To orient a part

Calculates a list of part orientations deemed optimal according to a set of rules and criteria

To calculate orientation recommendations

1. Select a part to orient.
2. From the main menu, choose Arrange > Orient.
3. Set up the parameters as appropriate:

   Parameter	Effect
   Selected triangles to be unsupported	Counts triangles specified to not receive support even if they would otherwise qualify from the Critical angle setting. Use the painting controls from the main menu to define areas that must not be supported to affect the ranking as needed.
   Critical angle	Calculates support for all triangles angled away from the X/Y plane up to this value
   Support bottom surface	Optionally includes in support area calculation those surfaces which are in contact with the platform and would normally not receive any supports
   Distance to platform (Z)	Sets a distance of up to 50 mm from the build platform, resulting in appropriately more support volume. Switch between Precise volume and Approximate volume to allocate more or less calculation time to the estimation of support volume.
   Smallest rotation between orientation	When parts have highly irregular shapes, viable orientations may be found, rotationally, in close proximity. Use this setting to reduce the number of results to the most relevant ones: If multiple viable orientations have been found up to this rotational angle apart, the best one is selected and the other ones discarded. Smaller values significantly increase the calculation time. Optionally, restrict calculations to rotations around either the X or Y axis.
   Fit in tray. Keep distance (XY)	Enforces a margin between packable space and platform border and discards orientation results exceeding available space in XY
   Limit build height	Enforces a margin between packable space and buildspace height and excludes orientation results exceeding available height
   (Ranking scheme selector)	Select from ranking schemes, and also edit them. Netfabb comes with one default scheme where supported area, support volume, bounding box volume, part height, center-of-gravity height, and unsupported triangles are weighted with equal importance. You may create new ones using a basic interface where each criterion can be set on importance scale, or a formula editor to create sophisticated ranking schemes.

4. Click Search orientations to calculate orientation suggestions based on the values and ranking scheme specified.

This generates a list of viable orientations from which to select and apply one.

To view recommended part orientations

Calculated suggestions appear in a second tabsheet, Choose orientation.

Tip: Right-click the results in the Ranking column to choose between displaying the ranks and displaying the actual numerical results of the ranking calculation.

1. Click the headers of columns to the table by their values in ascending order.
2. Identify a row with as much green as possible and ideally no red, and click on it to see the part rotate to the suggested orientation.
3. Continue to click on different rows to see the suggested part orientation and the required support for that orientation.
4. Click OK to accept the selection and its rotation and to return to the default model view.