Part Orientation

You can use the Build Layout and Orientation Preparation dialog boxes to customize the orientation of a part on a build tray to minimize the area or volume of supports required.

This page discusses:

Note: The accessory used as a build tray must have two ports:
  • A base port: The point where the build tray is mounted on the machine.
  • A mount port: The point where the supports will be placed. This port must be defined on the top of the machine.

Build Layout

The following part orientation options are available in the Build Layout dialog box:

Option Description
Part Instantiation: Set Previous Instance Position When selected, the position and orientation of the new instance is specified as the same as that of the previous instance.

This parameter overrides rules specified in Layout Rules.

Part Positioning: Allow Collision When Moving Parts When selected, allows collisions when moving a part with the Robot in the work area. If collision occurs, the contours of the parts in collision are highlighted and a warning message appears.
Nesting: Keep Position of Existing Parts and Supports When selected, the current parts and supports are preserved, even after clicking Generate Nesting .
Copy Supports on New Instances When selected, existing positions and supports on instances that were a part of nesting are copied and added to the build tray.

Orientation Preparation

Select Part Orientation from the Build Layout dialog box to display the Orientation Preparation dialog box. This dialog box allows you to define the following:

Select Axis Defined in Product
Orients the part according to an axis previously defined on the part.
Selection Criterion For Computation of Product Orientations

The following criteria are available:

Parameter Description
Area of the Product that Needs Support Computes and minimizes the area of the product that requires support during the build process.
Area of the Product Projected on Build Tray Computes and minimizes the area of the product projected on to the build tray.
Part to Part Support Area Computes and minimizes the area of the product that requires internal support.
Height of the Product Computes and minimizes the height of the product for a given orientation.
Slice Variation Computes and minimizes the area variation between two followed slices.

When selected, you can use the slider to assign a weight of importance for a given criterion. This parameter has the range from 0 to 10 in the slider, where 0 is the most stringent condition and 10 is the loosest condition. You can use this number to specify the allowed percentage deviation of the minimum value of the parameter.

The defined parameters determine the available orientations.

If there are two parameters, then the allowed orientations are computed automatically for each of the parameters based on their respective weight, and only common orientations are selectable.

You can select multiple criterion and the resulting positions would be a combination of all the acceptable orientations. It is possible that they may be no common orientations.

Parameters

The following parameters are available:

Parameter Description
Maximum Support Angle Identifies the surface that requires support structures. This angle is the angle that the surface makes with the x axis. The input is an angle.
Allow Out of Bounds Orientation Specifies that computation should be continued, even if a temporary solution is found outside of building volume.
Fast Orientation

The Fast Orientation command displays orientation computation results in the Results panel.

Results

You can use the Results dialog box to determine if the specified criteria and their given weight are feasible.

The leftmost panel displays the part to produce, with the list of the selected criteria. Each subsequent panel represents solutions found by the orientation algorithm with a value that corresponds to each of the criteria. To validate a proposed orientation, select:

  • Apply for Next: Applies orientation to the next positioned part.
  • Apply to All: Applies orientation to all parts (including previously positioned ones).

Support Structure Assessment

The Support Structure Assessment dialog box is displayed by selecting Visualize surface coloring based on required support from the context toolbar in the work area when establishing the build layout.

For more information, see Support Structure Assessment.

Interferences Check Report

The Interferences Check Report dialog box is displaying by clicking Build Layout Analysis in the Analysis section of the action bar. This command analyzes the parts and supports positioned inside the build envelope and the build tray to detect the errors in positioning.

All of the detected issues are listed in a table. Select each row in the table to identify and locate the issue in the work area.