Product settings

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

Enables Netfabb to launch straight into the license-free Netfabb Basic regardless whether a trial period or any subscription is active. When this is set to Yes, and a trial has expired, it also disables the licensing reminder.

Switches between millimeters and inches as default units

Licensing requires an internet connection. Using the options here, you may set them independently from your system's proxy settings.

Set path for storing log files, and logging priority level. By default, the path is, or is equivalent to, %APPDATA%\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. When you can reproduce the issue, we may request 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.

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. By default, the local database is a file that is stored at %APPDATA%\netfabb\ConfigDatabase but you can change that path.

Rotating a part using the mouse, hold ALT to rotate the objects in steps of this angle. This only applies to rotating by dragging the bounding box corners, not by dragging the gizmo handles.

Rotating a part using the keyboard shortcuts, the part rotates in steps of this angle.

Rotating multiple selected parts at once normally rotates them all around a common axis as if they were shells of one single part. With this set to Yes, those parts are rotated individually around their own axis.

Moving a part using the keyboard shortcuts, the part moves in steps of this distance.

Set the colors for platform, parts, and modules.

Toggle between a cubic or a cylindrical platform shape.

The size of the platform is best adjusted to the size of the build platform in your machine.

When set to Yes, whenever you have created a part, the display zooms and focuses in on it.

Check for faults in parts and display a warning sign if found.

Period or comma

Sets the number (1-20) of recently opened files to list in the File menu

Saves the currently open project to a temporary file in %APPDATA%\netfabb\autosave at a selectable interval. Can be switched off.

Inverts the direction of zooming for the mouse wheel

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)

Mesh-based work such as cutting or repair on parametric models requires irreversibly turning them into actual meshes. This option switches the warning message on or off that appears when launching such work on parametric models, such as when the parametric nature is no longer needed or when you have taken a working copy of the parametric original.

When you want to delete a part, Netfabb prompts you to confirm this.

(deprecated)

All parts and project are opened and displayed with this level of detail (LOD) value.

Whenever working with a lower LOD in order to speed up display processing, this switch saves it to continue working with this LOD next time.

When this option is activated and you save a project, you get a confirmation upon completion.

Opens the File preview browser when using Add part from the project tree's and the 3D views' menus.

When you have an unsaved project loaded, you are asked for confirmation when you attempt to open another project.

Select whether to always 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.

Select whether to always split ASCII-STL solids, and to always ask for splitting with this file type.

Contains options regarding CAD import dialog display

Select whether to use this feature

When this is activated, a dialog is offered that provides additional information and functions to be performed right at import.

Select whether to shorten names of textures.

Points to the SDK used for some of Netfabb's report templates. This is either the SDK shipped and installed with Netfabb or may be a separate installation, although it is recommended to use the included one for best compatibility.

If auto-detection of Java fails, specify the directory of the Java executable here; needed to generate reports using Pentaho templates.

Sets a percentage value for the strength of the white-to-black gradient used as the background of the 3D view

Performs rendering on graphics hardware instead of a CPU-only fallback renderer.

If you have trouble with displaying your parts, set this switch to No. Note that this also disables and/or hides any transparency as well as related options and switches.

Integrated graphics by Intel® may not support the display functions of OpenGL3.3 used by Netfabb well or at all, which is why they are disabled by default on these graphics units. This switch bypasses the check for Intel integrated graphics.

Use the Simple mode for faster calculation, or Advanced for a more precise view of the part.

Two lines along X and Y mark the center point along them and, where they cross, the center of the platform itself.

Toggles whether changing between default perspective should be animated or instantaneous

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.

Specify whether to use anti-aliasing for smoothed drawing of edges. This feature may use a lot of processing power in complex scenes, however, and might decrease performance.

With this setting active, clicking the visibility icon in the project tree cycles through visible, transparent, and hidden instead of just switching between visible and hidden.

