls, see details below.	Jump to: Structure Properties Raster Contour Connection Fragments
Raster	Settings for filling structures. See details below.
Contour	Settings for the outer enveloping contour of the support structure. See details below.
Connection	This group defines the connections between support, part, and platform ground. It is divided into multiple sub-groups, one for each possible combination of part or platform surface and support structure ends. See details below.
Fragments	Fragmentation creates gaps in normally continuous polyline support. Gaps make support easier to break off. See details below.
Projection	Choose from three options to reshape the volume support to avoid or target other part surfaces (including no reshaping) using a hard knee shape or a smooth spline.	Straight down Angled Block Support Along a spline

Top

Structure properties

Note: When Filling type is set to Structured, most of these options do not apply and are made unavailable.


Structure pattern	Switch between Wired wall (left), a Punched plate (middle), and Plain (right) to determine the wall pattern of volume supports.
Width and Height	Width and height of the hole shapes.	For Wired wall and Punched plate only
Interval width and height	Distance between neighboring holes to the sides and to those above and below.	For Wired wall and Punched plate only
Thickening up Structure-Hatches	Volume support walls are merely such that they result in single-line toolpasses. To make the structures thicker, as in, inflate them into hollow structures, this value can be used Notes This can create large amounts of self-intersections within the support structures. Make sure they are handled correctly where necessary, such as during slicing and toolpath creation. Make sure to also handle the now voluminous structures properly during slicing and hatching.	Not available for solid supports. (Filling type Closed volume)
Thickening up top connections	If the structure is set to become thickened, a value can be set to specify the thickness of the top connections separately, allowing to create conical transitions between structure and part.
Thickening up bottom connections	If the structure is set to become thickened, a value can be set to specify the thickness of the bottom connections separately, allowing to create conical transitions between structure and part.
Stitch tolerance	Set a tolerance in millimeters up to which a gap between the structures is not going to be stitched. A value of 0.01 mm is recommended to keep as default.
Maximum height	Produces support structures only up to this length. Supports will end in mid-air, if necessary.
Solid structure for height	Over this distance from the bottom end of the support, structured support will have no pattern, only continuous surface.	Has no effect for types other than Wired Wall and Punched Plate.
Border width	This overrides the width of the vertical fragment-lining strip as given by the connection properties value a in the illustration below.	Can be set to 0 to have no such strip at all. A value of -1 disables the override.
Fin	Draws a single configurable right-angled fin from the middle of a polyline (or a polyline fragment, see Fragments section), strengthening the polyline support with a backbone. See Fins section.	Does nothing for closed polylines (eg. created by Cluster-contour with polyline).
Keep distance to wall	Addresses cases when an undercut would cause a support structure to come closer to a wall than the cluster's wall offset can provide for.
Use density map	Toggles whether a volumetric heatmap should be applied to locally lighten or strengthen structures.
Fin
Create fin	Toggle fin creation.
Width	The fin will be this wide. Note: If any fragment shrinkage (see below) is specified, the width is scaled accordingly.
Keep distance to support	Detach the fin from the support by this distance.
Top distance to part	The fin will end this distance short of terminating at the actual support's top end.
Bottom distance to part	The fin will end this distance short of terminating at the actual support's bottom end.

Top

Raster

The raster is built up from intersecting polyline walls and fills the actual volume of volume support.


Rotate by Z	Sets the general alignment of filling structures. Filling structures are aligned globally, as in, against the platform coordinates.
Hatch distance	Sets the distance between the inner structure units. The number of inner structure units and the density will be affected. Note: Not applicable to/available for Closed-volume-type filling.
Filling strategy	Defines in which directions the outer contours of the volume supports will be filled: In both X and Y direction, just in Y, or no filling at all. Notes The equivalent of Just in X can be created by using Just in Y and setting Rotate by Z to 90°. Not available for Closed-volume-type filling.
Distance to Contour	To enforce a distance between the internal volume support entities and the enveloping polyline, set this beyond zero. If it is zero, the raster's walls terminate directly at the contour. Note: This is always measured from the innermost contour, in particular if you have set Contour count (see below) to values beyond 1.

