The German 3-D printing software supplier netfabb has released the Support Structures add-on as an addition to the netfabb 6 suite of software for 3-D printing and additive manufacturing. The focus of the new generation 6 is set upon simplifying and improving 3-D printing processes on an industrial scale. In this context, the add-on is designed for the advanced support generation for selective laser melting (SLM), stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) technology.
The new add-on allows netfabb Professional 6 to add support lattices and structures to parts in additive manufacturing. This happens by creating bar support structures and adjusting the anchor points between the part and the platform as needed. This is designed to ensure that the full productive capability of AM machines using SLM, SLA and DLP technology can be utilized.
The netfabb support structures add-on comes in two variants: netfabb DLP Support Structures is designed specifically for manufacture on DLP machines, and netfabb Enhanced Support Structures for manufacture on machines using SLM, SLA and Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM).
Three general types of support structures can be chosen as required by the part's geometry: bar support, polyline support and full volume support. A large number of features and options are designed to give full flexibility to the designer. For example, different types of support structures can be combined on the same model, to different part areas and to different angles. If needed, even curved and ramified bars can be created. Polyline support can build a simple thin or thick wall support and also a structured wall, just by a few clicks. Lastly, volume support extends the polyline support by an additional dimension, offering 37 different settings in total.
More practical features like a transparent part view and an overview list of all used support entities will help to ease the designer's workload. There is also the automatic downskin analysis of data models to determine which areas do require some support.
With the add-on netfabb Selective Space Support (3S), innovative products using complex structures can be created. Also available is netfabb Enterprise 6, which comes with a cost-saving server licensing model.
For more information contact:
netfabb
www.netfabb.com
www.netfabb.com/support_structures.php