This transparency stacks with any transparency or visibility coming from the clip planes.

Sets a percentage value for the strength of transparency used when parts are set to transparent

When an OBJ file carries normals information, switching this to Yes makes the Netfabb renderer use this information for surface shading, producing a smoother appearance. Otherwise, even when normals information is present, Netfabb uses its regular flat shading of triangles.

By default, the highlighting of cross sections is occluded wherever part surfaces are in front of them. Set this to Yes to always have them drawn in front of any part surfaces, occluding or not.

Sets a percentage value for the strength of transparency used with the clip planes and for cutting

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

Change color and visibility (transparency) of the ruler displayed at the bottom of the display.

Allow a Netfabb Application Service server to use this Netfabb instance, when running, for performing queued tasks

This is the URL where this instance of Netfabb can register itself with the NAS server behind it.

The required access control passphrase, if set in the server

Sets the colors used for things like the platform, mesh, supports, anchors, and down-oriented edges

Adjust this to have the required number of decimal places displayed.

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.

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.

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.

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

For calculating the amount of material rendered for non-solid supports, this diameter is used as the width of a single-pass toolpath.

Set this to No when you do not want to create supports as attachment but rather as separate part. 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.

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. This also includes no-build zones.

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 actually a full copy of the first (not shown). This is done for performance reasons but may lead to unexpected results like the bar supports to the platform on the far right.

Sets the extra space around a part to be checked for other parts. Increase this if you often work with widespread parts closely nested against each other.

Supports near walls can interfere with the same walls. When using the voxel grid approach, the wall detection is improved but the calculation cost increases.

The size of the voxels affects accuracy of wall detection and avoidance but incurs proportional computation costs.

When applying support from the support editor, you are asked with a dialog whether to keep or terminate the support editor entry in the project tree. The dialog contains a checkbox to choose to always use this dialog. After unchecking the box, your last choice is remembered and the dialog no longer appears. With this option, you get the dialog to appear again.

Typically, a support script is there to generate all required support at once, invalidating and possibly even negatively interfering with existing supports. As such, Netfabb deletes any existing support by default before running the script. Setting this switch to No disables the deletion.

In some additive processes, parts do not require supports to reach all the way to the platform and be anchored there, they just need a flat base to stand on once released from powder or substrate. This setting effectively simulates a fixed distance of the part to the platform for supporting purposes regardless at what Z height in the buildroom the part actually sits.

Switch Projection height from On to platform to Fixed height to enable this function, and use the parameter Fixed height to specify this simulated fixed distance.

Define here the colors for a number of UI elements that are used when working in the Slices section.

Slice files are usually loaded only partly to save on RAM requirements. However, this locks the files against access by other processes including Netfabb itself, when you load slice files generated by a machine, for example. To always load the entire slice file into memory and allow other processes access, set this to Yes.

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.

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.

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

Affects how calculation is done internally. In rare cases, toggling this in either direction may remedy performance issues during slicing. By default, this is off.

This is the default threshold up to which a change in shape is allowed when a point reduction is to be performed.

Set colors used for the various elements

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.

Set colors used for outer and inner shells, boundary edges, self-intersections, duplicate triangles, edges, extrusions, and other part features

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.

Set whether to allow any undoing during repair, and if yes, whether there should be a limit to either 100000, 300000 or 800000 triangles involved. Increasing and removing the limit also increases the potential memory requirement.

When a limit is set, undoing a change that (in sum with previous changes in repair) changed more triangles, Netfabb cancels the repair entirely, but not without prompting you for confirmation.

Set colors for parts, backfaces, and two label types.

Label dimension

Add to part or subtract from part, and whether it should be inverted

Leave at Default, or double-click to select a font from those installed on the system.

Set colors used for nodes, bars, backside faces, hatches, previews and other elements.

Specify three dimensions.

Specify three dimensions.

Small numeric value

Small numeric value

Small numeric value

Yes or No

Yes or No