Top

Contour

The contour is an enveloping polyline that is used to provide a finish around the raster volume.


Contour count	For values above 1, repeats the contour in concentric layers towards the inside. If no additional contour is requested, the volume-filling raster structures will terminate in the outer contour, touching it. Note: These contours belong to the entire volume entity, even when you have disabled the rastering (the filling structures). To generate individual contour entities on clusters, use the separate support action Cluster-contour with polyline instead.
Contour distance	The gap between the envelope repetitions
Smoothing distance	Use this to adjust the mesh resolution of the contour to match the size of details of the supported skin. A very detailed skin, when sampled along its surface, may have details smaller than the sampling (effectively, the smoothing distance), so support connections may miss connecting with the surface in these spots.

Top

Connection

This group defines the connection between supports, part, and platform floor. It is divided into multiple sub-groups.


Top part	Refers to supports terminating in part surface at its top end.
Bottom part	Refers to supports terminating in part surface at its bottom end.
Platform	Refers to supports terminating in the platform surface at its bottom end.
Connection in Y	This switch, when set to Yes, provides settings to specify a different type of support connections for those polylines that are aligned more towards the perpendicular of the Y axis rather than the perpendicular of the X axis. In this example, the volume-filling lines have a strip connection in one direction and pin connections in the other direction.
Connection by layer	Clones the surface of the connection area, hugging its contours. See separate table on the parameters below.
Connection property
Connection	Type of connection		Select from: Strip, Trapoid, Breaking Points, Triangles. Strip: A continuous band connecting to the part all along its upper edge Trapoid: Triangles with truncated tips Breaking points: Like trapoid, but with another, inverted row of trapoids stacked on top, forming X-shaped connections Triangles: Triangles that simply terminate in pointy tips, for very delicate support attachment
Connection width	a	Connection properties	Does not apply to Strip. For Triangles, this only applies to the vertical line at the beginning for the polyline, or contour. For Breaking Points, this is the "waist" of the X-shaped connections. The width of the vertical strip on the far right can be overridden. See Structure Properties > Border width.
Connection height	b		For Strip, b and e are simply cumulative.
Pin distance	c		Does not apply to Strip.
Pins per structure	d		Does not apply to Strip.
Distance connection to structure	e		For Strip, b and e are simply cumulative.
Platform connection	This section defines the connection between supports and platform ground.
Connection	Type of connection. See above for reference.
Hatches	Replicates the lower section of connections in parallel, up to 15 copies in each direction. This creates tapered, pedestal-like reinforcements. Accepts odd numbers up to 31 only, ignores even numbers.
Hatch distance	Distance between replications

Connection by layer
Create layer	Toggles whether to use this type of connection.
Refine layer	If it is not possible to create a copy of the layer surface, the supported structure will be recreated through triangulation of anchor points. The higher this value, the higher the accuracy of the triangulation.
Top layer height	Defines the thickness of the layer.
Top layer distance to structure	Sets the distance between the top layer and the structure.
Pin type	The actual connection between the part and the layer is usually done with pins. Set the type of pins here by choosing from Cross or Cube. Alternatively, disable the pins entirely and connect the layer fully to the part.
Pin width	Determines the width of a pin.
Pin density	Determines the density of the pin structure. The smaller the value, the more pins will be created.

Top

Fragments

Fragmentation of volume supports into individual blocks makes it easier to break the supports from the part.

Raster
Fragments	Turn fragmentation on or off.
Fragment size X	Fragment size in X direction.
Fragment size Y	Fragment size in Y direction.
Fragment gap	Sets the gap width between volume-filling fragments
X and Y shrinkage	Shrinks the fragment at the bottom end, to have a wider fragment at top, whose size decreases to the set value
Offset in X and Y	Sets a distance by which to displace the raster-fragmenting gaps against the filling. Can also be negative.
Contour
Fragment contour	The cluster-enveloping contour can be fragmented as well, using this toggle.
Fragment contour length	Defines the length of a fragment unit.
Fragment contour gap	Defines the gap width between two envelope polyline fragments
Fragments	Toggle whether the gaps in the enveloping contours should be aligned with the gaps that the fragments themselves have.

Top